Place-based arts

Abstract

The articles in this edition emerged out of a conference held in May 2015 at Brighton University, Place-Based Arts: Brighton Writes. The potential of place as a trigger for academic, creative and hybrid work is commonplace. However, it remains true that how we document, re-imagine, and are provoked and nurtured by place, provides both a tangible source of inspiration and a concrete materiality in most creative work. The conference generated rich themes that whilst firmly rooted in research, were always personal, social, human.At a time when many people feel displaced, unsettled and as if they don't belong, responses to spaces and place can help to root and rejoin us, both as individuals and collectively. It is the responsibility of the artist to reflect and challenge what is happening but to also remind people of how extraordinary and uplifting the world can be. Art and writing aim to connect and reconnect us all to the planet, our shared and diverse heritages, our varying tribes and to locate us in our sense of self. Papers and subsequent discussion generated at and by the conference explored translations of places and non-places, the resonances between identity and location and how space can be used to bond and stir us. These themes can be traced through this edition of the journal and also in a second edition entitled, Place-Based Arts: Industrial Landscapes which will be published later in 2016.

Silent Footsteps: Renga Poetry as a Collaborative, Creative Research Method Reflecting on the Immobilities of Gender-Based Violence in the Covid-19 Pandemic

“…The method of reading, writing, and sharing the renga aligns with collaborative autoethnography (Chang et al, 2014) that aspires to value collective, transdisciplinary storytelling and feminist work. In previous work (Moriarty & McInally, accepted/in press), a form of collaborative autoethnography was adopted, which we identified as nomadic storytelling (around the campfire; Deleuze & Guattari, 2014) and used a combined method of dialogues and creative practice to gather experiences with Covid-19. The process of co-creating the renga drew the project partners together (although not to a campfire!)…”