Creating Together: Participatory, Community-Based, and Collaborative Arts Practices and Scholarship Across Canada ed. by Diane Conrad, Anita Sinner (review)

In establishing a collaborative atmosphere for their contributing authors, the editors of Creating Together, Diane Conrad and Anita Sinner, ventured past the traditional process of anthology compilation to produce a volume that is intellectually ambitious in its structure. Unlike books that are developed from conferences, Creating Together emerges from Conrad and Sinner’s vision of a volume developed cohesively by its collaborators, with a “community of inquiry undertaking arts research practices as a means of producing knowledge” (xvii). To accomplish their monumental vision of scholarly coherence and sustained collaboration, the editors brought their contributing authors together for a two-day intensive workshop. There, authors had the opportunity to share their research practices in person, collectively contributing to a wider framework for the book and fostering overarching connections among the seamlessly integrated chapters.

Each essay was previously chosen for inclusion in the anthology by Conrad and Sinner, but was collectively reviewed by the Creating Together authors to uncover central themes that emerged from their essays. These themes bound the essays together into three specific parts to inform and advocate for community-based and arts-based research. This approach to building an anthology lends itself to creating a book that feels coherent and effortless, reading as though all chapters were written collaboratively by the entire team. Creating Together is more than just a volume of essays: it harnesses the concept of cooperative development and elevates its meaning to a hands-on scholarly approach to communal sharing and scholarship, from which all researchers and artists can learn.

This anthology enlists the knowledge and experience of expert practitioners from across Canada to reveal how art can meet the needs of the greater community, while also challenging current arts-based researchers to seek new ways to disseminate their information. These studies centralize the needs and well-being of their research participants, inviting them to take an active role in the art they created, the stories they told, and the performances they enacted together. In this way the participants became the researchers, using their art to examine and expose how power is used to oppress members of their local community. More importantly, this methodology and the connections behind these arts-based and community-based practices encourage research participants to use their art to reaffirm their independence and show other community members that through art, power can also be taken back.

Part 1 begins this intellectual endeavor by concentrating on “Participatory Arts Practices” in marginalized communities. In “Sharing the Talking Stones,” for example, tenets of Theatre of the Oppressed are used with indigenous youths to examine the implications of personal choices on individual health and overall well-being. Through Boal’s games, teenagers build self-confidence and leadership skills through their collaborative work, and ultimately begin to consider ways that they can enact positive change within their own lives and greater community. “Un-censored” follows a group of high-risk youths who use visual art, storytelling, interactive theatre, and poetry to educate the social workers they interact with to better illustrate the stressors that youths face and the supports that they need to thrive. These opportunities for educational leadership and self-advocacy through participatory arts practices unveil methodological approaches for educators and practitioners to use with youths across disciplines and settings. This section is particularly inspirational for anyone working with children who face ongoing barriers to their health, self-efficacy, and education. This research suggests that by placing the power back into the hands of oppressed youths, scholarship and personal well-being are not only possible, but can be achieved independently by youths who have gained these skills through arts-based projects.

The next part, “Community-based Arts Scholarship,” offers a wider lens into how arts research can be utilized to engage with civic issues in public spaces. Employing the form of a dialogue between ensemble members, the opening section, “The Living...