We’re excited to announce the funding of Envisioning Community Wellbeing (ECoWell), led by GCHU Research Fellow Dr Astrid Krisch in partnership with Ark-T. This project has received seed funding to support innovative participatory research methods to investigate what living well means for communities of OX4. As part of a broader initiative across the Social Sciences and Medical Sciences Divisions, the research is among 14 awarded projects that aim to foster collaboration between researchers, the public, and practitioners to tackle pressing societal issues.
These projects cover a diverse range of disciplines, communities, and co-production methods. ECoWell pilots a participatory arts-based methodology in OX4 communities to better understand what neighbourhoods of multiple deprivations consider crucial to make and keep communities well.
The project will enable:
- 1) researchers to better understand unheard voices, to make their perspectives tangible in visual form, to add new vocabulary to community wellbeing, and to have better evidence and more robust inquiry practices for emotional and symbolic aspects of people’s experiences that cannot be adequately represented by verbal or written competence alone;
- 2) Ark-T to gain guidance on how their programmes can meet the needs of OX4 communities, to feed models for community engagement and participation into the next planning phase, and to showcase their work through exhibitions, audiovisual work, and Lunch Talks at their Hub Days; and
- 3) the community by improving wellbeing through participatory arts immediately and creating agency for community action and change long-term through ongoing engagement and knowledge exchange in the exhibition space.
Come and join us for the exhibition showcasing the artwork created on 25th of June, 4-6 pm, at the Ark-T Shop in Templar Square.