Creativity and Wellbeing

In recent years, many new technologies have been introduced into residential aged care homes to enhance the social and activities programs on offer for residents. While existing evaluations of such technologies have focused on therapeutic benefits for aged care residents, there has been only limited consideration of the potential for technology-based activities to foster joy through creative and collaborative play.

Seeking to address this gap, this project will examine an interactive “magic table” currently in use in selected Bolton Clarke aged care homes. The “Tovertafel” is an interactive tabletop project screen, designed to provide a playful experience for people living with dementia. Adopting a holistic perspective, this project will examine:

• What are residents’ experiences interacting with the Tovertafel? What opportunities, if any, does the Tovertafel provide for social engagement, creativity, and play?
• How do staff members facilitate residents’ interactions with and around the Tovertafel? What creative practices are required to ensure residents experience social enrichment when interacting with the Tovertafel?

Team

Jenny Waycott (Computing and Information Systems), Ryan Kelly (School of Computing and Information Systems), Jane Davidson (Fine Arts and Music)

Partners: Dr Judy Lowthian (Bolton Clarke), Dr Liz Cyarto (Bolton Clarke), Dr Rajna Ogrin (Bolton Clarke)

Contact: Associate Professor Jenny Waycott, Coordinating Investigator at jwaycott@unimelb.edu.au

Melbourne has a thriving community radio scene that is unique in terms of the number of stations, their diversity, and their reach. For example, The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia list 25 member stations in the Melbourne metro area alone.

In an age of downloads and streaming, the medium of radio still plays a crucial role in supporting the community. In addition to supporting a diverse group of listeners, community radio also provides support for musicians, performers, technicians, live venues, recording studios, and other ancillary services across the metropolitan area and beyond.

This project has two main objectives: one narrow and the other broad. The first is retrospective and will focus on the extent to which community radio contributed to the well-being of performers throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. The second is prospective and is aimed at establishing a method of assessing the contribution community radio makes to the economic, cultural, and social vitality of Melbourne as we emerge from the pandemic.

Team

Graham Sewell (Faculty of Business and Economics) and others

Partners: PBS 106.7 FM Melbourne

Contact: Professor Graham Sewell, Coordinating Investigator at gsewell@unimelb.edu.au

Imagination and creativity are keywords that appear in diverse areas of contemporary cultural discourse, including in studies that identify them as important ingredients in achieving and sustaining wellbeing. Approaching these terms from within predominantly Anglo-European traditions and viewpoints, what is often overlooked is how they are understood and the roles they play in non-European cultural traditions, which inform a diversity of lived experiences.

Focusing on Australia, VICAW brings together Indigenous, migrant, and settler artists/writers/musicians, as well as historians of imagination and those interested in creativity and disability, to collectively explore what creativity, imagination and wellbeing might mean in different traditions and contexts. The project seeks to identify and examine points of contact and/or interaction between these different traditions and contexts, as well as any shortcomings in academic and/or dominant understandings of imagination, creativity and wellbeing.

Building on past conversations, the participants will share their insights by contributing to an e-book that will become the seminal text on imagination in diverse cultural contexts, thereby broadening the role of creativity and imagination in wellbeing research.

Team

Peter Otto (Culture and Communication), Aaron Corn (Indigenous Knowledge Institute), Jane Davidson (Fine Arts and Music), Anita Archer (Culture and Communication), Anthea Skinner (Fine Arts and Music), and Fred Kiernan (Fine Arts and Music)

Partners: Indigenous Knowledges Institute, the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Contemporary Culture Research Unit)

Contact: Professor Peter Otto, Coordinating Investigator at peterjo@unimelb.edu.au

Project completed

Final report

Candido, Christhina (2023). The post-COVID workplace: are (unhealthy) offices at risk of extinction?

Download report (PDF)

Forthcoming Journal Articles

Avazpour, B., Fatourehchi, D., Smith, J., Candido, C. Using space syntax to harness the human-nature relationship in workplaces: a case study.

Avazpour, B., Durakovic, I., Marzban, S., Candido, C. The rise of the unshackled workforce: three stages in the pandemic timeline in Australia.

About the project

With people having become accustomed to working away from their offices due to government regulatory measures associated with COVID-19, preliminary evidence indicates many are finding it difficult to revert to pre-pandemic working arrangements. Studies show that eight in ten workers would like to have access to flexible ways of working for at least one day per week, with seven in ten workers preferring to work from home two to three days a week. With no past experience to guide them, managers are grappling with the need to find creative solutions that reconcile worker preferences with various organisational and cultural aspects of workplaces.

Through two case studies from Melbourne Connect and Southbank Arts Precinct, this pilot study identified and quantified the negative and positive impacts on workers’ productivity, perceived health (physical and mental) and wellbeing from the adoption of hybrid work practices, including investigating when, where and how work is performed at the office and elsewhere during the current ‘living with COVID’ stage.

Team

Christhina Candido, Behnaz Avazpour, Jordan Smith (Architecture, Building and Planning), Dr Samin Marzban (University of Wollongong) and Dr Iva Durakovic (University of NSW)

Contact: Associate Professor Christhina Candido at christhina.candido@unimelb.edu.au

Project completed

Final Report

Bartlett, B. (2023). Stomach ache: an arts-led exploration of the gastrointestinal system.

Download report (PDF)

Website

Stomach Ache https://stomachacheproject.com/

Publications

Journal article and piece for The Conversation in progress

About the project

Gastrointestinal complaints that defy diagnosis are widespread, but current medical practices lack the interdisciplinary focus required to treat this complex system. This project explores the gastrointestinal tract as a necessarily interdisciplinary site of research that can be enhanced by the contribution of artists and arts-led research.

The project brought together clinical and arts researchers and used an innovative approach to embed lived experience within the curation of experimental art-science/art-wellbeing outcomes.

The project developed:

• 'Stomach Ache' a public event as part of The Big Anxiety Festival in 2022
• A material archive of objects that characterise patient experience, including food or poo diaries, medicine packaging, or receipts for alternative therapies. This will be used as a curatorial stimulus for future work.

Team

Vanessa Bartlett (Fine Arts and Music), Chamara Basnayake (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences), Julianne Bell, (Arts), Lindsay Kelley (UNSW), Rachel Marsden (University of Arts, London)

Partner

Jill Bennett (The Big Anxiety Research Centre, UNSW)

Contact

Dr Vanessa Bartlett, Coordinating Investigator at vanessa.bartlett@unimelb.edu.au or via the Stomach Ache Website https://stomachacheproject.com/

One of the major technological changes impacting society today is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). AI is already informing and influencing human decisions in many settings, from "virtual assistants" who can help answer queries to recommender systems that suggest music or movies on streaming sites. We expect the role of AI in society will continue to increase, which may reduce people's sense of agency and reduce wellbeing. However, these effects may be mitigated if people can more easily understand how AI works and see it as a tool in their control.

We will develop software tools and educational methods to help people understand AI through creative play with AI algorithms. We will do this in the context of an existing undergraduate subject. Students will be presented with an interface that allows them to interact creatively with an AI, devising challenges for the algorithm to solve and visualising the results, to help them discover the strengths and limitations of the AI. We will evaluate how creative interaction with the AI affects students' understanding of the algorithms, sense of agency, and feeling of wellbeing.

Team

Krista A. Ehinger (MSE), Sadia Nawaz (CIS), Marian Mahat (MGSE)

Contact: Dr Krista A. Ehinger, Coordinating Investigator, at kris.ehinger@unimelb.edu.au

Project completed

Final report

Wyatt, D., Pfefferkorn, J., & Papastergiadis, N. (2022). Finding Refuge: art, emergency and "imagining the unimaginable" in the resilient city.

Download report (PDF)

Australia's Black Summer, the Californian fires of 2020 and the ongoing Covid pandemic are forewarnings of a period of accelerating and intensifying disasters driven by climate change and human encroachment on the natural world. Experts in emergency services recognise that as disasters become recurrent, and as communities becomes more culturally complex, conventional top-down command and control methods of disaster communication will need to shift to more horizontal and inclusive approaches. Diverse communities bring their own knowledge, which must form part of addressing disaster as a shared endeavour.

Paul Holman, Director of Emergency Management Ambulance Victoria says that improving community disaster preparedness involves creativity. Communities must "imagine the unimaginable" (Fraser et al 2019) to share responsibility for acting and responding. This project explores how creativity might better prepare urban communities to respond to the climate crisis. Comprising a multidisciplinary team from the humanities, engineering, and urban studies, the project focuses on Refuge (2016-2021) – a six-year program hosted by City of Melbourne's Arts House. Refuge put art at the centre of preparing for climate-related disaster by partnering artists with experts from Australian Red Cross, State Emergency Services (SES), Emergency Management Victoria (EMV), University of Melbourne, and local community organisations.

This project aggregated and catalogued the many materials Refuge has generated across scores of live events and preparatory and post-event workshops. This archive of images, videos, interviews, surveys, and field notes demonstrated how creativity:

• Shapes ways of knowing, feeling and relating that engage people as active participants in disaster preparedness
• Brings siloed knowledges together to address complex problems
• Contributes to social wellbeing as a facet of urban resilience.

Publications

Pledger, D. and Papastergiadis, N. (2021). In the time of refuge: A collection of writings on art, disaster and communities. Arts House.

Book chapter and journal article in progress.

Team

Nikos Papastergiadis (Arts) Danielle Wyatt (Arts), Jasmin Pfefferkorn (Arts), Sarah Bell (ABP), Brendon Gleeson (ABP)

Partner: Emily Sexton (Artistic Director, Arts House, City of Melbourne)

Contact:

Danielle Wyatt or Jasmin Pfefferkorn

Performance artists are exposed to a range of stressors which may negatively affect well-being. These include regular competition and comparison, job instability, financial insecurity, performance pressure, and exposure to injury. The few studies conducted in these populations point to elevated levels of mental ill-health. More work is needed however to a) better understand psychological factors which may contribute to, or protect against, mental ill-health in performers, and b) develop evidence-informed and scalable interventions for performer's well-being.

Self-compassion – the awareness of suffering in self and a commitment to try to alleviate it - has been associated with positive mental health and well-being outcomes. These have been demonstrated in elite sport, a population whose environmental and psychological stressors overlap considerably with performance artists. Athletes higher in self-compassion have shown higher well-being and more constructive responses to adversity. Importantly, self-compassion is not a static trait but a skill that can be improved, and interventions focused on enhancing self-compassion have been successful in athlete populations.

This project comprises two interrelated studies. Study 1 will collect data from an online survey enabling relationships between self-compassion and well-being domains to be explored in a sample of performance artists from several disciplines. In doing so, Study 1 will identify key targets for the intervention program. Study 2 will develop, implement and pilot test a digital self-guided self-compassion program called 'The Compassionate Performer'. We expect that participation in The Compassionate Performer program will be associated with improved mental health and well-being. Following piloting, the program will be made freely available for the independent use of performance artists around the world, and international research collaborations explored.

Team

Courtney Walton (MDHS), Margaret Osborne (FAM), Simon Rice (MDHS), James Kirby (UQ)

Partner: Tracy Margieson (Head of Program, Arts Wellbeing Collective, Arts Centre Melbourne)

Contact: Dr Courtney Walton, Coordinating Investigator at courtney.walton@orygen.org.au

Project Completed

Final Report

Coleman, Kathryn. (2022). The Othello Theatre in Education Project - Fostering creativity and wellbeing in the face of high levels of violence against women.

Download report (PDF)

About the project

This project included a collaborative team from education, theatre and performance, and feminist and cultural studies. Building on pilot research in criminology, it looks at how theatre and interdisciplinary research can improve the wellbeing of young people in a climate of widespread violence against women.

The project used a research-creation approach to examine how the play ‘Othello on Trial’:

• Deploys theatre-based techniques that acknowledge diversity in the classroom
• Queries assumptions about Shakespeare’s universality and colour-blindness.

The project included performances informed by the research team’s collective practice and a symposium for invited stakeholders in the Victorian education sector. These events helped assess the project’s potential for inclusion in school-based curricula, and show the valuable contribution theatre can make to young people’s creativity, critical thinking and wellbeing.

Resulting research data and resources will form a digital study to ensure the project’s longevity. This can be used by schools and policymakers in Australia and internationally.

Note: Project outcomes reflect study adjustments to account for COVID-19 restrictions

Publications

Howe, A. & de Pasquale, S. (forthcoming). 'Reformist Tinkering, The Queensland Law of Murder and Other Disasters' Griffith Law Journal 10(2) 18-47.

Howe, A. (2021) ‘White Angst meets Othello - Casting Conundrums, Leaning into disequilibrium’ Journal of Artistic and Creative Education 15(1).

Team

Kathryn Coleman (Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE)), Adrian Howe (Arts), Sarah Healy (MGSE), Ana Ward-Davies (MGSE), Scott Welsh (College of Arts and Education, Victoria University), Richard Sallis (MGSE).

Partner

Cherian Jacob, Cicero’s Circle Theatre Company

Contact

Dr Kathryn Coleman, Coordinating Investigator at kathryn.coleman@unimelb.edu.au

Project completed

Final report

Woodland, S., Hassal, L., Kennedy-Borissow, A. (2023). Embodying Resistance and Survival: How drama and youth theatre can respond to eco-anxiety and support recovery in disaster affected communities.

Download report (PDF)

Recent devastating floods, drought, and bushfires in Australia have had a profound impact on children and young people living in disaster affected communities, where they are dealing with the effects of family stress, displacement, trauma, and loss.

Those outside disaster zones witnessing the crisis can also be susceptible to feelings of vicarious trauma. These factors, coupled with the growing global movement towards action on climate change, have led to an increase in 'eco-anxiety' or 'ecological grief' among children and young people. Many are witnessing the devastating effects of climate change and experiencing feelings of helplessness and despair.

This project examines the role of youth theatre and drama in responding to the multifaceted effects of this crisis.

Research shows that arts-based wellbeing interventions can positively impact young people's ability to:

• Process their experiences following a disaster
• Manage post-traumatic stress
• Build social cohesion and self-confidence.

The arts can also play a valuable role in narrating the community's response to disaster, and in rallying strengths in moving towards recovery. Embodied artforms such as theatre and drama provide a collaborative, agentic experience where people can explore complex issues and emotions, and ideas for the future.

Working with grassroots practitioners and established youth theatre companies, the team will explore how theatre and drama can facilitate a sense of wellbeing and agency for children and young people. Both in direct approaches to post-disaster recovery, and in addressing eco-anxiety and ecological grief experienced on a societal level.

Note: Project outcomes reflect study adjustments to account for COVID-19 restrictions

Publications

Journal article in progress

Team

Sarah Woodland (Fine Arts and Music), Linda Hassall (Griffith University), Anna Kennedy-Borissow (School of Culture and Communication), Natalie Lazaroo (School of Education and Professional Studies), Helen Cahill (Melbourne Graduate School of Education), Simon Rice (Orygen Centre for Youth Mental Health).

Partners/Participants: Fraser Corfield, Australian Theatre for Young People; Tiffany Vatcher & Jennifer South, UpStage Independent Theatre School; Alice Cadwell, Spaghetti Circus; Joshua Maxwell, Jopuka Productions; Kate Sulan, Rawcus; Katherine Quigley; Lisa Apostolides, Byron Youth Theatre; Lucas Stibbard, Nazari Dickerson, ILBEJERRI Theatre Company; Stephen Quin; Sue Giles, Polyglot Theatre.

Contact: Dr Sarah Woodland, Coordinating Investigator at sarah.woodland@unimelb.edu.au

Project completed

Final Report

Brown, C., Garrido, M., Lim, M. (2022) Mental Dance. University of Melbourne

Download the report

Dance provides a way to experience interconnectedness and reclaim a sense of wellbeing by teaching us to acknowledge rather than avoid difficult emotions and uncomfortable movements. As our world becomes increasingly digitised, we need new practiced forms of expression that can help us navigate the emerging bodily, social and environmental challenges of being “always online”.

This creative project brings together a cognitive neuroscientist, a choreographer and a composer to explore how gesture, music and costume can respond to neuronal activity in the brain made visible by an electroencephalogram (EEG).

The EEG data will be translated into markers for change in frequency and gestural range by the dancer, and a test audience will be invited to experience the outcome: a dance performance and workshop which will challenge our thinking about technology, music, the body and the brain.

Note : Project outcomes reflect study adjustments to account for COVID-19 restrictions

Publications and Performances:

Brown, C. & Lim, M, Mental Spaces (20^th November 2021). Opening of the Science Gallery Melbourne (20 minutes). Vimeo https://vimeo.com/665165306

Brown, C., Lim, M., Vescio, L. & Cornish, J. (4^th October 2021). Mental Dance. Online Performance and Discussion. (50 mins). Vimeo https://vimeo.com/630635399

Brown, C. (2021) Mental Dance’ NiTRO 11 June 2021: https://nitro.edu.au/articles/2021/6/11/mental-dance

Brown, C., Lim, M., ‘Under the Hood’. Article in progress for submission to Body Space Technology August 2022.

Team

Carol Brown (Fine Arts and Music), Marta Garrido (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences), Monica Lim (independent artist).

Contact: Professor Carol Brown, Coordinating Investigator at carol.brown@unimelb.edu.au

Project completed

Final report

Sallis, R. & McConville, K. (2022). International students creating comedy to foster wellbeing: 'Are you joking?'.

Download report (PDF)

This arts-based research project will explore how collaborating in a performance-related creative endeavour, to create and produce a comedy performance, may foster wellbeing for international students at the University of Melbourne.

This project sits at the junction of language, identity, creativity, the performing arts and education. International student volunteers will explore, experiment and extend their knowledge of language, place and humour to create and produce a comedy performance on the theme of the life of an international student.

The project will offer students the opportunity to:

• connect with others on a creative level
• meet and form friendships with others from a variety of faculties and discipline areas
• learn from and support each other in developing their knowledge, skills and confidence
• enhance their social circles and counter experiences of loneliness in university life.

Students will apply their knowledge of English to explore informal language use outside of academic settings, with increased scope for playfulness, boundary blurring and ‘trespassing’.

The project seeks to discover how the students’ sense of wellbeing, and their confidence in using their oral and written English language skills, may be impacted by these creative endeavours. It will also interrogate the potential pitfalls and challenges of a project of this kind, which may inform the creation and development of future programs of a similar nature.

Note : Project outcomes reflect study adjustments to account for COVID-19 restrictions

Team

Richard Sallis (Melbourne Graduate School of Education), Diane de Saint Leger (Arts), Jayne Lysk (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences), Danielle Clayman (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences), Kelly McConville (Melbourne Graduate School of Education)

Partner: Justine Sless, professional comedian

Contact: Dr Richard Sallis, Coordinating Investigator at sallis@unimelb.edu.au

Community assets such as playgrounds are important sites for community development and wellbeing. They provide opportunities for a range of people and needs, such as:

• Intergenerational participation
• Cultural diversity
• Children with disabilities.

A collaboration between University of Melbourne researchers and the Belgium Avenue Neighbourhood House (BANH), we will examine:

• How intergenerational playgrounds contribute to community wellbeing
• How playground use differs between school-age children, adults and seniors
• How playground design can promote diverse and intergenerational user engagement.

The project team will use a variety of data collection strategies, including:

• Design and model-making activities for students at Richmond West Primary School
• An online survey about playground usage
• Creative submissions of photographs of drawings and models from the public
• In-person surveys and interviews conducted at BANH.

The outcome of the project will include design solutions to wellbeing questions for people living in high-density social housing communities.

Team

Blair Gardiner (Architecture, Building and Planning), Frederic Kiernan (Fine Arts and Music), Trisnasari Fraser (Fine Arts and Music)

Partners: Lydia Dobbin (Belgium Avenue Neighbourhood House)

Contact: Blair Gardiner, Coordinating Investigator: b.gardiner@unimelb.edu.au