Festival of Creative Methods
Introduction
Save the date(s)!
19 February - 8 March 2024
This three-week festival will explore creative methods and approaches to research as well as innovative approaches to data collection.
Open to undergraduate and postgraduate students, the festival consists of a mixture of online and in-person events exploring creative research methods. These will include a range of workshops, presentations and talks from academics, creative practitioners and PhD researchers.
Creative Ethnography Workshops
Bringing together the expertise of three of Edinburgh’s social anthropology PhD candidates, the series will focus on visual, aural, and performance-based techniques that will appeal to a wide range of practitioners seeking to integrate multi-modal methods into their ethnographic work.
Workshop 1: The Creative Ethnography Project
20th February
Workshop 2: The Creative Ethnography Project
27th February
Workshop 3: The Creative Ethnography Project
5th March
Other Workshops and Events
- Dr Helen Kara - Creative Methods Keynote (Online and VLR)
21st February 11:00-12:00
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- About this event
Dr Helen Kara is a leading independent researcher, author, teacher and speaker specialising in research methods, particularly creative methods, and research ethics.
With over 23 years’ experience as an independent researcher, Dr Kara now teaches doctoral students and staff at higher education institutions worldwide.
Dr Kara has written over 25 titles; notably Creative Research Methods: A Practical Guide and Research and Evaluation for Busy Students and Practitioners, both in their second editions.
She is also involved in the #ActuallyAutistic movement, and co-authored with Dr Aimee Grant, a popular open access journal article on the Autistic advantage in qualitative research.
Dr Kara's keynote will explore Creative Methods from the perspective of an academic researcher with considerable published experience on the topic.Dr Helen Kara will join this session remotely, however participants are invited to attend Violet Laidlaw Room to take part in the session together. Although the session has been designed for in-person activities, a Zoom link can be provided for those unable to attend in person.
- Dr Agustina Martire - StreetSpace (Online)
22nd February 10:00-11:00
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- About this event
StreetSpace is a research and teaching project in the School of Architecture at Queen's University Belfast. StreetSpace works in collaboration with academia, government and local communities to analyse streets and fulfil their potential to be people-centred, accessible and inclusive public places. The project investigates the significance of everyday streets through their urban form, histories and experiences. It establishes links with other disciplines and seeks to enable the dialogue between academia, policy and the public thorough the organisation of local workshops, symposia and exhibitions.
Dr Agustina Martire is a senior lecturer in architecture specialised in the study of everyday streets, their fabric, histories and experiences, through the StreetSpace project.
Dr Martire is especially interested in the way people experience the built environment, and how design can enable a more inclusive and just urban space. She has worked in schools of architecture in Buenos Aires, Delft, Dublin and Belfast and collaborates with a range of government and non-government organisations to explore ways in which housing, mixed use and mobility can provide better cities for all.
This session will be facilitated on Zoom - link emailed to attendees closer to the session
- Janak Howard - Arts-based Research in Education (Online)
26th February 14:00-15:00
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- About this event
Janak Howards is a 2nd year PHD student at Cardiff University. His field (broadly) is Relationships and Sex Education, and Faith and Worldviews, specifically in primary schools and is am currently working with Arts Based Research methods.
Janak has a background in education, primarily as a teaching assistant, occasional supply teacher and 1 to 1 SEN support staff. Most of his research, starting with his master’s project, has developed from experiences working in schools in Birmingham, running after school clubs and summer activity groups.Janak's presentation will focus primarily on the arts based, creative research project he is currently planning, the socio-political context behind it, the ontological and epistemological background and what led him to developing the ideas and methods for this project.
Janak will also give a brief overview of my Masters research project which led to the development of my PHD research and sets up a lot of the context for this research despite having very different research method.
- Coin-Operated Press Zine Workshop - (Practice Suite 1.12)
1st March 10:00-12:00
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- About this event
Join Coin-Operated Press in this 2-hour workshop that will focus on using zine-making as a method to collect information as part of the University of Edinburgh’s Festival of Creative Methods.
What is a zine? A zine is a booklet-style artwork that you make yourself, and give away, swap, or sell for the cost of printing. They are perfect for sharing information, art, writing, and anything else that you can fit on a piece of paper!
Zines are an easy, and cost-effective tool to share information in a dynamic and engaging format.
In this workshop, we will discuss how zines can be used as a creative approach that can be incorporated into research collecting and dissemination. We will have examples of zines on hand that have been used to document and engage readers in research, and you will be creating your own zine page (or multiple pages) to go into a larger collective zine that further discusses this topic. You will have an opportunity to think about your own research projects and how you might use a zine to present your collected information.
We will provide all of the materials you will need to create your zine pages, but please feel free to bring some of your own collage materials from home - this may include: magazine pages, coloured paper, stickers, pretty packaging, ribbons, washi tape, trash paper, etc. as well as any materials that may reflect the theme of this session and your own research.
Coffee, tea and cakes will be provided!
Due to the room and the nature of the workshop, we have limited capacity. If you are no longer able to attend, please let us know so that we can offer your place to someone else. We will be using a Waiting List where necessary to manage anyone that wasn't able to reserve a spot.
- Creative Methods: Trasho Biblio (Online)
6th March 15:00-16:00
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- About this event
Trasho Biblio is an independent library that curates a niche collection of books with a focus on subculture, counterculture and forgotten modern classics. The collection includes several bespoke sub-genres, such as books recommended by legendary auteur John Waters, the gentrification of NYC’s Time Square, and the world of Warhol.
Founded in 2019, the library has grown to have a global membership of over 700+ members which has allowed the library to be financially self-sufficient. In recent times, Trasho Biblio has allocated a budget to improve access to books through supporting other independent libraries and covering the costs of book club places with independent books shops.
Library founder Tommy McCormick will explain the origin of this successful DIY creative project, the influences behind Trasho Biblio’s book curation, the unique methods of promoting the library and the evolution of the project’s values as it has grown.This session will be facilitated on Zoom - link emailed to attendees closer to the session
