A Painted Conversation: Narrative Inquiries in Community Based Art
Open Access
- Author:
- Pilato, Natalia Claire
- Graduate Program:
- Art Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- August 08, 2016
- Committee Members:
- Dr. Christine Marme Thompson, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor
Dr. Christine Marme Thompson, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Dr. Yvonne Gaudelius, Committee Member
Lonnie K Graham, Committee Member
Dr. Mahdu Prakash, Outside Member - Keywords:
- Community-based art
community art
socially engaged art
murals
Belize
A Painted conversation
ethic of care
collaboration
service learning
social capital
Natalia Pilato - Abstract:
- This dissertation investigates how community-based artistic practices are used for building the social capital of target communities to support the development of social responsibility and democratic participation. The literature review of community-based art and crafting community murals investigates past, present and future movements in the field. Mixed methods including narrative inquiry, participatory action research and arts-based research form the main methodology employed during the study. Past experiences are explored as a way to demonstrate how artistic sensibilities are formed by life experiences. The main case study demonstrates how college students, youth, artists, educators and community members in the Cayo District of Belize united to support community relations through artistic processes that encourage civic engagement and public discourse. Narrative journal reflections are used as a form of inquiry to provide the reader with a way to access the author’s experience as well as personal accounts that give insight into the fluid, and often vulnerable, nature of a qualitative researcher. Narrative responses from participants are integrated with photo documentation to aid the reader in understanding the nature of the relationships formed through this study, as well as the processes and procedures of creating community-based murals. This dissertation also investigates the subjective nature of an artist, researcher and teacher conducting community-based arts research in the United States and the country of Belize. By exploring the multiple and discursive spaces that are occupied while engaging with community- based art research, the author demonstrates how a fixed positionality is an impossibility. Insider/outsider binaries are challenged to give way for meaning making in the in-between spaces.