UCG Atelier: Integrating the Arts and Creativity into the LAS curriculum.

There is a strong desire from students to integrate the arts and creativity into the UCG curriculum. UCG Atelier represents an opportunity for students to enter into one of the most exciting and innovative approaches to scientific research. This way, students can be young scholars and researchers who are also painters, dancers, writers, and musicians.

Arts-based research (ABR) is used by researchers to gather and analyze data, but also –significantly– to engage research participants in understanding the value of ‘co-researching’ their own experiences. “It’s more than just a set of research methods,” says Dr. Ferdinand Lewis , director of UCG Atelier. “It’s an attitude about how research is valued, both in the academy and in the world.”

Late 2019, the UCG Atelier presented an evening of lecturers (open to all UCG students) on ”Arts Based Research in the Arts and Humanities”. Dr. Gwenda van der Vaart began the evening with a general introduction to ABR, followed by a description of her study of the the value of arts in social sciences. Dr. van der Vaart’s research used the arts to engage a local community in the research process, concluding that, “When community members are actively engaged in a research, it is more likely to reflect lived experiences and, potentially, lead to actions that address people’s real desires and needs”. Dr. van der Vaart is on the RUG’s Faculty of Spatial Sciences.

In the second part of the evening Dr. Andrea Stultiens presented her extensive fieldwork in Uganda, involving long-term collaboration with community members in a culture that, as she explains, “Had no visual culture until fairly recently.” The implication––that “photography means things differently in Uganda than in Europe”––inspired Dr. Stultiens, who has produced eight ‘artist books’ based on that research.

Future atelier activities include professional artists collaborating in some of our elective courses in Social Sciences and Humanities and in Elective courses across the curriculum. Students will continue to make art work and in different disciplines such as dance or photography. So; Atelier.