Batik in Malaysia and Indonesia: A collaboration for reconciling issues of cultural heritage

Conflict claims for the cultural heritage of batik between Indonesia and Malaysia have created tensions between the people of these two countries. The Indonesian and Malaysian governments have never involved academics and arts education institutions in resolving such conflict claims, yet, these communities can play a significant role in post-conflict reconciliation efforts. This article describes a conflict reconciliation method initiated by academics, artists and art educators through a collaborative art project between art higher education institutions in Malaysia and Indonesia. Ways in which collaborations within and across the art and education communities may address the understanding and reconciliation of issues related to cultural heritage conflict are explored.

Procesos artísticos participativos y colaborativos en los distritos culturales de Burdeos y Nantes

This paper analyses the burgeoning impulse, in the main cultural districts of Bordeaux and Nantes, of participative and collaborative art practices. Such adjectives are not synonymous but, true enough, it is sometimes difficult to differentiate these two categories of relational art; moreover, co-working spaces could literally be considered another kind of collaboration process. All in all, beyond terminology matters, the aim of this essay is to point out the flourishing of combined official and community-based initiatives. A model of arts-led urban revitalisation seeking greater involvement of the local ecosystem shaping a “cultural district”, as alternative to the paradigm of the singular institutional trigger worldly identified with the Guggenheim-Bilbao. Nowadays there are many counter-examples in Bilbao and in French cities on the Bay of Biscay. Este artículo analiza el prolífico impulso en los principales distritos culturales de Burdeos y Nantes del arte participativo y colaborativo. Tales adjetivos no son sinónimos, pero es cierto que a veces es difícil diferenciar estas dos categorías de arte relacional; por otro lado, los espacios de co-working podrían ser designados, al pie de la letra, como otro tipo de proceso de co-laboración. Con todo, más allá de la terminología, lo que pretende esta reflexión es constatar el florecimiento de iniciativas oficiales y de base comunitaria combinadas. Un modelo de revitalización urbana a través de las artes con mayor involucración del ecosistema local formando un “distrito cultural”, como alternativa frente al paradigma del singular detonante institucional mundialmente identificado con el Guggenheim-Bilbao. Hoy día no faltan los contraejemplos bilbaínos y en ciudades francesas del golfo de Vizcaya.

Chains of art offer connection and care

Art Therapist Tova Speter shares a sample from Translations: connected art reflecting empathy (c.a.r.e.), a creative example of how engagement in a collaborative art experience can help people feel connected despite being physically isolated. This community art experience was launched in response to the isolating effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Over 100 artists participated in nineteen chains of six linked artistic expressions translating the words of the community through art. The six links in each chain offered a creative way to connect, which offset the 6 feet of physical distance we were advised to keep from each other in order to care for each other. This project highlights how art can hold and communicate intention and feeling across modalities as it offers connection and inspiration to a wide audience.

Becoming One with the Neighborhood: Collaborative Art, Space-Making, and Urban Change in Izmir Darağaç

Darağaç is a former industrial, lower-income neighborhood in Turkey’s third-largest city, Izmir. In 2015 several artists settled in the area and started a nonprofit initiative called the Darağaç Collective (DC). DC has since organized numerous art events and exhibitions, receiving considerable interest and publicity. Yet, to date, the changes in Darağaç’s material landscapes have been subtle, and the area remains ungentrified, unlike similar examples in Turkey. This article argues that the collaborative art practice spearheaded by DC played a major role in the preservation of the neighborhood’s urban texture. The artists became neighbors with the residents, benefited from the expertise of mechanics, and drew inspiration from the site, while the local community has contributed to the production, exhibition, and appreciation of artworks. Thus, art has become a tool for sociability and a catalyst for interpersonal, cultural, and cross-class exchanges, which could offer an alternative route to art-led urban change in Turkey.

Facilitated arts engagement with women veterans for health and well-being

To demonstrate the health and well-being benefits of facilitated arts engagement with women veterans, we draw on a key practice-based example from the Australian National Veterans Arts Museum (ANVAM), an organization with expertise in collaborative art-making with veterans. We outline ANVAM’s framework and the processes art therapists use to create facilitated art exhibitions. We discuss how veterans’ involvement with art-making has therapeutic benefits, can contribute new knowledge on health and well-being, and convey nuances of gender-specific experiences. We briefly outline the trend in evidence from academic literature on arts-health research with veterans and the sparse creative research with women veterans to highlight the potential of art-based methods in veteran health and well-being research, given growing numbers and the expanding roles of women in defence. Arts-health research using diverse methods has yielded promising results in this field. As such, interdisciplinary, co-designed, and strength-based art-based research with women veterans can add to knowledge co-creation on this topic.

Coexistent ruins: Exploring Iraq’s Mesopotamian past through contemporary art

The project will initiate and conduct interdisciplinary, expanded media, collaborative research at four ancient sites in Iraq, Mesopotamia: Ur, Babylon, Nippur and Nimrud as well as, through a series of workshops, talks, exhibitions and online coverage with the specific aim of exploring the critical question of how contemporary collaborative art projects conducted at these key archaeological sites can enable a re-engagement with this ancient heritage and history, facilitating a greater engagement with that past and thereby contribute to the local tourism and knowledge economies at these locations. A female lead artist at each of the sites will facilitate a socially engaged programme that will utilize creative responses at these repeatedly colonized sites with participation from local residents, visitors to the sites and female art students; the programme aims to generate a renewed interest in the significance of this ancient heritage. The main aim is for this project to enable the small museums at these sites, which have been neglected for many years, to become more responsive to the needs of the local community. It intends to help with issues of post-conflict healing and reconciliation addressing issues of postcolonial conflict and survival.