Collaborative Poetics with Helen Johnson

This workshop marks the launch of the Collaborative Poetics Resource Pack, a comprehensive teaching pack designed to support the facilitation of the participatory arts-based research method of collaborative poetics (CP).

CP uses poetry, visual arts and other art forms, alongside established social scientific research methods, to explore and communicate individuals’ lived experiences. In CP, artists, community practitioners, academics and community groups work together as a ‘research collective,’ in which all members are equally valued for their diverse skills and knowledge. The collective collaborates to foster ‘critical resilience,’ supporting the resilience of individuals and communities as a path towards, rather than alternative to, critical social consciousness and social change.

The session will briefly introduce the CP method and showcase some creative texts, before facilitating a series of creative activities drawn from the pack. For further information about the method, supporting research and CP resources, see the website of the Collaborative Poetics Network: http://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/collaborativepoetics/events/ Copies of the pack will also be available on the day.e to the experience of the thesis as a work of art in itself.

Helen Johnson is a senior Psychology lecturer at the University of Brighton. Her work centres around creativity and the arts, with research focusing on areas such as spoken word and slam communities, and arts interventions in health, education and dementia care. Helen is particularly interested in the intersections between arts-based research, participatory research and social justice, and has developed the collaborative poetics method framed by these concerns. She is also a spoken word poet and stage manager for the Poetry&Words stage at Glastonbury Festival.