In today’s technological world, human intertwinement with the rest of nature hasbeen severely diminished. In our digital culture, many people hardly have any direct experience of and sense of connection with “the real” of the natural world. The author assumes that when we want to find ways to mend this gap, arts-based environmental education (AEE) can play a meaningful role. In AEE, artmaking is regarded as itself a way of potentially gaining new understandings about our natural environment. As a reflective practitioner, the author facilitated three different AEE activities, at several times and at diverse locations. On basis of his observations, memories, written notes, audio-visual recordings and interviews with participants, teachers and informed outsiders, he interpreted the experiences both of participants and himself. To this end he employed interpretative phenomenological analysis paired with autoethnography.The artmaking activities researched here aimed to bring about a shift in focus. Participants were encouraged to approach natural phenomena not head-on, but in an indirect way. Moreover, the artmaking process aspired to heighten their awareness to the presence of their embodied self at a certain place. The research questions that the author poses in this study are: (1) What is distinctive in the process of the AEE activities that I facilitate?; (2) Which specific competencies can be identified for a facilitator of AEE activities?; and (3) Does participating in the AEE activities that I facilitate enhance the ability of participants to have a direct experience of feeling connected to the natural world?In this explorative study, the author identifies facilitated estrangement through participating in AEE as an important catalyst when aiming to evoke such instances of transformative learning. In undergoing such moments, participants grope their way in a new liminal space. Artmaking can create favorable conditions for this to happen through its defamiliarizing effect which takes participants away from merely acting according to habit (on “autopilot”). The open-ended structure of the artmaking activities contributed to the creation of a learning arena in which emergent properties could become manifest. Thus, participants could potentially experience a sense of wonder and begin to acquire new understandings – a form of knowing that the author calls “rudimentary cognition.” The research further suggests that a facilitator should be able to bear witness to and hold the space for whatever enfolds in this encounter with artistic process in AEE. He or she must walk the tightrope between control and non-interfering.The analysis of the impacts of the AEE activities that were facilitated leads the author to conclude that it is doubtful whether these in and of themselves caused participants to experience the natural environment in demonstrable new and deep ways. He asserts that most of their awareness was focused on the internal level of their own embodied presence; engagement with place, the location where the AEE activity was performed, seemed secondary. The findings show that AEE activities first and foremost help bring about the ignition and augmentation of the participants’ fascination and curiosity, centered in an increased awareness of their own body and its interactions with the natural world. The present study can be seen as a contribution to efforts of envisaging innovative forms of sustainable education that challenge the way we have distanced ourselves from the more-than-human world.
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Philanthropy is on the rise in the Dutch visual arts. Fat cash prizes, big-name exhibitions, large-scale renovations, spectacular public artworks, and big scandals are changing the public display of art and undermining the democratic governance of art institutions. While some have critiqued the patron's rise to power, the majority of the art world remains silent, muted by a combination of ignorance and self-censorship. How can we overcome this deadlock and start cultivating a healthy public debate?
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In this paper, we explore the ways in which we can employ arts-based research methods to unpack and represent the diversity and complexity of journalistic experiences and (self) conceptualisations. We address the need to reconsider the ways in which we theorise and research the field of journalism. We thereby aim to complement the current methodologies, theories, and prisms through which we consider our object of study to depict more comprehensively the diversity of practices in the field. To gather stories about journalism creatively (and ultimately more inclusively and richly), we propose and present the use of arts-based research methods in journalism studies. By employing visual and narrative artistic forms as a research tool, we make room for the senses, emotion and imagination on the part of the respondents, researchers and audiences of the output. We draw on a specific collaboration with artists and journalists that resulted in a research event in which 32 journalists were invited to collaboratively recreate the “richness and complexity” of journalistic practices.
In het PRIMa mond CARE project wordt onderzocht in hoeverre de mondgezondheid bijdraagt aan de voorspelling van kwetsbaarheid bij thuiswondende ouderen.Doel Het doel van het PRIMa mond CARE project is te onderzoeken in hoeverre mondgezondheid bijdraagt aan de voorspelling van kwetsbaarheid bij thuiswonende ouderen. Resultaten Voor het onderzoek zijn 1202 ouderen geïncludeerd, waarvan 45% mannen. De gemiddelde leeftijd van de participanten was 73 jaar. De eerste resultaten laten verbanden zien tussen kwetsbaarheid en onderstaande gezondheidsfactoren: • het bezoeken van de tandarts voor een spoedconsult; • het ervaren van ongemakken in de mond; • het aanpassen van de voeding als gevolg van ongemakken in de mond en • het dragen van een gebitsprothese. De volgende artikelen over dit onderzoek zijn inmiddels gepubliceerd: 'Probing problems and priorities in oral health among community dwelling elderly in the Netherlands' in het International Journal of Health Sciences and Research. In het International Journal of Health Services is het artikel 'Needs in Sevice Provision for Older People: An comparison Between Greater Manchester (United Kingdom) and Utrecht (the Netherlands)' gepubliceerd. Recentelijk verscheen ‘’Measurement properties of oral health assessments for non-dental professionals in older people: a systematic review’’ in het BMC Geriatrics. Looptijd 01 november 2016 - 01 juli 2020 Aanpak De huisarts brengt met een softwareprogramma genaamd ‘’U-PRIM’’ de groep potentieel kwetsbare ouderen in kaart. De mensen uit deze screening komen in fase twee: U-CARE. Zij ontvangen een vragenlijst: de Groningen Frailty Indicator. Met de uitkomsten van de vragenlijsten worden de domeinen van kwetsbaarheid gedefinieerd. Deze mensen krijgen huisbezoek van een praktijkverpleegkundige die een zorgplan op maat maakt. De verpleegkundige screent tijdens dit bezoek de oudere ook op mondgezondheidsproblemen, naast de algemene gezondheidscontrole. Daarnaast zijn de gegevens uit het tandartsenbestand gekoppeld aan de gegevens van de huisarts. Ook zijn twee vragen over mondgezondheid toegevoegd aan de Groningen Frailty Indicator. Aan de deelnemers van het onderzoek is toestemming gevraagd om de tandartsgegevens op te vragen bij de tandarts en deze te koppelen aan de huisartsgegevens. Daarnaast zijn alle gegevens anoniem verwerkt.
