• What else is made through making?

  • We are pleased to present a series of reflections on the value of individual and collective making by Dr Anni Raw, a researcher part of QUEERCIRCLE’s Research Group. Anni asks the question: what else is made through making?

     

    This was in response to our piloting a number of different creative workshops in our first two years - everything from embroidery and pottery to den-making and cartoons. We wanted to discover if there was any value for our communities in crafting (together) – especially since these activities are often dismissed as diversionary or low-quality art.

     

    Anni’s four blogs weave together multiple voices and experiences, all involved in QUEERCIRCLE’s Make Time workshops either as artist delivers or as participants. She observed what else was happening in the spaces besides the creative making with materials, critical thinking through what she noticed, felt, saw or suspected was going on.

  • Drawing together threads of thinking and feeling from research contributors, fifty participants’ experiences were included through feedback, photographs, and reflections expressed during making processes, with 10 people contributing their reflections directly.


    We are thankful for the involvement and participation of Terence Wilde (who chose embroidery as the medium for his project, ‘Amid the Silent Flowers’), Ly Orrock, Becca Parkinson (who used ritual as part of their eco-therapeutic arts practice), David Shenton (cartoons exploring the topic, ‘The Personal is Political. Or is it?’) and Lady Kitt (who developed playful activities with assorted materials for her event, ‘Crip Time’).


    These discussions have created an amazing tapestry of reflections that is multi-dimensional, insightful, hard to fix down, wriggly and rebellious, ‘much it seems like the essence of the ‘QUEERCIRCLE community/ies’ in general’ Anni concludes.

  • Dr Anni Raw

    Dr Anni Raw

    Anni has been active in community and participatory arts for almost 40 years, initially as singer-performer, and community musician; then as community-based arts producer, evaluator and academic researcher.  Anni’s Doctoral thesis explored community-based participatory arts practice, with 40 expert practitioners in the UK and Mexico across the spectrum of arts disciplines, developing a shared articulation of creativity in community-based arts practice as catalyst for change. Over three decades she has developed specialisms in participatory action research and inclusive evaluation practice, reflective practice, creative dialogue tools bridging language and cultural divides, developing creative learning systems and toolkits, and academic and non-academic research and analysis using a range of qualitative approaches. She continues research and publishing, and presents her work nationally and internationally, within and beyond the academic world.