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Research Projects
Areas of Study
Healing Art of Kashmir
The Art of Healing is funded through the Arts and Humanities Research Council's urgency programme. The project involves providing, and evaluating the wellbeing benefits of, art therapy with children in Kashmir, an area or political and social unrest.
Art on prescription
We are working on the evaluation of several arts on prescription programmes, in primary care, secondary care, and in University settings, using mixed methods approaches. Here, people are referred to a course of art workshops, for a range of reasons, including anxiety or chronic pain, with the hope that this will improve their wellbeing.
Art Box
'Artbox’ holds artworks that visualise maternal relations as a tool to promote discussion with new mothers accessing post-natal care. We are currently conducting a feasibility study on its use with health visitors and charity workers to assess its clinical utility.
Reading and wellbeing
Members of DRAW have an ongoing interest in the connections between reading and health. There are a number of important topics in this area which require interdisciplinary exploration. These include: the potential wellbeing impact of reading literature; the effect of reading on loneliness and social isolation; the psychological states involved in reading; the role of the group dynamic in shared reading scenarios; the importance of literary form, technique, and genre; the difference between literary and non-literary texts.
Drawing in medical practice
A collaborative research project between DRAW and UWE Drawing Research Group (DRG), with the aim to investigate, record and understand the current role of Drawing as a tool for collecting data in medical practice.
Sampling the artistic experience
We having been using the experience sampling method to learn more about the artistic creative process. The experience sampling method is a structured diary technique that collects repeated data, often at random times, in people's everyday life (often sending prompts to people's mobile phones). It is useful for understanding the relationship between context and experience and for examining longitudinal processes.
Colouring
Colouring for wellbeing has proliferated in recent years. We have conducted randomised, controlled trials to test whether colouring reduces stress and anxiety, and have also tested whether colouring improves mindfulness.