Embrace multiculturalism through arts-based workshops: Qualitative evaluation using visual representations.

Abstract

The present study examines the ‘My stage / Mun stage’, a participatory theatre workshop supporting bi-directional social integration of women in Finnish Lapland, as a case study within the intersection of culture and design. Five to ten women from different cultural backgrounds shared and created collectively a story of their past, present and future in Finnish Lapland. During the sessions, arts and design based methods were used such as, visual representations, expectation maps, storytelling and writing, enacting and body-storming and the method of Play-back theatre. This study responds two main research questions: 1) ‘what are the challenges faced while organizing and facilitating multicultural arts and design based workshops?’ and 2) ‘to what extent does taking part in arts / design workshops assist social integration?’ The study contributes to the academic discourses concerning multiculturalism at the intersection of social sciences and the field of arts and design. The conceptual framework investigates the themes of design management, arts and design research methods and visual representations of different evaluation techniques, within the aim of embracing multiculturalism. This is a qualitative study for which, three different ways of evaluation were implemented: a visual, a physical and an oral questionnaire; together with field notes, a visual diary and audio & video recordings throughout the workshop sessions, enable diverse responses to the study’s research questions as well as suggestions for future ‘My stage / Mun stage’ participatory theatre workshops. Despite the small sample, the findings raise important issues considering the implementation of arts and design based projects. The results of the study show that the development and implementation of such projects face limitations considering space, time, verbal & non-verbal communication and participants’ expectations and suggest that more research needs to be done in order to evaluate, validate and sustain such projects. ‘My stage / Mun stage’ workshop’s research results suggest that such projects should consider the target group’s needs which, according to participants reflexions, is the necessity of space and time to interact, meet new people and create something together. The sufficiency of the Finnish language shall be taken under consideration to formulate groups with similar level of understanding, in order to avoid false interpretations. Considering time constrains, the duration of the workshop is suggested to be shorter than three hours that it was, but more intense than once per week as it took place while participants’ presence shall be mandatory. The clarification of the preferable target group is needed while planning such workshop; arrangements for the place can be sufficiently made early enough and the skills of the future participants shall be taken under consideration in terms of a co-design process. Visual material of this workshop could be used in order to engage participants in a future ‘My stage / Mun stage’ participatory theatre workshop. Enacting and body-storming have been considered as the Page | 4 most preferable methods used during the ‘My stage / Mun stage’ workshop. Although the study’s results indicate that the sessions’ process can be therapeutic, the relation between ‘arts and design based methods’ and ‘applied personal skills’ is not being understood as a direct and unconscious connection; therefore, the research results set an open challenge for the Faculty of Art and Design of how to approach, get involve, and persuade that arts and design based methods can be applied in a socially valuable way.