In this research project I examine art making as a supportive intervention towards creating a safe environment for the caregivers in order for them to identify with the social worlds in which they inhabit. I have focused on the role of art making within a community of volunteer caregivers on the East Rand in Johannesburg. The dual tenets of dialogical and relational aesthetics are acknowledged in the elaboration of concepts to establish wider contexts. Whilst art therapy modalities and literature have been used, this research project does not embrace the scope of art therapy as a discipline. At times I have used lexis from art therapy to draw on certain terms. My subject position as an artist and facilitator in this project has given me the agency for the discourse of dialogue to take place. The inquiry for this research dissertation is concerned with whether the participants in the project were able to achieve some amelioration from their circumstances through the relational exchange so that art as the mediator for conversational exchange is seen to facilitate constructive models for engagement. My contention is that these conditions have allowed the caregivers to achieve this outcome.

This project will investigate how daily encounters with digital technologies and the sense of rapid comprehension that they require can be used to make tactile and contemplative visual artwork. Completed over 3 years, studio work will be undertaken with the goal of making art that engages with a physical experience of time in terms of the range of technologically complex and disembodied ways of communicating today.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement / There can be no design product without a design process to achieve it; how we design is just as important as what we design. If landscape architects engage creative activities at work, they may be able to achieve flow, "an optimal and positive state of mind during which key individuals are highly motivated and engrossed" (Fullagar, Knight, and Sovern 2013, 236). Individuals experiencing flow find themselves in situations with challenge/skill balance, intrinsic motivation, and empowering self-confidence. The methods used for this master's project and report evaluated three art-making techniques in terms of the flow state and the design solutions they inspired. Watercolor, printmaking, and digital drawing were each incorporated into three simple design projects and filmed for peer-review. Fellow landscape architecture students reviewed segments of the film and completed a survey to measure the author's flow state. Additionally, they provided a critique of the art-making processes based on their perceptions of the filmed design processes and resulting design solutions. The peer assessment, accompanied with the author's self-reflection of art-making as ideation, provide insights into creativity and "good" design. Art - as concept, craft, and communication - are integral and evident in every part of the project. The findings show how design processes that include different art-making media affect and facilitate a flow state that leads to responsive design concepts. Landscape architects should incorporate art-making into their professional practice as a means of facilitating creativity without spending excessive amounts of time or resources in the conceptual stage of a design process.

The purpose of this research was to determine if incorporating individualized arts and art-making activities into the caregiving of persons with Alzheimer's Disease would help to improve their overall quality of life. To answer this question, I conducted an eight-week qualitative case study of two persons with Alzheimer's Disease. I visited the patients and their caregivers in their homes, and facilitated the incorporation of arts and art-making activities into their caregiving. These activities included painting with watercolors and acrylic paints, sewing, dancing, listening to music, collage, craftwork, storytelling, and sharing past art experiences. As a result of participating in this case study, the two persons with Alzheimer's Disease experienced increased confidence and self-esteem, a positive means of communication and social engagement, an opportunity to be validated and valued as persons with a rich life history and valuable remaining talents, and they developed new physical and mental abilities. / text

This thesis researches the proposition that student creativity occurs as a function of misrecognition in the culturally situated context of art classrooms. Following Pierre Bourdieu??s socio-cognitive frameworks of the habitus, symbolic capital and misrecognition this study uses these concepts as a means of navigating teacher-student relationships at moments of creative origination. These concepts predict that exchanges between teachers and students are sites for transactions of symbolic capital where the teacher??s pedagogical role is objectively repressed through the mechanism of misrecognition. The study seeks evidence for creative autonomy as misrecognition as it takes place in classroom transactions and that differing levels of ??tact?? are employed in these exchanges. It emerges that the social reasoning that underscores these exchanges is inferentially sensitive to different contextual points of view, expressed in open secrets, repression, denial and euphemisation. The study finds that the artworks produced evidence degrees of originality that vary in character according to the subtlety of misrecognition that is transacted in these pedagogical exchanges. The case of an art teacher and an art class in the final year of schooling is examined in detail. The design employs an idiographic, qualitative methodology. Methods include observations and interviews which are augmented by digital records. Results are interpreted using a form of semantic analysis and triangulation. Four functions are distilled from the results. These functions govern the way in which misrecognition performs as a contradictory logic in the relationships between the teacher and students which works towards affirming the group??s belief in creative autonomy, while paradoxically, all members take advantage of the contextual inputs that are available. Creative autonomy is revealed as a fiction, nonetheless, a fiction worth nurturing for the successful realisation of creative ends. The study concludes that creativity cannot be strictly taught or learned. Nor is it innate and autonomous. Rather it encompasses a socially intelligent uptake in the culture of artmaking. What is possible is dependent on shared beliefs, desires and intentions which are transformed over time. Broader implications are suggested focusing on the significance of collaboration in creative education and the impact for educational systems, schools and undergraduate programs in art education.

The focus of this thesis is to investigate the use of art therapy in the treatment of an individual diagnosed with schizophrenia. In this qualitative narrative single case study, eleven art therapy sessions are described using non-directive spontaneous art making with a 37-year-old man residing in a psychosocial rehabilitation program. The research study describes this client�s delusional world, and explores the struggle of making sense of his traumatic experiences in early childhood. The themes that emerge in this exploratory study are many and grief and bereavement are the focus as the client uncovers the connections between the past and the present. The process of the art therapy sessions and the progression in the imagery from chaos to serenity is described as the client moves from darkness into light, and as we witness his exploration of space in the images of the whirlwind that reappear throughout the sessions.

I dagens informationssamhälle med många intryck och aktiviteter känner sig människor stressade. Den psykiska ohälsan är stor och den svenska hälso- och sjukvården behöver förbättras för patientgruppen med psykisk ohälsa. Konstskapande aktiviteter är ännu ett relativt okänt område inom sjuksköterskans omvårdnadsarbete. Syftet med litteraturstudien var att belysa hur konstskapande aktiviteter kan påverka patienters psykiska ohälsa och varför konstskapande aktiviteter kan vara betydelsefulla inom sjuksköterskans omvårdnadsarbete. Studien utfördes som en litteraturstudie där 15 vetenskapliga kvalitativa studier, kvantitativa studier och kombinerade studier ingick. Konstskapandet kan ge patienter en bättre psykisk hälsa genom att uttrycka känslor som rädsla, hopp och styrka. Konstskapandet kan lindra olika symptom som smärta, ångest och aptitlöshet. Den personliga utvecklingen kan upplevas öka genom stärkt identitet, meningsfullhet och ett ökat självförtroende. Nya copingstrategier kan utvecklas genom fokusering på konstskapande och ett ökat välbefinnande kan upplevas såväl på lång som kort sikt. Konstskapande i hälso- och sjukvårdsmiljö kan resultera i en upplevelse av en mindre klinisk atmosfär och det sociala nätverket upplevs stärkas genom nya relationer som skapas i samband med konsten. Att använda konstskapande aktiviteter i sjuksköterskans omvårdnadsarbete kan ge möjlighet att lindra patienternas svåra upplevelser och känslor. En öppenhet för nytänkande, bredare kunskaper och användning av evidensbaserad omvårdnad kan hjälpa sjuksköterskan att främja patienters hälsa. Mer forskning inom konstskapandet kopplat till omvårdnad är önskvärt såväl nationellt och internationellt. / In today's information society with many impressions and activities people feel stressed. The mental illness is high and the Swedish health care system needs improvement for these patients. Art-making activities are still a relatively unknown area of nursing care. The purpose of this study was to illustrate how art-making activities can affect patients' mental illness and why art-making activities may be important in nursing care. The study was conducted as a literature review in which 15 scientific qualitative studies, quantitative studies and combined studies were included. Art-making can give patients a better mental health by expressing emotions such as fear, hope and strength. Art-making can relieve various symptoms such as pain, anxiety and loss of appetite. The personal development can be seen to increase by strengthening identity, meaningfulness and increased self-confidence. New coping strategies can be developed by focusing on art-making and increased well-being can be experienced as well as the long and short term. Art-making in the healthcare environment can result in an experience of a less clinical atmosphere and the social network is perceived to be strengthened by new relationships created in the context of art. Using art-making activities in nursing care can provide opportunities to relieve patients' traumatic experiences and feelings. An openness to new ideas, wider knowledge and use of evidence-based care can help nurses to promote patient health. More research in art-making linked to care is desirable, both nationally and internationally.

This thesis researches the proposition that student creativity occurs as a function of misrecognition in the culturally situated context of art classrooms. Following Pierre Bourdieu??s socio-cognitive frameworks of the habitus, symbolic capital and misrecognition this study uses these concepts as a means of navigating teacher-student relationships at moments of creative origination. These concepts predict that exchanges between teachers and students are sites for transactions of symbolic capital where the teacher??s pedagogical role is objectively repressed through the mechanism of misrecognition. The study seeks evidence for creative autonomy as misrecognition as it takes place in classroom transactions and that differing levels of ??tact?? are employed in these exchanges. It emerges that the social reasoning that underscores these exchanges is inferentially sensitive to different contextual points of view, expressed in open secrets, repression, denial and euphemisation. The study finds that the artworks produced evidence degrees of originality that vary in character according to the subtlety of misrecognition that is transacted in these pedagogical exchanges. The case of an art teacher and an art class in the final year of schooling is examined in detail. The design employs an idiographic, qualitative methodology. Methods include observations and interviews which are augmented by digital records. Results are interpreted using a form of semantic analysis and triangulation. Four functions are distilled from the results. These functions govern the way in which misrecognition performs as a contradictory logic in the relationships between the teacher and students which works towards affirming the group??s belief in creative autonomy, while paradoxically, all members take advantage of the contextual inputs that are available. Creative autonomy is revealed as a fiction, nonetheless, a fiction worth nurturing for the successful realisation of creative ends. The study concludes that creativity cannot be strictly taught or learned. Nor is it innate and autonomous. Rather it encompasses a socially intelligent uptake in the culture of artmaking. What is possible is dependent on shared beliefs, desires and intentions which are transformed over time. Broader implications are suggested focusing on the significance of collaboration in creative education and the impact for educational systems, schools and undergraduate programs in art education.

The focus of this thesis is to investigate the use of art therapy in the treatment of an individual diagnosed with schizophrenia. In this qualitative narrative single case study, eleven art therapy sessions are described using non-directive spontaneous art making with a 37-year-old man residing in a psychosocial rehabilitation program. The research study describes this client�s delusional world, and explores the struggle of making sense of his traumatic experiences in early childhood. The themes that emerge in this exploratory study are many and grief and bereavement are the focus as the client uncovers the connections between the past and the present. The process of the art therapy sessions and the progression in the imagery from chaos to serenity is described as the client moves from darkness into light, and as we witness his exploration of space in the images of the whirlwind that reappear throughout the sessions.

This research examined the usefulness of art making in exploring sexuality. Specifically, women participating in partners of sex addicts groups and the LGBTQ online community were invited to take an online survey, exploring both visually and verbally discuss how they view their sexuality and how they think others view their sexuality. The data was then analyzed within and between categories to produce three overarching themes: (1) Expressing sexuality: the tension between the self and others (2) The usefulness of art making to explore sexuality, and (3) Limitations and challenges of the study. Through the discussion of the themes, researchers found a dichotomy between how participants see their sexuality and how others see it. Art was found to be a useful device for exploring the emotionality and complexity of sexuality.