Connection through Creativity

We all learn differently, we communicate and engage differently, and have different needs out of how we communicate and connect with others. Working across a range of settings and projects, we have both been exploring creative and arts-based methods in our work for many years. In Laura’s doctoral research and Helen’s fire education research in Lebanon, photovoice was a central method that invited in-depth, personal and intimate visual explorations of fire risk. The photo here shows Master’s students at the University of Manchester’s Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute engaging with another creative method Helen uses to explore fire risk: visual mapping. After exploring photographs of various human settlements, the students moved into small groups to undertake the visual mapping task which Helen had used within Palestinian and Syrian ‘camps’ in Lebanon. Working through creativity, negotiating their own ‘camp’ design with colleagues, the students gained a more complex, holistic and critical perspective of fire risk and the unintended consequences of technocratic and universalised approaches to fire risk reduction.