As the title of the project suggests, in our research project we are working with the art-viewing method Art-Based Learning. In this blog, you will read more about what Art-Based Learning is, what the different steps in the method are, and why we are investigating this method in the context of palliative care.

What is Art-Based Learning?

Art-Based Learning is an art-viewing method developed by Jeroen Lutters. The idea of Art-Based Learning is that you learn something from art,rather than about art. Knowledge of art is therefore not necessary. Theparticipant enters into a dialogue, as it were, with the work of art, whichLutters (2020) calls the “speaking object. The dialogue eventually leads totelling your own story, to giving meaning to what you have learned. Art-Based Learning is a form of creative learning and thinking, in which the participantis challenged to self-reflect and can gain a new form of knowledge through art.

What are the four steps of Art-Based Learning?

The Art-Based Learning method consists of four steps. A specially trained and certified facilitator guides the participant, or participants, through the four steps. So, initially, you are not doing it alone, but under guidance.

1.         Asking questions

It starts with asking “a personal question. The spectator asks themselves a relevant, urgent, perhaps even an existential question. This question is also let go, returning to it only at the end.

2.         Speaking objects

The objects can begin to “speak". The viewer chooses an art object and listens to what that work of art has to tell him or her. A so-called close reading of the art object follows, in which the spectator is invited to describe the work of art as objectively and accurately as possible, to familiarize themselves with it.

3.         Possible worlds

Thespectator dives into “the possible worlds". The spectator steps into the performance, as if the artwork is a passage to another world.  In this stage, the viewer becomes a creator.

4.         Storytelling.

It ends uptelling its own story. In this stage, meaning is given to that which took placein the earlier stages. The viewer returns to the original question and reflectson what has happened to him/her/they. What are new insights, and what do you take away?

“The first law of ABL: Live with questions and a new world reveals itself.” (Lutters, 2020, p. 71).

Why Art-Based Learning in palliative care?

Receiving a life-threatening diagnosis, such as incurable cancer, can turn that person's world upside down. “The ground sank beneath my feet,” is a common statement. These kinds of drastic events can cause a rift in a person's life story. It can be very difficult for people to make sense of such an event, to integrate it, as it were, into your new life story.

We would like to explore whether Art-Based Learning, with its narrative approach, can support cancer patients in making sense of life with an incurable illness. Can looking at art help them, and if so, how? These are questions central to our research project, which we hope to find answers to in the coming years.

Curious about what we already know? A pilot study took place in 2020 to explore the feasibility of Art-Based Learning in palliative care. There is a short article about this pilot in Amsterdam UMC's employee magazine. Want to know more? Researcher and artist Silvia Russel also wrote an article about the pilot, published in the journal Palliative Medicine, which you can read here.

References

Lutters, J. (2020). Art-Based Learning. Handboek creatief opleiden. Uitgeverij Coutinho: Bussum.