IMAGINE – A Community-Engaged Arts-Based Research Workshop

Workshop mit Jill Halstead und Wolfgang Schmid

Anmeldung unter: alexander.lederer@gmpu.ac.at

Ort: @ Lehrsaal Haus der Bauern (8. Mai-Straße 47, 2. Stock)

How do you want to be cared for and care for yourself during times of dying, loss, and grief? This deeply personal and existential question lies at the heart of IMAGINE, a community-engaged arts-based research project conducted at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. Being asked about dying, death and grief can evoke strong emotions. It may remind us of our own existence and vulnerability, and the scope of support we have received and provided in unsettling times. Thus, how we respond to loss and grief intimately corresponds with our attitude to life, the values we hold, our capacity and willingness to act and to co-create the lives we wish to live. In this workshop these themes are approachedthrough engagement with artistic materials and processes, combining creative activities with open conversations, performances and reflexive dialogue in a safe and supportive environment. Participants are invited to draw, make music or poetry, share stories, envision, explore and express their thoughts about care, both for themselves and for others.

Wolfgang Schmid is Professor of Music Therapy, Deputy Director and Head of Research at the Grieg Academy, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen (UiB), Norway. He holds a part-time position as a music therapy practitioner-researcher at the Palliative Care Centre, Haukeland University Hospital. His research interests cover qualitative, mixed-methods and arts-based work in interdisciplinary, participatory and educational practice. Recently, he has collaborated with Tia DeNora and Gary Ansdell in the project Care for Music (2019-2023), looking at how and why dying people use music to take care for themselves and others. Currently, he leads the IMAGINE project, exploring how community engagement with arts can stimulate broader societal awareness for how we want to care and be cared for in times of fundamental change and loss. Wolfgang is founding member of the interdisciplinary New European Bauhaus group at UiB.

Jill Halstead is Professor of Music at the Grieg Academy, University of Bergen, where she leads the Grieg Research School in Interdisciplinary Music Studies, a research education consortium of five universities on Norway’s west coast. Her work integrates creative musical practice and research within feminist traditions, focusing on how musical participation is shaped by social, cultural, and institutional conditions.She has specialised in participatory projects with marginalised communities, including work with older adults, and in composing music for film and dance theatre that addresses ageing, dis/ability, and loss. Since 2018, she has collaborated with Brandon LaBelle on Social Acoustics, exploring listening as a social and relational practice. She led the Erasmus+-funded Music4Change project (2022–2025), focused on social and environmental sustainability in music research and education, and is founder of the Gender, Technology, Participation network, a transdisciplinary initiative which advocates for equity in music and audio technologies.