I am currently working on a research project to explore the use of empathic and user-led research
design methods to develop an initial concept for the creation of a mobile
application to enable the deaf dancers I work with in Cambodia to independently record
workshops plans, which will therefore give them more voice and more choice in their work.
The Epic Encounters Company at Epic Arts in Cambodia create dance and theatre based
on issues facing Cambodia and then perform them for the community and
international audiences. The Epic Encounters Company also deliver inclusive movement
based lessons throughout Cambodia and abroad to both children and adults.
The
Epic Encounters Company work together to develop movement based lessons that they
then deliver independently. Most of the team members are illiterate and cannot
record their lessons plans in writing. Currently they record their lessons
plans in note form using stick-figure drawings and sketches or their lessons plans are recorded for them by support staff and then collated
on a computer before being printed out and give to them.
Epic
Arts believes in supporting all its staff and students to be independent and
creative and continuously explores methods to enable people with disabilities
to be independent within their roles. The ‘Epic Arts Communication Policy’
states, “We believed in clear, accessible, high quality and inclusive
communication for everyone. We celebrate the languages in use within our
organisation and embrace inclusive communication in written, spoken or signed
form.” (Epic Arts Inclusion Policy. 2014). ‘The Epic Arts Manifesto’ also
emphasizes the importance placed on inclusive and accessible communication
methods by stating that, “Every person should be enabled to understand information
and instructions through communication in all its different forms.” (The Epic
Arts Manifesto. 2015). Currently the methods available to Epic Encounters to
plan and record movement based lessons are time consuming, at times ineffective
and do not enable the performers to communicate and record independently.
I was recently commissioned to undertake a study into the way that people
with disabilities access the media in Cambodia and the study revealed that 97%
of all staff and students surveyed at Epic Arts use a smart phone or tablet and
are very familiar with the use of mobile applications. Epic
Encounters have access to an iPad and use this sometimes to video and
photograph sign language to use when recording lessons plans. The performers
use the iPad to photograph sign words or other images that represent activities
and then a staff support member will add these images to a lesson plan document
to help the performers to remember activities planned. This mobile application development project aims to
explore the possibilities of incorporating photography and/or video in to a
simple mobile application that could enable the performers to create their own
plans independent of any assistance.
As
the mobile application will be used by the performers and other arts teachers who
are training within Epic Arts, it is essential that the users themselves are involved in the design process. So, this week I conducted the first focus group with the dancers to hear their voices and choices around their personal needs and requirements regarding a planning app. Here is a video of the session;
Working with a graphic designer, I hope to create some initial designs for an app that can be made in to a reality in the future. An app like this will bring great benefit to the dancers and
arts teachers at Epic Arts and it also has the potential to be used by other
artists worldwide who have limited reading and writing skills, but who wish to
use a simple image based method to independently record lesson plans or
activity plans. The mobile application could be used in a number of ways
including enabling users to create daily plans and timetables of activities or
lesson plans in a simple format.
This month I was very lucky to work with Alice Fox from the University of Brighton. Alice is the founder of the Inclusive Arts MA course at the university and also a Board member for Epic Arts. Alice and fellow researcher, Duncan Bullen, worked with students and staff in Cambodia to uncover their hopes and fears. Using rubber stamps, these hopes and fears were captured and then used to create art work and an installation of 'hope' that encircled one of the buildings at the Epic Arts centre in Cambodia. The whole project was focused on giving space to hear peoples voices and thoughts and on providing opportunities to speak, share and communicate desired and fears. Here is a video of the project:
This week I have been exploring further the development of Savy and Sokun at Epic Arts, as they uncover what they feel they need to learn in order to lead the Epic Encounters team effectively.
This week, communication of events was high on the agenda after last weeks discussions on how best to communicate between Savy, Sokun and myself. In our last meeting we explored how we could all keep a check on our meetings and record roles and responsibilities. Both dancers expressed a desire for a personal notebook that was theirs to use in meetings. A simple request, but something that seemed to give value and importance to their new roles. A notebook that enabled independence; they could record things for themselves (in whatever way they wanted to) seemed to give them pride, ownership and a sense of responsibility in their roles.
Savy and Sokun with their note books
Due to many of the dancers, staff and students not be able to read and write, picture based timetables are a key element of communication at Epic Arts. Previously these have been made FOR the Epic Encounters team by someone else and, not BY them. As the dancers themselves do not select the images, it sometimes means they are left confused with what images meant. So Savy, Sokun and myself decided it would be much more effective for someone who uses the picture timetables themselves to make them for the rest of the team with some support. Before we could begin to hand over the role of creating picture timetables for the team, we first had to tackle the fact that Savy has never used a computer before. Sokun has good skills in this area, so we decided that a bit of peer learning/teaching would work well here. So they set about working out together how they could make a picture timetable.
A picture timetable at Epic Arts
This exploration led to further discussions around the development of skills for the Epic Encounters team. Many only learnt to sign from the age of 15, so were unable to access education and as a result have limited reading and writing skills. Savy suggested that all the dancers could learn what he was doing on a computer....so this week Sokun has gone off to explore the small town of Kampot where we are based to see if he can find a teacher who is willing to teach a group of 8 dancers who are deaf how to use word, excel, send an email etc. These are all skills we take for granted, but for many people with disabilities in Cambodia, they are often not able to attend school and therefore do not have access to the development of these skills. The added difficulty here will be to find a teacher who believes that the dancers can in fact learn to use a computer, such is the attitude and perspectives surrounding people with disabilities here.
At Epic Arts we spend most of our time enabling and empowering people with and without disabilities to have a voice and make their own choices in a variety of contexts. This is our day to day work that 'just happens', its a reflection of our collective inclusive attitude and belief that every person is a creative genius and that every person counts! After attending the 'Living Arts in Post-Conflict Forum' in Phnom Penh last week, I was reminded about the power of enabling people who have been oppressed to become leaders and that it makes a huge impact on the development of both individuals and society as a whole and I felt inspired to record, in someway, how we do this! Over the last three years I have developed methods of providing voice and choice to artist, leaders, managers and students in Cambodia with disabilities and those without, with the simple attitude that there is always a way and with a little time, space and adaptability those who previously have been told or made to feel like they 'can't' or 'won't' by society, the community, their family and their government, can in fact be enabled to discover for themselves that they 'can' and 'will'. Over the next few months I am going to try and document the methods used to develop the leadership skills of one of our performers, Savy, as he embarks on training to become a leader of the Epic Encounters performance team in Cambodia. Savy is deaf and does not read or write, he communicates in sign, (although Cambodian Sign has limited vocabulary), pictures and videos. At the moment he is a whizz at using a smart phone but has no computer based skills. He has been a performer for the past 5 years and recently he expressed a desire to learn about the administration of the performance team; learning our bookings, monitoring and touring systems to enable him to take on new roles in the future.
Savy
So we listened and responded.... With the help of Sokun (another performer in the team) who has strong admin and language skills, we will work together with Savy to explore how we can develop his skills, communicate with him effectively and enable him to have a voice and make his own choices whilst also acting as the voice for the other dancers in the company.
Sokun
In the context of Cambodia this will have its additional challenges that I think will become clear throughout the process. But I hope that by in some way documenting this process others will be able to see how it is possible to give a voice and provide choice to a person to enable them to grow into an effective arts leader and prove to those who say 'You can't' and 'You won't' that they are very, very wrong! The video below documents our first discussion with Savy about how he thinks we can begin to approach this development with him. I worked with Savy, Sokun and a sign translator and we used paper, sticky notes, drawings, English and Khmer (and a little bit of miming) to workout the best ways we can communicate, pass information, make a plan for learning and development, discover skills that need to be developed and use the skills of others to help us in this process;
After seeing #manonthemoon all over Twitter, I finally saw the John Lewis Christmas 2015 advert lat night. As I watched it, it got me thinking! It did much more than make me want to
run to John Lewis to do my Christmas shopping, it inspired a ‘light-blub’ moment. As I watched, I began to see the advert
as a way to explore some of the key elements that I feel are essential to making
the arts more inclusive and inspiring successful inclusive arts practice.
I believe that inclusion is more than a 'tick box', that inclusion goes beyond ‘dos and don’ts’, specific ‘inclusion’ projects and ‘integration’ . Through a recent research project, I developed 12 guiding principles for inclusive arts, which you can find in previous posts. The 'light-bulb' moment made me realise that ‘The Man in the Moon’ ties-in with some of these 12 principles……….
1. We all need to be more child-like! - "Every
person should be encouraged to explore, experiment and give it a go’"
In the advert we meet a little girl called Lily. She is bored of watching her brother on his phone and decides she wants
to find a new adventure. By stepping out of her usual way of being and trying
something new, she starts out on a journey of exploration and investigation and
discovers something no one else has ever seen before. This is the exciting/scary
part of making the arts more inclusive, the part where we step out of our
comfort zone and what ‘normally’ happens and then begin to explore and
experiment with new ways of doing things with different people with their
different ways of experiencing and seeing the world. It is important to
remember that we must be child-like in our times of
discovery and encourage each other to be explorers and adventurers in order to
uncover something new that hasn't been found yet
2.
The Man on the Moon – "Every
person deserves the best and to be the best they can be."
When
we see the man on the moon he is isolated in his own world with no one to
connect with and no way of leaving his world to explore new
worlds. He is alone and trapped and probably feeling sad, lonely and scared. He has
no idea about what is going on in the world that he can see in the sky, but cannot be
a part of. Distance separates him, he cannot access the world he sees and enjoy
all the lights, music and dancing... he is just not included in that world.
This
is a thought-provoking image that we can all relate to, but more than that I
think it can help us to see the very reason why arts needs to be inclusive to
all and accessible to all. No one should be the man on the moon, left out and alone; everyone should be enabled to be part of the world and its creativity, lights,
music and dancing. Everyone should be able to access this and to experience the
best that the creative world has to offer to enable them to become the best they
can be.
3. Keep trying and don't give up – “Every
person can be included with a little bit of time, some room for expression and
a ‘listening’ ear."
The
little girl desperately wants to connect with the man in the moon and this
desire pushes her to think creativity and try many different ways to reach the
man. She waves, she writes messages and she shoots rockets in to the sky, all in
an effort to tell him she sees him and she is thinking about him. We can never
stop trying in inclusive arts practice, we need to make the time to try, to
‘listen’, to hear, to watch, to talk, and to understand. This can be frustrating
at times and it can feel like you will never connect, never breakthrough. But
by continuing to try, to experiment, to be patient, then more and more new and innovative
ways to make connections between different people with different experiences
of the world are uncovered.
4. Everyone should be invited to the party- “Every person should be treated according to the same values as anyone else at all times and in all situations."
As the
festive season approaches, the little girl is seen celebrating with her family,
she is part of the world, part of the music and lights and dancing, but she
wants the man in the moon to be part of this too. She sees that he should be
treated the same as everyone else around her, he should be a part of the
celebrations. Obviously posting a present to the moon is tricky, but as she
proves, its not impossible. She has to think creatively and invent a whole new way
of giving a gift and this is exactly what we need to do if we are to make the
arts more inclusive – we need to think and creatively problem solve together,
we need to seek out the possibilities and investigate the ways that we can
change ‘cant do it’ to ‘can do it ’ to enable the arts to be truly inclusive.
5. The
Perfect Gift – “Every person should be
enabled to understand information and instructions through communication in is
all its different forms.”
When
the man on the moon opens the box, it's the most perfect gift for him. It is
more than a kind gift and it is more than a tool, it is a key in to another world
that he can now become part of. We need to be aware of what tools people need
to be able to look in to the world of the arts to ensure everyone can access it, understand it
and be part of if. These tools can be for the physical body, but these tools
can also be emotional and these can support the mind in understanding and learning. Each person
is an expert of their own reality and by talking to people we can begin to
understand what tools everyone needs to become a part of the lights, music and
dancing, to be able to join the party and dance. The man in the moon now has
the right tools to connect, communicate and not feel alone and isolated, now he
can be part of the world and can start to express himself and Lily can learn from him.
6. He looks and he sees – “Every
Person needs to adapt in someway to include others and find a middle ground to
join together on - adaptability is the key to successful inclusive arts.
For the little girl to send the man in the moon the gift he needed to join the party and be included, she had to adapt the way she sent the gift. When the man in the moon opens the box and finds the telescope, he then puts it to his eye and looks. The man in the moon does not leave it in the box and hide it; he engages with it and uses it to see into the unknown world. The little girl has been adaptable and gone 'half way' in her connection to the man by working out how to send him the gift, but he takes a step 'half way' too when he picks up the telescope and uses it.They find a middle ground on which to meet and make a connection to become explorers on a new journey together.
7. What
happens next? – “Every person has a
different experience of the world and his or her involvement in a creative
process makes the end result totally unique.”
The
advert urges to us ‘continue the story’ by linking you to the John Lewis
website where you can learn more about the man in the moon via an app and of
course where you can start your Christmas shopping and ‘Show someone they are
loved this Christmas.’ So the story doesn't end with the gift and the initial
connection with Lily and the man in the moon and it certainly wasn't the end for my
'light-bulb' moment either. It made me wonder 'What developed from their friendship and understanding?' 'What
did they go on to discover from here?' and 'What were they able to learn from each
other?'. This for me is the beginning of the story for being inclusive in the arts,
once everyone can connect with and access the arts world, the ideas are endless
as we learn from each other and begin to understand and accept each other’s
experience of the world and of being human.
8. Who is the man on the moon? – “Everyone is a creative genius”
The
man on the moon is anyone who is not or can not be a part of the arts world because
they aren’t seen, they aren’t understood, they aren’t listened to, they aren’t
invested in or believed in, they don't have the right tools or they aren’t
accepted as creative individuals. We can chose to watch as the ‘man on the
moon’ does his chores alone.
“Lily
watches as he goes about his chores, all alone up there.”-
We
can chose to leave it at that and return to our own party……..or we can be
determined to do things differently, be determined to send a message, be
determined to include everyone and be determined to see everyone as a creative
genius who should be invited to the party to enjoy the lights, the music and the
dancing with everyone else.
“She
becomes determined to get something to the moon, to send him a message and show
him that someone down here is thinking of him.”- John Lewis Website.
