Research

INTRODUCTION

Coastal communities have complex bodies of knowledge, know-how, and experience of living in their changing environment. Some approaches to sustainability science portray these coastal communities as vulnerable people in need of external solutions, with extractive forms of research dominating (O‛Brien et al. 2007, Weatherill 2023, Gianelli et al. 2024). Framing communities through a “damage-centered” lens (Sarmiento et al. 2020) only serves to disenfranchise and disempower local communities while advancing dominant Western scientific framings of nature, sustainability, and environmental governance (Leach 2008). These tensions are particularly acute when considering diverse communities and their experiences of environmental change in the Global South.

Visual, creative, and artistic methods are increasingly integrated into interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary sustainability research as an alternative to positivist and western-centric analyses (Rose 2014, Scheffer et al. 2017, Paterson et al. 2020, Vervoot et al. 2024). These approaches share a common use of imagination and interpretation to build trust and empathy, explore different perspectives, open up dialog among different people and challenge established ways of thinking about issues (Edwards et al. 2016, Cohen-Miller 2018, Brown et al. 2019). Integrating arts-based methods within sustainability research is, thus, an important tool in breaking down barriers in what are often complex and contested social-ecological systems.

To date, the literature in what Pröpper (2017) refers to as artistic sustainability research has largely focused on individual practices, articulating the practicalities and insights developed from specific engagements (see also Vervoot et al. 2024). In this paper, we expand the focus. Our approach comprised eight methods, summarized in five categories here: (1) co-learning and gift exchange; (2) object and photo elicitation and fine-art photography; (3) walking interviews; (4) participatory three-dimensional modeling (P3DM) and participatory video; and (5) exhibiting and communicating coastscapes. We present the approach as a concertina of methods, which can be reduced or expanded to suit different project contexts (Fig. 1). An element can take 2 h, and many elements can take one to several days.

This paper is a reflection of the arts-based methods themselves as the foundations of an action research process. Our objective is to showcase how the “concertina” approach acts as a research assemblage that brings together different people (as individuals or groups), objects, senses, angles, contexts, scales, disciplines, epistemologies, and perspectives (Fox and Aldred 2015, 2017). It involves making, reflecting, sharing, and exhibiting and aims to build trust, empathy, and knowledge. Participants themselves play multiple roles as creators, interpreters, analysts, and audiences within an “ethnographic place” (Pink 2015). We argue that employing such methods together—simultaneously or sequentially—as an assemblage can enhance their value in transdisciplinary research.

We begin the paper with a targeted review of literature on the potential of arts-based methods to advance transdisciplinary research. We then present our approach. We lead with images of our approach and reflect on the specific practicalities and contributions of each, individually and as part of a concertinaed, layered approach. In the discussion, we draw together our reflections on some foundational procedural tenets for artistic, transdisciplinary sustainability research.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Arts-based methods offer numerous benefits for transdisciplinary sustainability research (e.g., Helguera 2011, Scheffer et al. 2015, 2017, Westley and Folke 2018, Paterson et al. 2020, Vervoot et al. 2024). Artists are skilled at working reflexively, aesthetically, with high uncertainty, and with experiential, emotional, and sensory types of knowledge. Artistic methods themselves can be symbolic, emotive, provocative, and emancipatory. Incorporation of artists and artistic methods can thus build trust and address power asymmetries, enhance engagement and the depth of inquiry, open up novel framings and meanings, and better connect knowledge to collective action.

Power and trust

A key challenge in all transdisciplinary research is the need to redress power imbalances across disciplines and types of expertise (scientist, manager, artist, citizens) (Herr and Anderson 2008, Pohl et al. 2010). In arts-based research, participants, their objects, and their outputs are viewed as meaning-makers not “passive conduits for retrieving information” (Holstein and Gubrium 1995:83 in Gibson 2019, Roos 2019). This phenomenological approach moves away from ideas of “experts” and reduces the distance and differences in power relations among participants, partners, artists, and researchers (Iltanen and Topo 2015, Strand et al. 2022). As foundations for trust building, the literature highlights the importance of (1) previous processes or relationships (Gianelli et al. 2024), (2) moving slowly and listening (Heras et al. 2021), and (3) first impressions: “it is a good idea to introduce yourself properly [who you are, where you come from], not pretending to simply be representative of data and ideas” (Österblom et al. 2023:4).

Place and connection

Arts-based research sees experiential knowledge as spatially as well as socially constructed. Where more extractive forms of research see knowledge as global, phenomenological approaches reveal information that differs from one space to another (Sin 2003, Strand et al. 2022). Pink (2015) refers to emplaced sensory ethnography (building on Etienne Wenger’s “knowing in practice” theory) to describe knowledge that is specific, experiential, and “inextricable from [our] sensorial and material engagement with the environment” and with each other (Pink 2015:40). In practical terms, the concepts of the “walking”, “go-along,” and “mobile” interviews provide a flexible approach that uses movement through a familiar landscape to facilitate place-based insights that may not be captured by conventional methods (Elwood and Martin 2000, Carpiano 2009). Participant-led walking interviews can further mitigate the power dynamics between researcher and participant (Sin 2003, Anderson 2004, Antona 2018), and stimulate a reconnection with the surrounding environment, important for action research in sustainability (Österblom et al. 2023).

Deeper understandings

Arts-based methods aim to explore subjects in original, provocative, and playful ways in order to transcend established problem–solution narratives (Edwards et al. 2016). For many arts-based scholars, materiality and the senses are vital for reflecting in deeper and more emotional ways on issues (Gibson 2019). For example, object elicitation, whereby participants select and talk about everyday objects of importance to them in relation to the phenomenon under investigation, engages other senses in addition to the visual. Its value is in unlocking memories and eliciting unrehearsed reflections on everyday experiences, values, and identities, often in sensitive or challenging contexts (Willig 2016). Object elicitation shares similarities to photo elicitation where both are recognized for their ability to access “deeper elements of human consciousness than do words-alone interviews” (Harper 2002:13, Sofaer 2009). Other methods can similarly employ multi-sensory techniques to “tap into the full intelligence of the body” (Vervoot et al. 2024:8).

Arts-based methods are promoted as a way to tap into memory and past experiences and, at the same time, to open up creative spaces for future thinking (remembering, imagining, and re-imagining; Strand et al. 2022). Participatory modeling and visualization methods that use three-dimensional space can be particularly effective approaches, allowing for depth, height, and width to be explored in an imagined space as well as texture (Integrated Approaches to Participatory Development (IAPAD)). Vitally, the making of artistic outputs are not simply “snapshots” but cultural processes that can connect participants to longer-term goals (Zurva and Berkes 2014 in Gianelli et al. 2024).

New perspectives and collective action

Arts-based methods can bring in diverse perspectives and foster creative thinking (Paterson et al. 2020, Gianelli et al. 2024). They can carefully connect older and younger generations and different kinds of knowledge holders, thereby bringing in currently marginalized perspectives. For instance, Strand and colleagues (2022) use photographs and storytelling to bring the “unheard voices” of local and Indigenous residents to marine planning in South Africa. Perspective sharing can be fun, help build empathy, and generate collective visions and agency (Walsh 2016, Brown et al. 2019, Gianelli et al. 2024). Helguera (2011:13) argues that, by willingly engaging in an arts-led dialog, communities can “extract enough critical and experiential wealth to walk away feeling enriched, perhaps even claiming some ownership of the experience or ability to reproduce it with others.”

RESEARCH CONTEXT

Our project piloted a concertina of eight arts-based methods in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO). It was co-designed and implemented in close partnership with two practitioner organizations from the WIO: Reef Conservation (Mauritius) and Mwambao Coastal Community Network (Tanzania). Together, we ran arts-based activities in Mauritius over 2 d with practitioners and policy makers from across the WIO (Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Seychelles, Tanzania; n = 20). We also piloted methods with communities in Anse-La-Raie and Roches Noires, Mauritius and Fundo Island, Zanzibar. These communities have long-standing relationships with the practitioner partners. In each case, the full concertina of methods was piloted over a week, although the specific sequence and approach were adapted for each context. This paper reports on the reflections of the researchers, artists, and practitioners involved in terms of (1) the inspiration and motivation underpinning each set of methods and (2) observations of how participants engaged and responded to activities.

ARTS-BASED METHODS

1. Co-learning and gift exchange: redressing power imbalance in transdisciplinary and transnational research

The performance of gift-giving can be an important component of research positionality: a purposeful attempt to break down difference and shift power imbalances between researchers and community members (accepting it is difficult to do). This can establish the credibility of the artist/researcher and dissolve distinctions between insiders and outsiders by demonstrating a shared understanding of processes of exchange and co-learning (Bonner and Tolhurst 2002). The exchanging of gifts to build trust, show care and appreciation to research participants, and enhance co-learning has ethical considerations. Symbolic gift exchange can be a powerful tool for building connections. It differs from token gifting of objects with no relevance to the research (e.g., vouchers, key rings). Nevertheless, it is important to ensure that symbolic performances of gift exchange do not get referenced to colonial exchanges of objects. The narrative and intentions that accompany the gift-giving are important.

In our project, the practitioner partners had established relationships with participants and their local communities, but the artists and researchers did not. To show respect, we commenced the collaboration with a “proper introduction” (Österblom et al. 2023): a gentle gifting of symbolic objects from the artists’ home and place of work (Fig. 2). Importantly, a story was shared to explain the meaning of the gift. The gifted lobster pot was from the artists’ home community, from the last lobster pot maker in the village. Attached to the lobster pot were gifts from local micro-businesses, showcasing local livelihoods, and postcards depicting the artists’ sense of place and shared coastal heritage with the community. The gift aimed to portray shared values, problems, and aspirations as coastal citizens and to validate our reasons for being there. Participants nominated who they wanted to receive the gift on their behalf: the youngest, an elder, a woman, the leader. In Mauritius, the community nominated their youngest member explaining that he was the future and should therefore care for the object gifted. In Zanzibar, the community decided to reciprocate the gift giving by providing coconuts and cooking food for the research team.

2. Object elicitation and fine-art photography: delving deeper through meaningful multi-sensory engagement with the environment

Our project employed object elicitation to actively engage multiple senses in accessing deeper understandings of participants’ everyday connections to the coast. We then further explored perspective and interpretation through contemplating two- and three-dimensional imagery and artistry (e.g., Rauschenberg’s “Monogram” [1955–1959]). We looked at photography as a creative discipline rather than as a tool of scientific enquiry or recording. We highlighted the importance of photographic objects to participants and spoke about the ability of photographs to act as an artefact that held events (Strathern 1990 in Strathern 2021), potential futures (ibid) and multiple meanings (e.g., Joshua Sofaer’s (2010) mass participation art project: “Object Retrieval”).

In each case site, we tailored these methods to participants’ livelihoods and commitments. Common across each application were four actions. First, we used the everyday object as an ice-breaking exercise. When we met for the first time, participants could hold something they knew well and could share something easily and with ease. We invited them to hold up their object and say why it was important them.

Second, we used object elicitation to show our openness to learning about the respondents, their community, and environment in a visual or multi-sensory way. We wanted to show that we were not going to work in a “clipboard way” with a set of predetermined questions (Prosser 2006). Active looking at and listening to participants speak about their object helped us as artists and researchers to understand the energy, tone, concerns, and optimism participants were bringing to the conversation and allowed us to work collaboratively and authentically with them.

Third, we could learn information about the participants’ coastline but now also see and feel its material qualities through handling coastline objects. We could understand why particular objects were important to participants’ lives and their futures. This aspect of thinking about the object derives in part from object biographies, a method that looks at how people think about the world through objects and argues that objects also have agency (Gell 1998).

Finally, we aimed to bring attention to the objects. We emphasized the touch, scale, and smell of the object through the symbolic action of sharing it. We celebrated its life by creating an image of it, using fine-art photographic methods, to consider its aesthetic qualities and agency. With community participants in Mauritius, we invited the object bearers to fill glass jars with seawater: they chose to do this from their pontoon and walked us there. They were then asked to place the objects symbolically into the jars of seawater, and we created images of this. At first, the size and texture of the glass and the scooping of the seawater in the jars from the pontoon made people laugh, have fun, and relax. These mechanical “doing” actions gave way to a much quieter and reflective atmosphere as participants and researchers watched the objects floating or sinking in the jar (Fig. 3). On Fundo Island, the communities’ objects were re-used in their three-dimensional coastscape model (see Method 4 below). On completion, for the symbolic stage, they selected items that represented the best and worst aspects of their future resilience, put them in a waterproof “Ocean Basket” (made by a Cornish basket maker, Geraldine Jones, and gifted to the community of Fundo as part of the gift-exchange), and filled the basket with water embodying their intrinsic relationship with the coast. Whichever way we worked, the goal was the same, to pull the object from its original setting but to keep a phenomenological stage in order to amplify the agency of the object (Tilley 1998) and connectivity between participants and their social and environmental contexts.

3. Walking interviews: orienting resilience within the coastscape

To expand our overall approach and the importance of links among place, object, and narratives, we integrated walking, collecting, and recording (Evans and Jones 2011). In Fundo, the local community guided the artists and researchers on a 2.96 km walking interview (Fig. 4). Participants were encouraged to pick up parts of the natural environment as talking points during the interview as well as for the next day’s object elicitation exercise. Photographs were taken at the key spots by both the researchers and the participants, as were GPS readings and dictaphone recordings when possible. The intention was to enable visual and audio documentation without compromising the fluidity of the method. After the initial, formal introduction to the project, the walking interview created a noticeably more informal atmosphere. It also appeared to engage female community members, who became eager to highlight locations that were important to their daily interactions with the marine environment. Local partners, Mwambao Coastal Community Network, observed that, in contrast to mixed-gender workshops, these methods were “outside-of-the-box” - both in terms of the format and the physical space—and seemed to play a subtle role in disrupting gender dynamics in this conservative, patriarchal society.

In Mauritius, boating and swimming were also employed as part of the “go-along” approach, a means for traveling on and in the seascape, with participants guiding the artists and researchers through a mangrove forest they had protected from development to “the swimming hole.” These experiences were pivotal in fostering informality and forming bonds and understanding between participants and researchers. It was, however, logistically difficult to record information as the experiential nature of the activity meant that the artists and researchers had to “just join in” and “take in the moment,” creating brief visual and video moments of the events when possible.

4. Participatory three-dimensional modeling (P3DM) and participatory video: handling the raw material of the coastscape to unlock perspectives of resilience through different senses

Following previous steps, our ambition was to further extend the use of multi-sensory, artistic methods for accessing memory, experiential knowledge, emotion, and visions for the future. To do so, our project employed a novel participatory 3-dimensional modeling (P3DM) method developed by the lead author and previously trialed in terrestrial contexts (TAGSCAPE, Williamson 2016). The coastscape P3DM method was inspired by Fish Tank Sonata by the American photographer Arthur Tress. Tress carried a 100-year-old aquarium across the USA over 4 yr. Stopping en route, the artist-photographer would find “flea-market trash” from the 1940–1950s and assemble these in the aquarium. The Fish Tank Sonata is a provocative tableau of photographs reflecting on life and environmental responsibility (Tress 2000).

We took our first trials of the coastscape method to Mauritius. We combined it with methods 2 and 3 above to create a crescendo effect, to build excitement and deepen discussions. Participants (1) collect objects as part of the object elicitation method, (2) gather material such as plants and rubbish during the walking interviews, and (3) work in groups and discuss what they want to model or express about their seascape. Participants were encouraged to “go back out” into the land—the littoral zone—and collect further found material if they needed it. We then invited each group to place objects and material in their coastscape tank to model the seascape as either a representation, simulation, or abstraction of their coast—anything they decide as a group that they want to say (Fig. 5).

Underpinning our approach were two considerations. First, the modeling is not just about the placing of objects but the collecting and sensory unlocking of knowledge as such material is touched, smelled, torn apart, stuck together. Second, the group work is important. This unlocking of knowledge builds on the idea that “individuals themselves cannot be the source of knowing.”. Rather, knowing is contingent on its connectedness both historically and with others.

Once the models were near completion, we began to ask participants open questions about their coastscape. They carried on working on their models while we carefully approached their making time. Building on Pink’s idea of researchers and participants creating an “ethnographic place,” we put forward that, at this crescendo point, we were co-creating models that could act like stages, almost theater boxes where participants could perform and imagine the past and futures in this space (Pink 2015:49). Through a final action, we asked the groups to stop working and stand by each others’ coastscapes. Each group then talked about what they had made to extend the “knowing in practice” across groups.

On Fundo Island, the P3DM approach followed participatory resource mapping and took a different form. Community members were asked to create a visual representation of their island, a detailed two-dimensional map that highlighted places of importance such as villages, fishing grounds, and coral reefs using materials collected from the beach (e.g., seaweed, leaves, coconut husks, bits of plastic, etc.) (Fig. 6). The participants then mapped the items they had brought for the object elicitation activity onto specific points of relevance on the map. For example, a mobile phone was used to represent connections with fish buyers on the mainland, and corn was used to represent important farming areas as well as the impacts of climate change. Again a theater-like stage was created, a visceral tangible imaginative “ethnographic place” (Pink 2015), but this time, facilitators and participants could actually stand in the model—the mapped coastscape—when reflecting on environmental change on the island.

5. Coastscape communicators: creating a legacy

In our project, ownership of artistic outputs, replication of methods, and continued communication were facilitated by encouraging practitioner and community participants to continuously document and share their experiences. In addition to the fine-art photography (method 2), we integrated light-touch participatory video into all activities (Mwambao Coastal Community Network 2011). This followed Susan Sontag’s (2019:4) approach to photographs as “images [that] do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire.” The process rather than the outcome was the focus—encouraging participants to pick up and play with the video technology to spark interest and enjoyment from the interactions themselves.

Participants also videoed and photographed their coastscapes (Fig. 7) and were encouraged to extend points of view and manipulate the surrounding environment to suit the feeling they were trying to evoke. As an example, the youngest members of a group in Mauritius turned out the lights and lit up one of the coastscapes as they contemplated “how they would cope if the reef was so damaged it didn’t exist in the future?” The silence held was dramatic. Everybody thought deeply about this question before discussing what it meant. We captured these performative moments on camera (Fig. 8).

Exhibiting the creative work was another important step in creating a legacy and fostering ongoing communication, collaboration, and action. On Fundo Island, while the community were creating their map of the island (Fig. 6), the researchers created a surprise “pop-up” photographic exhibition, using a portable printer and pinning photographs to a fishing net. The exhibition provided a further medium for the community to discuss their relationship with their environment through their “outputs” and where they would like to take this work in the future. The exhibition was then quickly dismantled and the photographs shared so each participant had something of him or herself after the process.

In Mauritius, the artists and researchers created a framework for the exhibition—photographs were hung from a fishing net stretching from one side of a conference room to another, video of different methods was projected on a screen, and collected objects were laid out in the order of time they were “bagged” or “basketed.” Participants were then invited to add their coastscapes. The participants couldn’t believe the setting when they walked in: there were smiles and laughs of delight when they saw themselves, their objects displayed as “art” and sighs when they caught the extra dramatic moments such as the example in Fig. 8. The pinnacle of this culmination of activities was that different communities (Anse-La-Raie and Roches Noires) and different stakeholders (government, practitioner, communities) met for the first time to discuss the work each other made.

DISCUSSION

This paper outlines a concertina of arts-based methods employed to foster co-learning and action research on arts-based practice in the WIO. Used together, by which we mean using more than one method simultaneously (e.g., object elicitation and fine-art photography) or sequentially (walking interviews and PD3M coastscapes) can, we suggest, extend the benefits of singular arts-based methods by convening diverse research assemblages and building a crescendo effect with enduring memories and learning for participants, researchers, and artists. In other contexts, the specific methods used to build trust, deepen enquiry, or nurture legacy may differ to ours. We suggest that it is their combination and the principles behind them that will enhance transdisciplinary sustainability research. To that end, in this discussion, we draw out some of the fundamental procedural tenets that underpinned our approach, which we argue can help promote a meaningful and equitable co-learning approach in other contexts.

Experiential learning

We took a phenomenological approach focusing intentionally and intensively on people’s individual and shared experiences and values. For example, the gift exchange and object elicitation activities emphasized first-person perspectives on the everyday experiences of living with coastal systems, which in turn opened up different ways of thinking and talking about resilience. This follows Popa and colleagues’ (2015) assertion that effective transdisciplinarity works as an open invitation not directly pinpointed to the subject of sustainability (also Willig 2016). The objects, in particular, allow the unique, varied, and diverse sensorial feelings that surround them to be present. The agency that existed between the participants and the objects in a phenomenological context, we argue, creates memorable, rich data and allows time-depth to emerge. The objects can speak to the past, present, and future of these coastal communities.

Playfulness

We aimed to promote playfulness among participants and between participants and objects and activities. The swimming, coastscape modeling, and exhibiting activities all involved a playfulness that was reflected in participants’ smiles, laughter, and evident enjoyment. In his detailed critique of participatory methods, Walsh (2016:410) concludes that, although it might “seem like an immaterial factor ... involving people in reflecting on difficult issues in their lives through ... play ... has many intangible and politically important benefits.” Exploring subjects in provocative and playful ways is key to transcending knowledge boundaries and established narratives (Edwards et al. 2016, Gianelli et al. 2024). In particular, activities that require little attention, such as walking, or that involve making and creating new “things” can deepen engagement and improve problem solving (Gauntlett 2011 in Edwards et al. 2016, Scheffer et al. 2017).

Multi-sensory creativity

We were particularly interested in promoting multi-sensory creativity in this project. We wanted to encourage participants to use all their senses, not just looking—touch, taste, balance, traveling through the coastscape—to draw out data and elicit sometimes difficult and emotional experiences (Warren 2008). We also explored ideas in multi-dimensions from photographs, to objects, to two- and three-dimensional models of the coastscape. New materialism becomes important here. Gibson (2019) talks about the importance of materiality and the senses—the size, touch and smell of objects—for unlocking memories and the meanings of objects as reflections on people’s past, present, and future. Objects can act as “neutral mediators” of emotions, allowing participants to express themselves more effectively (Iltanen and Topo 2015). Gibson (2019) also notes the potential of objects used in group settings to trigger collective memories and open up discussion on shared values. In our project too, the materiality of objects and activities (e.g., the touch and smell of items placed in the P3DM coastscapes) was important to elicit individual, collective, and intergenerational perspectives.

Pragmatism

We were careful to ensure methods were practical and could be adapted for the WIO context by practitioners and participants themselves. Close collaboration with practitioner partners leveraged their expertise in capacity building and fostered an understanding of local logistical and resource constraints before, during, and after on-the-ground activities. Pragmatism allowed the project to be led by and incorporate their interests. It enabled a melding of approaches within the concertina so different combinations could be used together or hybrid approaches developed. Indeed, hybrid methods have been adopted in subsequent activities by some of the practitioner and government collaborators. Further afield, the P3DM coastscape method has been adapted by Andy Hughes in a public art event in South Korea (Hughes 2023) and included in a toolkit for co-monitoring rural regeneration interventions in “Ruritage” (Martin et al. 2021). At a more philosophical level and reflecting literature on socially engaged art, social experimentation and learning, pragmatism helps to avoid positivist, purist, and singular notions of truth or expert knowledge (Helguera 2011, Freire 2014, Popa et al. 2015).

Challenges

Two particular challenges arose that were pertinent to the arts-based concertina approach. First was the potential for “creative fatigue.” Arts-based approaches add a layer of intensity to participatory research, particularly where multiple methods are used. On one hand, fatigue is lessened with arts-led methods because, although it is resource heavy, the rewards are rich as a result of the high quality engagement (Black et al. 2023). In our case, this was the first time most participants had engaged with object elicitation, fine-art photography or the P3DM coastscape method so it was exciting and motivating. However, it is also possible that repetitive cycles of research that integrate arts-based methods could erode some of the benefits, and then it becomes essential to more carefully consider the audience, questions, and medium (Morrison et al. 2022). If you were to return to the same group or engage new groups already familiar with arts-based research, it would be important to co-develop the concertina approach to agree the focus of research and to adapt methods so the new engagement adds value, building on previous endeavor.

Second, was the tension between playful and meaningful action research (social legitimacy) and systematically collecting research data (scientific reliability) (Popa et al. 2015, Vervoot et al. 2024). Analysis of multi-sensory data is laborious (Iltanen and Topo 2015), and it is challenging to render data capture entirely “invisible.” Our approach of using multiple, real-time approaches to embed data collection into the creative “fun” of activities through audio recording, photography, participatory video, and P3DM coastscapes meant a huge volume of diverse data was produced, more than could be analyzed within our budget and timescales (Fig. 9). Our practitioner partners are embedded and able to continue the conversations with the communities and stakeholders involved in this project but, nevertheless, for future research, more resources are needed for the full exploration of the material as “data.”

CONCLUSION

This paper reports on a pilot of arts-based methods that can be used individually or together in sustainability research. We present five categories of methods as a concertina that can be reduced and expanded to suit the needs of participants, researchers, and artists. These methods include approaches to breaking down power hierarchies and building trust to documenting and exhibiting creative outputs and caring for their project “after-life.” We propose fundamental procedural tenets to promote a meaningful and equitable co-learning approach regardless of the specific arts-based method. In essence, these methods bring together a diverse assemblage of actors, objects, knowledges, and outcomes and advance pragmatic, playful, multi-sensory, and phenomenological interactions. The approach showcases the potential of arts-based methods to work in combination to break down cultural barriers and foster empathy for others and for the natural environment, crucial elements for transdisciplinary collaborations going forward.

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