Thinking and caring with arts-based research: an assemblage of methods to promote public health

What do we learn when we invite others to make and create? How can drawing, cutting and pasting, repurposing objects, and photography enable us to explore complex, or hard-to-talk about experiences? What do we miss when we ask only with words, and not with action? This article explores these questions, demonstrating how to enact different arts-based research methods in practices of inquiry to open the process of thought and care in research related to public health. With reference to one line of inquiry as an exemplar – namely, how to promote care – this article reveals the complementary value of several arts-based research methods – these include: found objects; body mapping; collective collage making; and photography. This article: presents an overview of arts-based research methods, explaining what they are (and are not) and their purpose; demonstrates how arts-based research might be used to promote care; clarifies the benefits, limitations, and ethical considerations associated with arts-based research; and invites readers to consider how they might incorporate arts-based research in their scholarship, highlighting particular questions that warrant consideration.