Dialogue as social sculpture: a visual method of graphic-ethnography for storytelling: Exploring participation and collaboration in research and socially-engaged arts

This chapter outlines research which aimed to articulate stories of connection and association within the context of an externally funded international, interdisciplinary research project – Acting on the Margins: Art as Social Sculpture (AMASS). It introduces and discusses a novel auto-ethnographic visual tool which was developed to elicit participants’ reflection on experiences which influenced the development of productive relationships among project stakeholders in the period during which the project's research proposal was generated. Taking inspiration from Tim Ingold's notion of ‘correspondence’ and George Levinger's model for mapping ‘interpersonal relationship’, the tool was used to guide 14 socially engaged art experts by way of a series of visual prompts through four phases which mapped the processes of association, consolidation, continuation and transformation, revealing the internal and external challenges faced during their relationship development. Through this use of participatory visual methods to reveal moments of attachment and dialogue, this chapter looks to identify how a critical lens of correspondence can help to understand the factors which contribute to the development of constructive and sustainable partnerships within the messy context of complex socially engaged arts, considering changing stakeholder needs, competing or contrasting organisational structures and the requirements of institutional and municipal regulation.