.svg?ext=.svg){kind=logo}
Looking for nuance
The main idea behind musework is that we are all creatives. Some of us just need a little push to feel their creativity. Van Rosmalen is here to give that push. In his professorship (‘lectoraat’) Art and Professionalisation, he and the other HKU professors and students explore how to break the rigid frameworks that are holding back professionals in many occupations. For this mission, they teamed up in 2020 with Vilans – a knowledge institute focused on long-term care – in the project “Authorship Innovation in Practice-Oriented Research’, further joined by HU University of Applied Sciences. The question Vilans wanted to answer: what practical value can musework offer to Vilans consultants while they advise healthcare professionals in tackling the increasing challenges of their daily work? Can they apply creative work forms in their meetings and research methods in such a way that nuance, multiple perspectives and coherence are safeguarded?
Creative zoom sessions
With a freshly obtained SIA-KIEM research grant, the project was launched in early 2020. Right before the corona outbreak… All planned in-person meetings had to be held as video conferences, and the research focus shifted to online communication. For a year, the transdisciplinary group looked for ways to ensure that digital meetings had the same impact as personal contact. Does zooming still allow healthcare professionals to enjoy their work and prevent exhaustion? In the paper that followed after one year of online research, ten participants share their experiences. It reveals that the online sessions were centred on the power of imagination, steering clear from the regular digital information exchange we all got used to during the zoom era.
Caring society
‘While regular work forms are usually about finding instrumental solutions, we artists are looking for something else. Our main concern is strengthening the context in which people cooperate. It is not about finding solutions for organisational problems within healthcare, but about finding a more considerate way of mutual interaction and having an eye for the personal perspective. Creative work forms bring us back to the humane level, and from there we can find connection and inspiration again.’
Chat as script
Bart explains how musal elements can help people towards mutual understanding and inspiration – even online. It starts with learning to speak each other’s language. And in the artist’s method, this might go beyond just words. ‘I like to work with metaphors. Sometimes I ask participants to show a personal object in their home and talk about it. Or to simply create something in five minutes. People are not used to that; creating without purpose or directions. Or writing a narrative during a meeting, such as a brief story about a meaningful event or a letter to each other.’ These are all ways to help people find their own voice and place, to bring them in touch with their work. Bart regards an online session as an audio-visual product, in which the participants are all characters. And thus, he lets the chat screen be recited as a script, while the breakout rooms serve as backstage areas, where people can speak without an audience.