As the title of theproject suggests, in our research project we are working with the art-viewingmethod Art-Based Learning. In this blog, you will read more about whatArt-Based Learning is, what the different steps in the method are, and why weare investigating this method in the context of palliative care.

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What is Art-BasedLearning?

Art-Based Learning is an art-viewing method developed by Jeroen Lutters. The idea of Art-Based Learning is that you learn somethingfrom art,rather than about art. Knowledge of art is therefore not necessary.Theparticipant enters into a dialogue, as it were, with the work of art,which Lutters (2020) calls the “Speaking Object". The dialogue eventually leads to telling your own story, to giving meaning to what you have learned. Art-Based Learning is a form of creative learning and thinking, in which the participantis challenged to self-reflect and can gain a new form of knowledge through art.

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What are the foursteps of Art-Based Learning?

The Art-BasedLearning method consists of four steps. A specially trained and certifiedfacilitator guides the participant, or participants, through the four steps.So, initially, you are not doing it alone, but under guidance.

1. Asking questions. It starts with asking a personal question. The spectator asks themselves a relevant, urgent, perhaps even an existential question. This question is also let go, returning to it only at the end.
2. Speaking objects. The objects canbegin to “speak". The viewer chooses an art object and listens to what that work of art has to tell him or her. A so-called close reading of the art object follows, in which the spectator is invited to describe the work of art as objectively and accurately as possible, to familiarize themselves with it.
3. Possible worlds. Thespectator divesinto “the possible worlds". The spectator steps into the performance, as if the artwork is a passage to another world.  In this stage, the viewerbecomes a creator.
4. Storytelling. It ends up telling its own story. In this stage, meaning is given to that which took placein theearlier stages. The viewer returns to the original question and reflectson whathas happened to him/her/they. What are new insights, and what do you take away?

“The first law of ABL:Live with questions and a new world reveals itself.” (Lutters, 2020, p. 71).

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Why Art-BasedLearning in palliative care?

Receiving alife-threatening diagnosis, such as incurable cancer, can turn that person'sworld upside down. “The ground sank beneath my feet,” is a common statement.These kinds of drastic events can cause a rift in a person's life story. It canbe very difficult for people to make sense of such an event, to integrate it,as it were, into your new life story.

We would like toexplore whether Art-Based Learning, with its narrative approach, can supportcancer patients in making sense of life with an incurable illness. Can lookingat art help them, and if so, how? These are questions central to our researchproject, which we hope to find answers to in the coming years.

Curious about whatwe already know? A pilot study took place in 2020 to explore the feasibility ofArt-Based Learning in palliative care. There is a shortarticle about this pilot in Amsterdam UMC's employee magazine.Want to know more? Researcher and artist Silvia Russel also wrote an articleabout the pilot, published in the journal Palliative Medicine, which you canread here.

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References

Lutters, J. (2020). Art-Based Learning. Handboekcreatief opleiden. Uitgeverij Coutinho: Bussum.

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