Making a Home is one of several activities developed through my ongoing work with the Edmonton Multicultural Coalition (EMC). As part of a research project exploring ways of building social integration through collaborative creative practice, this activity brought groups of people together to create small-scale models of homes on a common paper surface. The activity took place at the EMC on May 27, 2019. Participants were asked to collaborate (in groups of two)—each individual making a model that meets personal, family, and cultural needs—the two homes were to be physically linked in some way. Making a Home was designed to facilitate dialogue between participants. The material outcomes of this activity (the small-scale homes) provide an embodiment of life stories, lived experiences, and ideas about family that led to a meaningful exchange of ideas—an example of the inextricable link between material and memory, tangible objects and knowledge.
In this section I also include images from a November, 28, 2018 workshop in which participants were provided with a data collection tool kit (containing paper, instructions for group activities, and a glue stick). During the workshop we completed two of three activities contained in the kit—the Connection + Inquiry Exercise, and an affinity diagram exercise using hand written notes.
This data collection tool kit was custom designed for the collaborative generation of a research question. Important themes, along with the focus of the 2018-19 EMC research, emerged from these exercises.