Cultural Value Project ARC Exchange Event 2 nd April 2014 Project team: Jackie Reynolds, Janet Hetherington, Ann O’Sullivan, Kelvin Clayton, John Holmes

Introduction Cultural Value Project The Story of Lidice and Stoke-on-Trent atch?v=bdLc9K3Oe5E atch?v=bdLc9K3Oe5E

Research Aim & Objectives To improve our understanding of the potential of arts and culture to develop empathy, compassion and understanding across geographical divides. –Why would we choose the medium of arts and culture to link distant geographical communities in ways that foster empathy, compassion and understanding? –How can we design and evaluate arts and cultural activities in ways that better recognise and demonstrate their value in terms of empathy, compassion and understanding? Focus is on storytelling approaches

Literature Review: Aesthetics Art education Child development/early years education Philosophy Mediation Conflict Theory Feminist Ethics Journalism Comic book Art Literature/Literary History Psychology Cultural Psychology Psychotherapy Management and organisational studies Consumer research Computer Gaming Law (victim Impact statements) Health/Medicine Political discourse Genocide Studies

Methodology 1 Focus group (4 participants) and 4 individual interviews (to date) with lecturers and researchers across a range of disciplines (Health, Theology, History, English/Creative Writing, [Photo]Journalism, Geography, Archaeology, Fine Art, Animation) –Understanding and application of empathy and compassion –When did an international news item deeply move you? What did you do? –Tell us about an arts and cultural activity that you took part in that deeply moved you. Why did it affect you that way? –How can we evaluate arts and cultural activities in ways that better captures their value in terms of empathy and compassion?

Methodology 2 Focus groups(14 participants) and 2 individual interviews (to date) with artists/creative practitioners –Understanding of empathy and compassion – how does this affect practice? –What responses are you looking for from people who take part in your activities and projects? –How do you know if you’ve achieved this?

Methodology Working group to develop new resources for the design and evaluation of arts activities/exhibitions Visit to Lidice 12 th – 15 th June 2014 Piloting the new resources; proposal for a new project, informed by the research Commissioning a filmmaker to further address the research questions and to disseminate the findings

Some Discussions to Date Using empathy in approach to own work – does this generate an empathic response in others? To what extent can we really empathise with people who have had horrific experiences? What is the role of judgement in empathy? Do we decide whether people are deserving or undeserving?

Some Discussions to Date What are the different levels of empathy? Does there have to be an ‘action’ or a change for it to be meaningful? Is there a lot of ‘fake’ empathy in modern times? Can we plan for empathy? How do critical factors such as age and gender affect the ways in which we engage with empathy?

Discussion Questions Tell us about an arts and cultural activity that you took part in that deeply moved you. Why did it affect you that way? How can we evaluate arts and cultural activities in ways that better captures their value in terms of empathy and compassion?

Thank you Any questions?wi My contact details: Dr Jackie Reynolds Tel