G’day.  My name is Lisa and I am an artist and a researcher.  I don’t however do research into the world of the artist. From 2015 – 2019 I considered my skill set honed over 45 years of arts practice, in a very different context. The resulting PhD thesis awarded from the University of Adelaide Business School, is called “From Community Artist to Leadership Bricoleur”. 

Although I chose to give a nod to the more recognisable format of a PhD thesis, I also chose to discard many of the accepted academic conventions in my pursuit of a more authentic exploration and the delivery of a piece of creative research. In doing so I was also chasing a much more varied audience for this thesis. I aimed for it to offer a demonstration-in-action of my role as a creative disrupter of both form and function. The thesis is written in three different voices and delivers images created by collaborators and spoken word interludes musing over issues as they arose. Anyone interested can find an electronic version of my work lodged with the University of Adelaide Library.

As an example of a spoken word interlude, I offer one in which the topic is something that we all do every day, but which often raises a groan from those present when the survey or end of session final task is handed out.   Evaluation. 

Spoken Word Interlude No.19   How do you know when you have done good?

(please consider reading this section aloud)

how do you know when you have done good
you wait nearly 30 years
and are then lucky enough to have a chance meeting

i was at a big shopping centre in the northern suburbs

a tall lanky aboriginal man with a bunch of kids
is negotiating a doorway
i hold the door and wait as he corrals them through

eye contact as we pass and i smile
he stops and spins gathering up the youngest kid as he does
i know you he says

wracking my brain for some recognition i reply
yeh i am sorry i dont remember your face where from?

long time ago he says you were with jumbuck

the cogs turn
must have been around 1990
arts program to encourage truants back to school
a drama teacher teamed up with me the community artist

wow i say that is a long time ago

i am thinking i am twice the age and twice the size i was then
why should he remember me
i wonder if i should keep moving
he has a squirming kid in his arms

he hands the child over to a young teen
 and the other kids mill around waiting to hear more

so i stay put

you know he says
jumbuck was the only positive thing that ever happened for me at school

my jaw drops

it was a day a week for a term
just another small piece of funding
stretched to see how far we could make it go

images flood back to me

i remember that the bus pick up of kids from their homes
the streets the shops and the parks
they took longer than the workshops at the school

we ended up doing drama games on the bus
so we had more time with the kids

i remember their smiles when they saw us come
glad for the effort that we put in

but i never imagined it would be the only positive experience for someone

he is talking again so i tune in

you know he says
i have made sure my kids and now my grandkids go to school
and that they like it

the kids add their voices to agree

but i am off doing the maths
grandkids goodness how old was he

he seems to understand
young i was he says but i am a great dad

kids chorus again
but they are starting to move away
thanks i say
as he turns to leave
for telling me

a pleasure he replies