Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/732 on 28.02.2017 by CS (TIS)This is a practice-based research project which analysis how democracy and facilitation are
articulated within two different social contexts. The purpose of this research is to make
apparent, through two facilitated art projects- the Elder Flowers project and the Exwick
Image Project - the contingency of meanings and methods of making democratic choice
with participants. The argument is that my methods of facilitation, which embrace social
and cognitive difference by 'attending to' (that is, using methods of empathic listening and
responsive action), their outcomes and meanings are contingent to each specific
interaction. These acts of creative facilitation ask new questions of how democratic choice
can be made between people who are located within multiple (historical, emotional,
familial, economic) power dynamics.
The thesis uses theories of complexity and difference to articulate: the need to 'frame'
meanings in order for facilitator and participants to understand each other's choices and the
fluidity of signification and subjectivity that deconstructs the ability to fix meaning and
therefore properly understand each other. A conflict is revealed within the objective of
facilitating a project in a democratic manner. This is a conflict between acknowledging
that choice will emerge through interaction between facilitator and participant, and the
facilitator needing to index - make sense of - what is happening in order to develop the
facilitation. Additionally, the democracy of representing the complexity of the
facilitations, in the 'framed' form of project record within the PhD submission, is
questioned. A series of practical experiments, explore how theoretical concepts of
presentation can work with project material and how an intuitive approach to the project
material can reveal the complexity of choice-making during the facilitations
