DHHC Symposium Speakers

Alan Bleakley

Dr. Alan Bleakley is Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities at the newly formed Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine, UK. He has a background in biological sciences, psychology, psychotherapy, and education, and is an internationally recognised figure in medical education and medical humanities. He is widely published, most recently Medical Education for the Future: Identity, Power and Location (Springer 2011) and a collection of poetry Striking Blows for Drummers and Other Poems (Acts of Language 2012). A book on communication in medicine (The Heart of the Matter: Patient-Centered Medicine in Transition) is due in 2014 (Springer).

Let Beauty both Shine and Disturb: Re-storying the Art of Medicine as Publicly-Accountable Lyricism

Historically, medicine has forced its tough-minded swagger on clinical colleagues and patients in the cultural display that sociologists call ‘medical dominance’. This swagger is expressed through the epic, tragic and dark comic genres, where heroes strut their stuff on the battlefield, victims must inevitably fall, and dark humour (at the expense of patients and behind their backs) offers a psychological safety valve. But such swagger has been at the expense of patient safety, where the majority of iatrogenic errors are grounded in poor levels of communication within and across clinical teams. But times are changing. Healthcare is becoming collaborative, team-based, patient-centred and feminized as more women than men are entering medicine. This collective, tender-minded impulse evokes the genre of lyricism, where values of community-based, pastoral ‘care’ matter in a high-tech industrialized world of medically dominated ‘cure’. The humanities in healthcare promise to be the collective catalyst that will allow us to shift from the grip of epic, tragic and dark comic genres into a more lyrical and pastoral medicine. I will call, however, not for a lyricism ‘lite’ but for an intense lyricism, where Beauty and the Beast are conjoined.

Clint Carlson

Clint Carlson is an Assistant Professor of Communication Design in the College of Visual Arts at the University of North Texas, and holds a MDES in Visual Communication Design from the University of Alberta. Carlson's research interests include the use of human-centered co-creative methods in communicating health or social issues within micro-communities. His current design research includes the design and testing of maps for disease prevention and awareness; design and testing of alternative communication systems for food recalls; and the use of co-creative/participatory methods for instructional coaching of primary and secondary educators.

Small Change

Creating meaningful communications that address health-related issues within micro-communities such as schools, companies, or sub-cultures can be a challenge to designers, healthcare professionals, and community workers. Mass-marketing approaches are often too costly, unsustainable, and lack community involvement to be a viable option. This presentation will explore ways in which designers, healthcare workers, community workers, and community members can collaborate to initiate dialogue, increase understanding, and generate awareness of health-related topics. Alternative approaches and current trends in advertising that focus on small-scale collaborative experiences will be presented with discussion about the roles of designers, community members, and community/healthcare workers.

Jorge Frascara & Guille Noël

Guillermina Noël holds a PhD in Design Sciences from the University IUAV of Venice, Italy, supported by a Doctoral Fellowship from SSHRC. She received her Master of Design from the University of Alberta, Canada, and her undergraduate degree from the University of La Plata, Argentina. Since 2004 her research has focused on the design of materials for people with severe speech and reading impairments. She has published articles in specialized journals, and has delivered workshops and lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA. In her work she emphasizes the importance of user-centered design and design for users with special needs. After living five years in Padova, Italy, pursuing her PhD and working on information design projects for the public health sector with her husband, Jorge Frascara, she now lives in Puebla, Mexico, where she holds a full time position at the Universidad de las Americas.

Jorge Frascara is Professor Emeritus (University of Alberta), Fellow of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada and of the Society for the Science of Design of Japan, and Advisor to the Doctoral Program at the University IUAV of Venice. He has been advisor to the ISO and to the Canadian Standards Council on graphic symbols, President of Icograda and Chairman of the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta, where he worked for thirty years. He has published nine books, including User-centred Graphic Design, Communication Design, Design and the Social Sciences, and Designing Effective Communications, as well as more than 50 articles. He has delivered lectures in 26 countries, and has been an advisor for several journals and educational institutions. He now lives in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico, works part-time at the Universidad de las Américas, and runs an information design consultancy with his wife Guillermina Noël.

Designing with People for Health

In the process of our work we have confirmed that to make things happen in communication design, particularly regarding complex communication issues, it is indispensable to work in interdisciplinary teams. When one is committed to an evidence-based way of designing communications, the obvious combination of content experts and visual communication experts must at least be extended to include experts and literature in the psychology of reading and learning, in cognitive load theory and in ethnographic observation. Communications are always situated, and one must consider where, when, why and with whom a communication takes place. Our presentation will discuss the design processes followed in several projects, and it will also address people’s dynamics in project development, from initial discussions through to measuring of results, in an attempt to identify all the bases that must be covered to ensure success in a socially-oriented project.

Edward Gotfried

Edward A. Gotfried D.O., FACOS, is the Director of the Center for Global Health at the New York Institute of Technology, (NYIT). He received his B.A. degree from Tulane University in 1958, and his D.O. degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1963. He was certified in General Surgery in 1972. Dr. Gotfried has participated in Special Educational Training at Harvard Medical School, Duke University School of Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine, and Southern Illinois University Medical School. In 2007 Dr. Gotfried helped establish the NYIT Center for Global Health, an Interdisciplinary Center of Excellence. The Center for Global Health sponsors international conferences; establishes research and community service clerkships for NYIT COM & Health Profession students in other countries; and research efforts involving the schools of NYIT (i.e. Health Professions, Engineering, & Education), to address global medical concerns. He received NYIT COM’s Outstanding Faculty Award for teaching Problem Based Learning, and the Standard of Excellence Award in 2012 as Director of the Center for Global Health.

Malaria Education of School-Aged Children in the Kwahu-Eastern Region, Ghana: Anansi Tricks Mrs. Mosquito

We developed an educational tool to teach Ghanaian children the benefit of using malaria bed-nets to increase awareness/prevention of Malaria. Puppets, Comic books, and Videos demonstrated a visual approach constructed upon the ancient Ashanti art of “story telling”, using Anansi the Spider. Traditional or indigenous characters in stories make learning more enjoyable to children, guiding them towards comprehensive understanding. The knowledge achieved serves as a foundation for health education. Through myths and legends, we pass on our visions, values, feelings and memories in a way that is both enjoyable and entertaining. The best stories are those that motivate, inspire and connect – stories that make students feel some emotion and allow them to see themselves in similar situations. Students treasured the book, Anansi Tricks Mrs. Mosquito. Older students read it to their younger siblings; elders in African societies encourage such teaching as transmission of knowledge.

Lisa Hartling & Shannon Scott

Dr. Lisa Hartling is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. She is Director of the Alberta Research Center for Health Evidence, the University of Alberta Evidence-based Practice Center, and the Cochrane Child Health Field. Dr. Hartling trained in Physical Therapy (U of A, 1990) and subsequently chose to focus on research, undertaking a Master’s in Epidemiology (Queen’s University, 1995) and a PhD in Medical Sciences - Paediatrics (U of A, 2010). Her doctoral dissertation was on the use of storytelling as a tool to transfer health information to parents. The focus of Dr. Hartling’s research is on synthesizing evidence about healthcare topics to inform decision-making by patients, healthcare providers, and policy-makers. She is interested in a variety of forms of evidence synthesis, and ensuring that the results of evidence synthesis are presented in a form that is useful to the end-user.

Shannon Scott is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing, and an AHFMR/AIHS (Alberta Innovates Health Solutions) Population Health Investigator, a CIHR New Investigator and recent recipient of the CIHR Monique Bégin Knowledge Translation prize (2011-2012). Her research program (ECHO) aims to improve the health outcomes of children in Alberta and Canada through the application of the best research evidence and exploring the factors that shape research implementation. Her research program is in the field of knowledge translation (KT)—a field focused on decreasing the gap between the best available evidence and what clinicians do in clinical practice and she has started to use arts-based approaches to connect and engage with multiple audiences.

Storytelling to Communicate Information in Child Health

Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of communication and is an intrinsic part of most cultures. In fact, it can be a powerful motivator of change and an influential tool to spark action, share knowledge and prepare others for decisions that lie ahead. Despite the power of storytelling and its universal appeal, in the past century its use in Western medicine has been overshadowed by more positivist, objective approaches to the practice of medicine and a reductionist understanding of disease, including our increasing reliance on modern technology. In this presentation, we will discuss an innovative program of research being conducted at the University of Alberta that uses the power of storytelling to transfer information to parents with a child with croup. We will describe the evolution of this research program, our randomized control trial and qualitative findings.

Jill Konkin

Dr. Jill Konkin is Associate Dean, Community Engagement, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry (FoMD), University of Alberta providing leadership in Indigenous, inner city, global, rural & regional health and community engaged research. Responsibilities include meaningful engagement with communities both at home and internationally, increasing the social accountability of the FoMD, and advocacy at the intersection of health services delivery and medical education. She is also responsible for implementation of a longitudinal integrated clerkship in 2007 and for a program that delivers a second year undergraduate medicine course in three rural communities. A graduate of the University of Calgary MD and Family Medicine Residency programs, Dr. Konkin has spent her career as a full service rural family physician. Her clinical interest is comprehensive rural family medicine and she practices as a locum for rural physicians. Her research interests include rural medical education, longitudinal integrated clerkships and professional identity formation.

Arno Kumagai

Arno Kumagai is Professor of Internal Medicine and Medical Education at the University of Michigan Medical School. He is an endocrinologist, and his clinical interests are in the intensive management of type 1 diabetes. Dr. Kumagai received his B.A. in Comparative Literature from U.C. Berkeley and his M.D. from UCLA School of Medicine. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and an Endocrine fellowship and postdoc at UCLA. He has been at the University of Michigan since 1996. Dr. Kumagai is the Director of the Family Centered Experience Program and Longitudinal Case Studies and directs the second-year course in Endocrinology. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the AAMC/Pfizer Award for Humanism in Medical Education, the Leonard Towe Award for Humanism in Medicine, the Kaiser Permanente Award for Teaching Excellence and the Provost Innovative Teaching Prize from University of Michigan.

Teaching and Learning for Social Justice: Critical Consciousness, Community Engagement, and Creative Arts in Medical Education

Teaching and learning topics of social relevance in medicine, such as professionalism, medical ethics, the doctor-patient relationship, global health, and social justice, requires that one stand the traditional model of medical education on its head. Learning is active and imaginative and demands personal engagement, collaboration, and risk-taking—both by teachers and learners. Education in these areas involves the fostering of critical consciousness of the self, others, and the world and is stimulated by small group discussions, stories of patients and their families, readings, essays, and creative art. This model reflects a view that education in these areas enhances an understanding of—a deep and abiding connection with—the social responsibilities of the physician. This approach aspires towards the development of practical wisdom (phronesis), which links the knowledge and skills of the biomedical and clinical sciences with a moral orientation and call to action that addresses human interests in the practice of medicine.

Lory Laing

Since July 2011, Dr. Laing has been Interim Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. The SPH is the only accredited school of public health in Canada, 2nd outside of the US and 50th in the world. She is a social epidemiologist working in public health with a focus on global health. Her academic focus on vulnerable populations has led her to work with disadvantaged populations in Canada and low income countries. She has worked with teams to improve health in Mongolia and Uganda by looking at a variety of factors that influence health. With colleagues from the University of Alberta and the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University she was a recipient of the Health Canada Deputy Minister’s Award of Distinction for Innovation and Creativity in 2009 for a program to develop Aboriginal Health Scholars in Canada and the US.

Michelle Lavoie & Vera Caine

Michelle Lavoie is a professional visual artist and a studio art instructor. She holds a Master of Fine Art (MFA), majoring in printmaking, from the University of Alberta 1991, a Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA) from Queens University, Kingston 1988 and a Certificate in Digital Communication from NAIT, 2004. Michelle currently teaches printmaking for the Department of Art and Design at the University of Alberta and drawing and digital media for the Fine Art and Open Studies and Continuing Education programs at MacEwan University. Michelle’s visual art research utilizes drawing, printmaking, painting, photography, digital media and multi-media text and image installation. Her current research interests include: narrative and story, fact and fiction, corporality within digitally mediated environments, McLuhan’s extensible body in the digital era, and interconnected and interdependent systems particularly as they refer to ecological systems and human interventions through technology. Michelle has worked collaboratively with Dr. Vera Caine from the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta for the past five years. The collaborative work with Vera has introduced Michelle to arts based research, both the visual and performance aspects as well as narrative inquiry. Michelle is drawn to arts-based research methods because it allows her to explore the use of fact and fiction as well as the aesthetics and beauty of art forms as they are grounded by the reality of personal narratives.

Vera Caine is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta. She has engaged in research alongside Aboriginal peoples and communities to explore the social determinants of health in relation to health disparities and inequities. Her SSHRC funded collaborative research inquires narratively into the educational and schooling experiences of urban Aboriginal youths and their families. Her CIHR funded (Co-PI) research focuses on HIV and AIDS and the provision of care; her more recently funded CIHR project focuses on the experiences of pregnant and early parenting women who live in precarious housing situations. Vera has worked closely alongside Michelle Lavoie as she integrates arts-based practices into her research and teaching. Vera is an affiliate member of the Centre for Research on Teacher Education and Development, as well as the chair of the Boyle McCauley Health Centre, an inner city Primary Health Care Centre.

Beating the Bounds: Creating Cross-Disciplinary Collaborative Spaces

For the past five years, Dr. Vera Caine, Faculty of Nursing and myself, Michelle Lavoie, instructor for the Department of Art and Design, have carved out collaborative spaces. Vera is a narrative inquirer, who studies health issues in marginalized communities using a community-based research approach. I am a visual artist and designer who works with a variety of visual media to speak about personal narrative, environmental issues and technology. Together, we have created two sets of printed images, co-written a journal article and a soon to be published book chapter on collaboration, and presented two conference papers. While our cross-disciplinary work is strongly rooted within each of our disciplines, our collaborative relationship continuously challenges us to shift and expand our vision of each of our disciplines and the problems we are addressing. This results in a product that is substantively different than, but still tied to, our individual sensibilities.

Danielle Lewis, Bailey Adams & Katie Stringer

Bailey Adams completed a bilingual Bachelor of Science from Campus Saint Jean at the U of A in 2009. She is in her third year of Medical School which she is completing in rural Alberta as part of the Integrated Community Clerkship Program.

Danielle Lewis holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from the University of Victoria. She has produced and directed seven short films with her film company Absence of Films. The busy mother to a vibrant three year-old son named Ivar is in her second year of medical school.

Katie Stringer has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from Ryerson University. She has exhibited her artwork and operated a portrait studio, Photography by Katie Dawn, prior to starting medical school in 2010. She is also mother to a sweet and precocious five year-old boy, Kale.

A Mother Is Born — A Film Documentary

Birthing Babies Together (www.birthingbabies.ca) is an initiative created by three medical students from the University of Alberta. The trio came together with a common goal: to creatively educate students, health care providers and families on the roles of midwives and doulas, as well as normal labour and delivery. They believe the film will increase collaboration and respect amongst future maternity care providers and ultimately lead to better patient care where expectant mothers and families are increasingly involved in what is truly a life changing experience. As the practice of medicine is continually evolving and innovative research guides us, this film is a creative opportunity to deepen the discussion of collaborative maternity care amongst health care educators, practitioners and the general public.

Cheryl Mack

Cheryl Mack practices pediatric and adult cardiac anesthesiology at the Mazankowski Heart Institute and Stollery Children’s Hospital here, at the University of Alberta. Besides her clinical work she is the Chair of the clinical ethics committee for the University of Alberta Hospital site and an adjunct with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Center. In her “spare time” she is a doctoral student with the Department of Philosophy with a focus on medical ethics and philosophy of medicine. Her interest areas include the ethics and evidence of medical innovation and how innovation interfaces with patients and their families. Another major focus is moral distress in professional caregivers and in particular how innovators respond to the stress of being on the leading edge of medicine. Besides this she is also a site facilitator for dealing with critical events and leads workshops on how the disclose critical events to patients and their families. Despite all of this, Cheryl Mack is married and has managed to help raise two pretty much well-adjusted teenagers, Cameron, 17 and Heather, 14.

The Wondering

Medicine is continually pushing boundaries, in the process we often find ourselves moving beyond our evidence base and beyond our experience. Our innovating leads us into uncharted territories where the benefits and risks of our advancements will play out over time and through our patients' lives. Medicine impacts our lives in innumerable ways and yet, the community that it impacts has few opportunities to actively engage innovation and question medicine's goals and priorities.

How to engage? How to start a dialogue? These are the questions I will ask in this session. I will be seeking the expertise of the audience members, looking for new ways to provide opportunities for the community to gain knowledge regarding medicine's cutting edge by exploring the human, ethical and social dimensions of innovation.

Judith Moldenhauer

Judith A. Moldenhauer is the Interim Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Research in the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts, Associate Professor, and teaches Graphic Design at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She is currently working with nursing colleagues to develop a cell phone app to help reduce or prevent postpartum depression. Her work and awards include being the WSU PI for U.S. Department of Education FIPSE grants (domestic and international), a 2006/2007 Fulbright scholar to Sweden, a Life Fellow of the Communication Research Institute (Australia). She is co-chair of Information Design Education for the International Institute for Information Design, a board member of the Michigan chapter of the Fulbright Association, and a member of several professional organizations. Prof. Moldenhauer received a MFA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a MA from Stanford University and a BFA from the University of Illinois–Urbana.

Design in the Mix (Not at the End): Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Healthcare Information Design

Design is too often thought of as an add-on in the research world—it’s what is done after the research is finished and that its purpose is to make the research results “look pretty.” This reflects the way collaboration has usually been viewed in the sciences: you do this, you do that, and then we’ll put all the parts together. However, as the concept of “team science” and interdisciplinary research initiatives indicate, there is a new attitude towards collaborative work that is moving beyond the assembly of parts to thinking about research anew through the active exchange of ideas and processes shared by the team members. This presentation discusses the importance of information design to research in the health sciences, how design thinking and the design process can impact research, and how information design needs to be part of any the research strategy or research mission.

Naureen Mumtaz & Susana Runge

Naureen Mumtaz is a PhD student at the University of Alberta. Her research involves participatory design, arts-based research, globalization and pedagogy. Trained as Visual Communication Designer, she has taught Design Studies courses in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Alberta and at Fatimah Jinnah Women University, Pakistan. She also works as a visual communication designer, a participatory design researcher in multicultural community-based projects in Edmonton and Pakistan. She believes in pedagogy and research that draws from the thorough understanding of local contexts and epistemologies. In her academic and professional work, she enjoys crossing boundaries and linking seemingly unconnected dots.

Susana Runge is a member of the Multicultural Health Brokers Co-op, with training in areas of health and community development and education; she has more than 14 years of experience working with diverse communities and agencies in the health and community development areas. She has a background in visual communication and was a producer of radio and television health and education programs. Her experience includes the production of educational videos and printed media, for medical personnel and patients of the "Grey Nuns Hospital" of Edmonton, Alberta, and previously for the Ministries of Health and Education in City of Mexico. Beyond the grassroots & direct community work she has contributed in her coordination role in several innovative projects around immigrant health & well-being in partnership with many mainstream institutions (Alberta Health Services, Health Canada and more). She is passionate about helping others supporting and advocating for the most vulnerable individuals and their families.

Digital Storytelling: Collaborating for Health and Well-being of New Immigrants

The goal of this study was to explore visual communication design process to facilitate and advocate for health and well-being of new immigrant and refugee communities. Health brokers, from a local multicultural community health organization were the participant stakeholders in the design process. The frameworks of participatory design, action research and a social model of design were explored through digital storytelling. Co created DSs were proposed for developing insights into an integrative design practice in the social sphere, which could translate participant stakeholders experiences into visual knowledge. The research process combined ethnographic methods and participatory design process for problem definition and identifying an area of design intervention. The project outcomes were the initial five digital stories and the resulting participatory action-based research (PADR) process model. This exploratory project offered an opportunity to understand the role of collaborative design process in interdisciplinary knowledge creation within the social sphere through participatory design action-based practice.

Gavin Renwick

For over 20 years Gavin Renwick has taught in and worked through architecture, design, fine art and curation. Renwick has realized projects across Europe, as well as in Turkey and Canada, with internationally recognized interdisciplinary work that has bridged both research and practice. His present work utilizes practice-led methods that place the practitioner-researcher as a cultural intermediary between indigenous and metropolitan culture. His applied and curatorial practice aims to facilitate cultural continuity for indigenous communities, particularly in the Canadian north. His undergraduate study in design was at Napier College, Edinburgh, and his M.A. was undertaken at the Royal College of Art, London. The University of Dundee was the base for his doctorate studies, resulting in the thesis: 'Spatial Determination in the Canadian North: A Theoretical Overview and Practice-Based Response'. This was directly followed by a three year 'Arts & Humanities Research Board' Fellowship in the Creative and Performing Arts. In 2005, an academic chair and tenured professorship was created for him at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design. In 2010 Renwick was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Art & Design, University of Alberta. He was awarded the Canada Research Chair for Design Studies in 2012.

Creative Practice & Traditional Knowledge: Designing for Wellness in a Northern Community

This presentation will argue that well-being must be considered an implicit part of the design process. It will illustrate this through one project that originated in partnership with the Dehcho Dene community of Sambaa K'e (Trout Lake), Northwest Territories, involving the design of an experimental cultural facility. This 'community hearth' is being developed to sustain and pass on traditional cultural practices, support family life and health, and contribute to a sustainable community. Importantly, the facility will help pass on indigenous ways of knowing to future generations. Sambaa K'e Dene Band understands the potential in creating an equitable dialogue between traditional environmental knowledge and contemporary design and technology. The objective of this project is therefore is to collaboratively develop a 'hybrid' design solution that is culturally appropriate and environmentally responsible. It is hoped that this presentation will have, in conclusion, demonstrated the symbiotic relationship between good health, social wellbeing and design practice.

Tamar Rubin & Dorothy Woodman

Tamar Rubin is a resident physician in the department of pediatrics at the University of Alberta. She is the editor for the arts and humanities section of the University of Alberta Health Sciences Journal, and a facilitator for the UofA medical student patient centered care course. Her poetry has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Hippocrates Medical Poetry Anthology, The Examined Life, and many others.

Dorothy Woodman's doctoral dissertation (2011) focuses on women's breast cancer texts and art as political interventions in medical representations of disease, doctor-patient relationships, and clinical spaces, as well as in more general issues of race, gender and environmental degradation. She currently instructs in English and Film Studies as well as for the Women's Studies Program at the University of Alberta. In addition to co-facilitating the English-Medicine interdisciplinary reading group, she presents her work at medical humanities conferences.

Reading Texts, Sharing Perspectives: An Interdisciplinary Book Club for English Studies and Medicine

In this pilot project, medical residents and students together with graduate students and instructors from English and Film Studies explored diverse literary representations of personal experiences of illness from a variety of perspectives and ideological constructions of health and illness. A common text provided a locus for the exchange of shared and differing perspectives. In creating this book club our hope was that participants might expand their appreciation of narrative complexity, develop greater agility with ambiguity and proliferating meaning, and increase their insight into cultural influences on representation and understanding of illness. In going forward, we hope that this project will foster greater academic cross-pollination and intellectual expansiveness, promote the discovery of productive commonalities, and thereby build community. Our presentation will focus on our pilot experience from January to March, 2013.

Bonnie Sadler Takach, Pamela Brett-MacLean, Aidan Rowe & students

Pamela Brett-MacLean is Assistant Professor and Director of the Arts & Humanities in Health & Medicine Program in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry (FoMD) at the University of Alberta. She is committed to enhancing teaching and learning by infusing arts and humanities perspectives in curricular and co-curricular activities within health professions education. She is also committed to collaborative explorations into the scope and possibilities of an expanded medical/health humanities field, both within the University of Alberta and beyond. A recipient and co-recipient of University of Alberta Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund grants in support of innovative approaches to medical education, she was also recently awarded a 2013 Canadian Association for Medical Education “Certificate of Merit” for her contributions to medical education.

Aidan Rowe is Assistant Professor of Design Studies (Interactive New Media) at the University of Alberta. He holds degrees from the University of Alberta, University of Westminster and Goldsmiths College, University of London. He teaches design fundamentals, interactive media, design theory and information design. His research, curatorial and practice interests are in design and education. Recent practice-based work explores human-computer interaction, net.art and information aesthetics. Written and pedagogic work revolves around understanding and improving design education in practical and theoretical forms. He has lectured and taught design in Canada, Japan, Korea, Germany, Hong Kong, France and the UK.

Bonnie Sadler Takach is Associate Professor of Design Studies and Coordinator of Visual Communication Design in the Department of Art & Design at the University of Alberta. Her work involves the visual translation of knowledge, and the collaborative design and evaluation of health messages. She was coinvestigator of a CIHR Knowledge Translation Grant to study strategies for critically appraising children’s health-information websites. She integrates research into teaching, involving participatory methods with community partners. She is a co-recipient of a Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund grant to explore alternative approaches in design education. She has researched and presented her work locally and internationally.

Kim vanderHelm is going into her fourth year as a Visual Communications Design major in the Bachelor of Design program at the University of Alberta. She is interested in how design can make a positive impact in the world around her. She is currently involved in researching how design can be utilized to create effective and provocative visual messages around the important issue of elder care in Alberta.

Learning With/Across Communities

This presentation documents past projects and future possibilities at the nexus of design education, health humanities, and the community.

Nikki Webb & Leslie Robinson

Nikki Webb is an Artivist 4 life, coming from an 'at risk' background. She utilizes the iHuman youth society for support and to discover her talents in art, film-making, theater and poetry to better her life and fight for social justice. Nikki is now using her talents and experiences to pay-it-forward and mentor youth at iHuman. She is a youth leader/actor/back up facilitator for high-risk youth for Uncensored, an educational exchange, and a youth leader for the youth engagement project for Community/University Partnership. Nikki is awesome, helping to make the revolution fun and she is #17 for this year's ACGC top 30 under 30.

Leslie Robinson is an artivist/scholar pursuing doctoral studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of Alberta. She is co-founder and active member of the Uganda-based youth collective artivists 4 life. Her doctoral work confronts dominant arts-based and educational research practices through the guidance of decolonial options and community-centred approaches to art/design. Robinson’s artivism repoliticizes art/design through the reconnection of creative practices to collective action. A Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship recipient and a Killam scholar Robinson holds a MDes in Visual Communication Design and has taught design in the Department of Art and Design, University of Alberta and the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University Kampala, Uganda.

Artivist provocations: emergent issues / creative processes / collective synergies

In the spirit of artivism—artistic processes / community activation—this session will invite all those present to engage in an open co-create-critique. Artivist co-facilitators will enact a set of emergent provocations, drawn from the symposium’s previous events and encounters, to guide a collective approach to creative problem-identification and response. Once emergent themes are drawn out and shared, all those present will have the opportunity to contribute to a collective art / design / happening that will act as a creative sprung / spring board for the symposium proceedings. With a goal of cross-agency collaboration this session aims to provoke fresh new avenues of thought and action for the promotion of community engagement and transdisciplinary partnerships in the realms of health and well-being.