Creative research series, part two: Insight
6 Minute Read/Watch
How can creative approaches enrich research insights?
What unique ways of thinking, seeing and feeling do creative methods offer?
In the run up to our Creative Research Methods webinar on November 11th, we’re sharing actionable insights on how Creative Methods can make your research more inclusive, insightful and impactful.
Creative researcher Dr Ella Harris, engagement specialist Kheron Gilpin, and artist and facilitator Hannah Mumby will be your webinar hosts on the 11th. Here, we each share knowledge on how creative methods can generate deep insights.
1. Hannah Mumby:
using Creative practice to uncover new insights
As an artist, one thing I come back to again and again in my practice is finding ways to use creativity to reveal new insights into complex concepts, ideas, experiences and emotional states. I began my creative career as an illustrator, a practice which grounded me in the deep connection between images and storytelling, but I often felt frustrated when I came across images that reproduced old, tired cliches (and therefore told the same old stories), rather than providing insights that were new, specific and illuminating.
Image credit: Illustration by Hannah Mumby, part of an illustrated poem ‘Lessons in Absolution’, created in collaboration with a Duke University Medical Student
Image credit: Illustration by Hannah Mumby, part of MA research project ‘On The Other Side of the Partition, I Suddenly Remember
In my image-making practice as an artist I work with researchers to find ways of visually opening up subject matter relating to topics such as climate change, health, psychological wellbeing, and economic and ecological systems. A working relationship with emerging research allows me, as an artist, access to nuanced perspectives on complex issues and questions, and exposure to narratives that resist over-simplification. These stories, from areas of research that I am being introduced to for the first time, are incredibly rich starting points and can set up a creative collaboration that has the potential to enliven and illuminate new perspectives on the topic, for me, the researcher(s) and also the public.
When I make images that draw on very specific narratives, I’m able to create artwork that amplifies something new, something surprising. Art, when it’s done well, has the power to unsettle, discomfort, and surprise in order to bring people to new perspectives. It can reveal, through creative means, things that could not be communicated otherwise. In this way, images and other creative artefacts can be the beginning of a conversation: they might make you ask questions, make you uncomfortable, unsettle some previous knowledge that you felt a degree of certainty about. All of these responses can be so generative - they support us to be curious, to ask questions, and trouble the idea of any one ‘truth’ about a topic.
“Art, when it’s done well, has the power to unsettle, discomfort, and surprise in order to bring people to new perspectives”
Image credit: Illustration by Hannah Mumby, part of a series on shame within the healthcare profession for The Shame and Medicine Project
Image credit: Illustration by Hannah Mumby, part of a series for a climate science research collective on collaboration and tipping points.
2. Dr Ella harris:
Creative methods as unique ‘modes of attention’
Until not very long ago, research was thought of as a process of discovery. The researcher was somebody who came in with impartial tools (methods) and ‘found out’ something true and objective about the world.
These days, most of us have a pretty different idea of what research is and what it means to generate ‘insights.’ No longer is the researcher a detached, neutral figure - probing at the world from the outside. Researchers now embrace the idea that we are part of the world we’re researching and that our methods are, as John Law has termed it, ‘messy.’ Research methods create realities in the world, rather than uncover them. Choosing a method is like choosing a cooking utensil - you’re going to have a very different dinner depending on if you pick up the blender or the frying pan!
“Choosing a method is like choosing a cooking utensil - you’re going to have a very different dinner depending on if you pick up the blender or the frying pan!”
When we think about methods in this way - the task of choosing or coming up with a method becomes newly important. When we select a method, we’re selecting a way of encountering the world which will change the knowledge we produce and the impact that knowledge has.
This is why I think creative methods are so exciting. Creative methods invite us to be experimental and inventive. They encourage us to pay attention to the relationship between the method we select and the ways of seeing, thinking, feeling and acting that we activate in ourselves, as researchers, and in our participants as collaborators.
I’ve experimented with creative methods including interactive documentary, board games, photography, collage and card decks. I’ve seen how each of these methods offers unique ways of encountering a research topic, because of the specificities of their forms.
For example, designing a board game makes you think about issues of freedom, compliance and coercion, because you have to make decisions about what players should and shouldn’t be able to do. On the other hand, creating a card deck forces your attention to how something can be broken down into discrete items, and to how those items come together into sets or suits.
On a conceptual level - my understanding of creative methods has been enriched by something that cultural theorist Frederic Jameson wrote in 1991 in his famous book Postmodernism. Jameson argued that as society evolves and mutates, we need new “perceptual equipment” to help us understand it.
I think that the job of a creative researcher is to invent this ‘perceptual equipment.’ By coming up with new creative methods, we can invent the modes of attention that we need for the challenges facing us. This is especially important in a world that’s changing as fast as it is today.
A passage from Frederic Jameson's Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
You can read more about creative methods as ‘perceptual equipment’ in my new book on Interactive Documentary as Method.
3. Kheron Gilpin:
Authentic facilitation for deep insights
If you’re looking to gain real insights into people’s needs, experiences, or perceptions in research, you’ve got to go beyond just listening to their words. Emotions, body language, gestures, and facial expressions tell you just as much about what someone believes and how they really feel.
For example, in a focus group, people might seem to disagree out loud, but their body language—like a shared smile, a nod, or an open posture—can reveal an underlying connection or understanding. Or, in a workshop, a young person might use simple language but show their passion and excitement by how they spring up out of their chair or gesture empathically.
These small, non-verbal details can tell you a lot—whether it’s how hard someone laughs at a joke, or how a group chooses to arrange themselves when working together. Do they sit formally at a table, or sprawl out in a close-knit circle? These cues add layers to your research that words alone can’t capture.
But to bring out these unspoken dimensions, it’s crucial to create a relaxed, open environment. If participants don’t feel comfortable, they’re less likely to express themselves fully.
“To bring out these unspoken dimensions, it’s crucial to create a relaxed, open environment”
That’s where creativity comes in. First, you can inject creativity into research sessions with playful, high-energy icebreakers. I always kick off with something fun—maybe a call and response, a series of light-hearted questions, or a group challenge.
Incorporating fun, creative ice breakers and games into research settings can be a powerful way to encourage participants to relax and express themselves more freely. Once everyone is laughing, you’ll have a laid-back atmosphere where barriers are broken down that might otherwise inhibit authentic communication. In this context, participants will be much more expressive, allowing you richer insights into emotional dimensions.
Second, you can use creative methods to encourage and capture these non-verbal cues. Arts-based approaches like drawing, role-playing, or storytelling invite participants to express themselves emotionally and physically. In co-creative projects—where participants interact with each other and the materials—you’ll often see them animated as they debate and discuss. Observing their non-verbal reactions alongside their words gives you deeper, more nuanced data, helping you capture the full picture in your research.
We hope these contributions inspire you to generate insights creatively in your own research. Look out for our third and final post in the series, coming soon, where we’ll be exploring how creative research approaches can amplify the impact of your research.
And, of course, come along to our webinar on the 11th to explore actionable concepts, practical tools and valuable support for successful creative research practice.
