Working In (and Between) Art and Health: Challenges and Missteps

Introduction: Art can offer novel contributions to qualitative health research and dissemination processes. However, creative, arts-based approaches to research and knowledge translation are often still misunderstood in fields related to both health and art. Goals and methods: In this paper we use a critical and reflective collective auto-ethnographic method to report on failures, missteps, and ethical tensions associated with research projects undertaken in, and between, art and health. Results: We draw on vignettes from our professional experiences, and relevant literature, to consider four core questions that highlight challenges when working between art and health – namely: Who is art for? Which gatekeeping practices are acceptable and why? What are the ethical tensions? How should taste and quality be determined and why? We share our experiences of challenges to make visible the often-tacit expectations, ways-of-working, and hierarchies of knowledge that underpin arts-based health research and knowledge translation. Conclusions: We raise and troubleshoot questions – about knowledge, aesthetic value, art, and ethics – that might not have definitive answers, but that are productive to interrogate before undertaking an arts-based health research or knowledge translation endeavour.