Life on the Island: Collage Portraiture and Storytelling as Community Building

Abstract

This qualitative study explored the experiences of island residents who participated in a collage portraiture workshop. Workshop participants used collage portraiture, an arts-based research method, to tell their stories of island life and engage with fellow community members. Nine island residents participated in the workshop and were interviewed about the experience using a semi-structured interview guide. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and data analysis revealed three overarching themes: (a) the process of collage portraiture, (b) collage portraiture as storytelling, and (c) future use of collage portraiture. This study contributes to a small body of literature investigating the use of collage portraiture as a method of storytelling and as an arts-based research method for use in community building.

Keywords

• collage
• portraiture
• arts-based research methods
• storytelling
• community volition