Thou Art: The multiple gaze of audio-visual, community-based participatory research

Abstract

This article describes an audio-visual, first-person narrative exploration of the interface of mental ill health and artistic practice. It extracts, for closer inspection, the question of how we maintain fidelity of the first person in such narrative work, and, as researchers, work with, rather than disavow, our own unconscious and emotional responses to the data. The article suggests that a psychosocial approach to understanding audio-visual interview data offers a way through the maze of challenge surrounding audio-visual data and the encounter between the audio-visual and the researcher.