The Aberystwyth University Dialogue Centre and the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society (CWPS) have launched a unique toolkit showing how collage making can help people deliberate important issues.
A Collage of Dialogue: A Creative Method for Setting Up Deliberative Conversations offers a step-by-step guide for running a two-hour workshop where collage making is used as a way of exploring political, social and economic challenges.
The toolkit was unveiled at the Hay Festival on Tuesday 28 May 2024 following a session on ‘Doing Democracy Differently’ which saw Dr Anwen Elias, Co-Director of CWPS, in conversation with the Principal Lead of the Dialogue Centre, Dr Jennifer Wolowic.
Dr Elias, who is based in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth, said: “There is growing interest around the world in activities that bring citizens together to hear and discuss different perspectives on difficult topics and come to an informed viewpoint. Our toolkit uses collage as a creative method of setting up conversations and giving communities a different way of expressing what they think and feel about a topic.”
Dr Wolowic added: “This toolkit is designed to be accessible, community friendly, and easy to use. It’s informed by the principles and methods of dialogue and deliberation and offers a simple creative method – namely making a collage – of exploring ideas and perspectives on a specific topic. This process of creative dialogue can be supplemented by delibertative activities to help participants examine different options and trade-offs, consider priorities and identify solutions.”
The toolkit was produced following a pilot project led by CWPS which held a series of collage-making workshops with community groups in Newport, South Wales, examining how Wales could be governed in the future.
The Collage of Dialogue toolkit can be downloaded from the Dialogue Centre’s website or you can email dialogue@aber.ac.uk to request a printed copy.
Download the toolkit
Download and print your own copy of A Collage of Dialogue: A Creative Method for Setting Up Deliberative Conversations by Dr Anwen Elias and Dr Jennifer Wolowic. Click to download