Ukraine

Olena Yanko’s community arts practice provides the Ukraine case study, addressing collective creativity and the challenges of working during active conflict.

Practice and inquiry

The study considers how social art projects emerge, how communities shape compositions and how participants and witnesses relate to completed murals. The Homecoming project forms part of the wider ethnographic context.

Method and interpretation

The case combines ethnographic field relationships, arts-based inquiry and semi-structured interviews. Benjamin interprets the accounts through expressive arts, salutogenesis and conflict transformation, attending to the interplay of collective creation, witnessing and continuing local action.

Limits and next questions

The dissertation did not conduct quantitative Neuroarts studies. Time, funding and the conditions of active conflict constrained the research. These accounts do not establish measured clinical effects or universal causation. Further work could compare community participants’ and witnesses’ experiences and combine qualitative inquiry with psychological or physiological measures.

Source: Artegenesis Phenomenon, Chapter VII, cross-case discussion in Chapter VIII and limitations in Section 9.2. Chapter numbering follows the dissertation.