Project
Becomings
engage · learn · reimagine · grow
Reimagining recovery narratives following adversity
The Research Journey
Following how Project Becomings developed through an iterative, creative and participatory research process.
Introduction
Project Becomings did not follow a simple process of collecting data and then analysing it at the end. The research developed iteratively, with conversations, creative practices, digital engagement and emerging ideas influencing what happened next.
This meant that knowledge was produced across the research journey, as co-researchers returned to ideas, encountered them through different methods and developed new ways of understanding trauma and recovery.
The Research Journey
The diagram below shows how the different parts of the research connected and developed over time.
Although the research journey is presented as a sequence, it was not a linear process.
Activities took place at particular points in time, but ideas, experiences and questions moved backwards, forwards and across the research. Co-researchers returned to earlier conversations, explored emerging ideas through different creative practices, reflected between sessions and encountered previous understandings in new ways.
What emerged through one part of the research could therefore shape what happened elsewhere. The stages were connected, iterative and continually influencing one another rather than forming a simple step-by-step pathway.
The diagram shows when things happened — not a linear pathway through which knowledge was produced.
How The Research Unfolded
Project Becomings developed through a series of connected and overlapping research activities, rather than a set of completely separate stages.
Co-researchers explored trauma and recovery through group conversations, creative practices and activities between sessions. Ideas emerging in one encounter could be carried into another, revisited through a different material or method, questioned collectively, or understood differently over time.
This was important because the research was not designed around the assumption that there was a single answer about what recovery meant waiting to be discovered. Instead, understanding developed through participation itself — through making, talking, reflecting, encountering materials and returning to ideas in different ways.
The design therefore remained responsive to what was emerging. Rather than every activity being fixed in advance, the direction of the inquiry could be shaped by the experiences, questions and knowledge developing within the research.
The research journey was not simply a route towards producing findings. It was part of how knowledge about recovery was made.
What Participation Involved
Participation in Project Becomings involved much more than taking part in a single interview or answering a set of research questions. Co-researchers engaged with trauma and recovery over time and in different ways, allowing ideas and experiences to be explored through conversation, creative practice, reflection and everyday encounters.
Group sessions created opportunities to explore recovery collectively. Alongside conversation, co-researchers engaged with creative practices including body mapping, photovoice, threadwork, clay and other forms of making. These were not simply activities used to illustrate something already known. Working with different materials could itself provoke questions, memories, sensations, connections and new ways of thinking about recovery.
Participation also extended beyond the physical research sessions. Using the digital platform Indeemo, co-researchers could respond and reflect between sessions through photographs, video, audio and written contributions. This allowed experiences arising within everyday life to become part of the research, rather than limiting participation to what could be remembered or discussed during a workshop.
Across the project, these different forms of participation connected with one another. Something noticed in everyday life might be brought back into a group conversation; an idea discussed collectively might later be explored through making; or an encounter with a material might produce a question that had not previously been considered.
In this way, the different activities were not treated as separate methods producing separate pieces of data. Together, they formed an evolving research process through which recovery could be explored, experienced and continually reconsidered.
An Emergent And Iterative Process
Although Project Becomings had a planned structure, not everything that became important could be known in advance.
The research was designed to remain responsive to what emerged through participation. Conversations raised new questions. Creative practices brought forward experiences that had not necessarily appeared through words. Reflections between sessions could change how earlier discussions were understood, while ideas could be returned to and explored differently later in the research.
This meant that the research did not simply move from collecting information to analysing it and producing findings. Making, talking, reflecting, noticing and interpreting became interconnected parts of the research process.
The researcher was also part of this process. Decisions about what to explore next were informed by what was happening within and between sessions, while reflexive notes and emerging interpretations were continually considered alongside the contributions of co-researchers.
Rather than trying to remove this uncertainty, the research created space for it. Unexpected encounters, tensions and moments of not knowing could themselves become important in shaping where the inquiry moved next.
The research design therefore provided structure without requiring the knowledge produced within it to follow a predetermined path.
Beyond The Workshops
Project Becomings did not only take place during organised research sessions. Co-researchers were also invited to notice, reflect on and explore recovery within their everyday lives between workshops.
A digital platform called Indeemo supported this part of the research. Co-researchers could use photographs, videos, audio recordings and written reflections to respond to activities and capture experiences, thoughts or encounters as they arose.
This created a different relationship with the research. Rather than relying only on what could be remembered and discussed during a workshop, co-researchers could engage with questions about recovery within the places, relationships, routines and material environments of everyday life.
These contributions did not sit separately from the workshops. Something noticed between sessions could be brought into later conversations or creative activities, while an idea emerging during a workshop might continue to be explored afterwards.
Participation therefore moved between research spaces and everyday spaces, allowing the inquiry to continue developing across different times, places and forms of expression.
Importantly, participation between sessions was not about expecting co-researchers to be continually engaged with the research. It provided another possible way to participate, recognising that reflection and expression do not necessarily happen at the moment a researcher schedules a workshop.
The boundaries of the research therefore became more porous: recovery could be encountered and explored within everyday life, not only within the research room.
From Research To Exhibition
As Project Becomings developed, the creative works produced through the research began to move beyond the spaces in which they were originally made.
Rather than treating these works simply as research ‘data’ to be interpreted by the researcher, co-researchers became involved in considering how their experiences and developing understandings of recovery might be encountered by others.
This led to the collaborative development of the Project Becomings exhibition. Creative works, words, materials and other elements of the research were brought together within a public space, allowing aspects of the research to be encountered beyond conventional academic writing.
Importantly, the exhibition was not simply a display of completed research findings. Curation itself became part of the research process. Decisions about what could be shared, how works might sit alongside one another, what should remain private, and how visitors might encounter the material involved further reflection, negotiation and knowledge-making.
Moving into a public space also created new encounters. Visitors brought their own experiences, histories and understandings into relation with the work. Their responses could not be completely predicted or controlled, meaning that the exhibition created further possibilities for questioning how trauma and recovery might be understood.
In this sense, Project Becomings did not mark a straightforward transition from research to findings to dissemination. The exhibition became another part of the research assemblage through which knowledge continued to move, change and be encountered differently.
The exhibition was not simply where the research was shown. It became another space through which the research continued to happen.