Arts-based methods

Hate crime isn’t the nicest topic to research, so using arts-based methods during the workshops helped to create a safe space.

These workshops were very supportive environments where participants could share their experiences with friends.

During the workshops, participants were asked to create ‘mood-boards’ about their own understandings and experiences of hate crime. Mood-boards are created to bring together ideas and thoughts using both images and text. There was no right way to create a mood-board and participants chose to use a range of different resources and techniques. Some chose to draw and write down their experiences, whilst others used magazines and ‘key words’.

Using arts offered a different approach to sharing our feelings. In addition, it offers a more visual means of sharing and presenting what we know, which is particularly useful when what we know is difficult to explain. Many of the participants also agreed that the mood-boards could be effective tools to educate other people about hate crime.

You can have a look at all of these mood-boards in the gallery section of this toolkit.