Joan Marie Kelly

Biography

Joan Marie Kelly is an Urban Ecologist, she investigates the ecosystem of the city initiating artistic connections with migrant and marginalized communities. The aim is to empower the community with the experience of creation. Kelly reinvigorates concepts of figure painting and drawing in collaborations with ethnographic methodologies. She focuses her participatory workshops on communities of lower caste women and children in India. The women and children tell their stories through drawings, knitted pieces, photographs, and audio documentaries. Kelly applies her participatory art workshops to interdisciplinary collaborations with several researchers and communities. Collaborating changes the intension and outcome of the participatory workshops opening up whole new fields. Creativity and rudimental tools of drawing applied in different contexts with scholarly researchers has the ability to transform the intension and meaning of the scholarly work through visual language. The interdisciplinary work is with these different fields and scholars: 1) Sustaining oral languages with three linguist working in different focus areas in Asia, by creating the first illustrated children’s books with the oral language communities. 2)Drawing as a tool for engineers to develop and record ideas. 3) The use of multi-media arts as a means to provoke communication and awareness of cultural heritage within host communities prior to tourism development. The collaboration involves Yuthasak Chatkaewnapanon from University of Chiang Mai, a Thai Tourism sociologist, and Prof. Ross Adrian Williams, a sound artist. All of these particular sectors of society influence Kelly’s personal artwork which is inspired by urban life of South East Asia.

Research Interest

Investigates the ecosystem of the city initiating artistic connections with migrant and marginalized communities