Non-prescribed spaces, creativity and narrative formation: a systems-based examination of a community art group exploring food poverty

This article describes a year-long participatory arts project carried out as part of a community–university partnership in the South of England. The research sought to examine the relationship between the ‘user-led’ ethos of the Brighton Unemployed Centre Families Project (BUCFP) and emergence within it of creatively working and self-managing groups, examining how an environment that did not adhere to a prescribed use of space might enable groups to make sense of their experiences. The research used ethnographic methods and a theoretical framework informed by systems theory, critical health psychology and narrative analysis to explore the group’s experiences of food poverty. The research demonstrates ways in which the group provided community members with a space in which to examine, define and make legitimate their experiences and how this can be thought of as an educational and community knowledge-building practice that has important implications, particularly for notions of well-being.