f Opportunities and challenges in art-based research

An introduction to the special issue on Opportunities and Challenges in Art-Based Research, which defines art-based research as the use of artistic expression by researchers as a primary mode of enquiry, and discusses the need for applied arts and health disciplines to understand, support and perfect methods of artistic enquiry, thus applying their unique resources to realizing the opportunities proffered by the arts as ways of understanding and communicating human experience.