Visual narratives performing and transforming people living with autoimmune illness: A pilot case study

Identity perspectives underpin an arts health intervention research project titled ‘Artmaking, visual narrative and wellbeing’. This article considers the adaptability benefits of working with art-making narratives to support the long-term emotional and physical well-being of people living with chronic autoimmune illness. The article describes the methods and background to the pilot transdisciplinary case study of twelve participants, the intervention, data sources and qualitative strategies that were intersected with quantitative, medical, physical and functionality indicators. It identified that time and memory work, using montage methods in visual narratives, supported a renewed confidence in the participants’ life journey. Notions of pain and time temporarily retreated when strong affective responses emerged from new storied possibilities. These findings demonstrate how visual narrative methods work as a sense-making experience for the collision between past narratives and present specific medical and/or sociocultural contexts. The findings are discussed in the context of their potential contribution to the wider arts and health debate.