Overview

Exploring how creative practices can revolutionise wellbeing and resilience in higher education, this groundbreaking collection brings together 25 academics who reveal how engaging with creative processes – from visual arts and crafts to performance and digital media – can serve as powerful tools for self-care and professional flourishing. It acts as a guide for navigating the pressures of contemporary academia while maintaining one’s authentic self through proven strategies such as visual journaling, collaborative filmmaking, and embodied creative practices. Each chapter combines theoretical insights with practical applications, offering both autoethnographic narratives and actionable case studies that demonstrate how making practices counter neoliberal academic pressures. Whether you're seeking to integrate creativity into research, enhance teaching through artistic approaches, or build sustainable practices for personal wellbeing, this book provides a roadmap. From soil-based art projects that foster ecological connection to comic-making strategies for international educators, it offers diverse pathways for reimagining your academic journey. This would appeal to academics across all disciplines, researchers in educational wellbeing, and practitioners in arts and health fields. With this, one can transform isolated academic work into collaborative, meaningful practice that nurtures both individual growth and institutional change.

Full Product Details

Author:   Narelle Lemon (Edith Cowan University, Australia) ,  Sharon McDonough (Federation University, Australia) ,  Mark Selkrig (The University of Melbourne, Australia)
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
ISBN:  

9781041123163

ISBN 10:   1041123167
Pages:   198
Publication Date:   14 November 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

Section 1: Foundations: Creative Practice as Wellbeing in Academia 1. A call for change: Creative and making practices as essential practices to support wellbeing and the transformative potential of education. Narelle Lemon, Sharon McDonough, and Mark Selkrig 2. Reviving the Creative Academic: Integrating the Creative Being and Values Flow Models to Promote Wellbeing in Higher Education Cedomir Ignjatovic, Katie Beresford, and Margaret L. Kern 3. Intersecting Identities and the Pracademic Paradigm Cheri Flewell-Smith 4. Comic-making as Wellbeing: Supporting International Students during Professional Experience Fiona Boylan and Karen Nociti Section 2: Embodied Knowledge: Sensory and Physical Dimensions of Making 5. Thinking Through the Ground: Art, Ecology, and Relational Wellbeing Cassandra Tytler 6. Exploring Experiences and Impacts of Creative Arts Therapies Catherine Oxworth 7. Embodied Connections Conversation Series: Women's Conversations in Landscape and Climate through Collaborative Nature-based Photographic Practices Alyson Agar 8. From Family Legacy to Care: An Autoethnographic Journey of Music and Memory Simone Marino Section 3: Relational Making: Collaborative and Community Approaches 9. Ex:Change – Validating Conversations about Waste and Sustainability through Craft Joanna Rucklidge and Wendy Ward 10. New Ways of Workshopping: Research-based Theatre and Collaborative Creativity for Wellbeing Richard Sallis, Chris Summers, and Prue Wales 11. Filmmaking 'With' as a Creative Process that Uses Relational Ideas of Care Catherine Gough-Brady 12. Providing a Voice: Using Creative Ethnographic Collaborative Methodologies to Explore and Represent Cultural Heritage in the Commonplace. Maxine Beuret Section 4: Identity and Transformation: Navigating Academic Life Through Making 13. Moving through Liminal Space: Visual Journaling as a Creative Ritual and Spiritual Practice Christopher M. Strickland and Jane E. Dalton 14. Creativity Under Constraint: The Academic Struggle and the Need for Systemic Reform Bronte van der Hoorn 15. Loki's Tail Karen Kenny 16. Navigating Academia with a Design Mindset: A Project of Ambiguity, Prototyping, and Failures Linus Tan

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Author Information

Narelle Lemon is a Vice Chancellor Professorial Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University, Australia, Lead of the Wellbeing and Education Research Community, and is an interdisciplinary scholar across arts, education, and positive psychology. She is the Director of Explore & Create Co. Sharon McDonough is an Associate Professor in Teacher Education in the Institute of Education, Arts and Community at Federation University, Australia. Sharon’s research focus draws on socio-cultural theories of wellbeing and resilience to explore professional development for educators, initial teacher education, and how to support and advance wellbeing across a range of contexts. Mark Selkrig is currently based at the Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia. His research and scholarly work focus on the changing nature of educators’ work, their identities, lived experiences, and how educators navigate the ecologies of their respective learning environments. He engages with digital and arts-informed methods in these research domains to probe the uneasy tensions and intersections that influence change, capacity building, and agency of individuals and communities.

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