Thinking Space 2: Creativity and Unbelonging

You are invited to take part in our series of Thinking Spaces on (Un)belonging.

These events are participatory and engaged, a chance to actively share and develop ideas together, and to see where this engagement takes us.

They seek to generate new connections and possibilities by encouraging everyone who attends to bring reflections on how aspects of (un)belonging are relevant to their research, learning, teaching or practice.

Each session has a particular theme and a set of prompts to consider beforehand, and everyone who comes will be invited to share their responses to the prompts and to one another. If you would like to take part, please register using the links below.

Creativity & (Un)Belonging

This interactive session seeks to creatively explore what notions of belonging and unbelonging mean, by testing out creative ways of thinking together. We will consider how creativity can both foster belonging and exclude people from belonging, and how creative approaches give us access to ways of understanding un/belonging, all while “creativity” itself means different things across different empirical, methodological and analytical approaches.

We invite participants to bring along an object/idea that speaks to them about (un)belonging, through which we will explore:

• creativity as a methodological opportunity for exploring belonging
• how creativity can both foster belonging and exclude people from belonging
• the possibilities of creative practice and imagination as research in their own right, particularly when navigating the complex and often opaque dynamics of (un)belonging in our fragmented, unjust world
• the affective, aesthetic, political, embodied and sensorial dimensions of (un)belonging

Please bring to the session an object/ idea that means something to you about unbelonging,based on your particular interests, research area, teaching practice, learning or experience. This object might be physical, digital, a personal possession, a piece of art, a document, or an idea or a memory – or something else. This is an engaged thinking space and everyone will be asked to share a story or reflections in relation to their object, and then to reflect actively on the experience of using such creative methods.

Before the session, please prepare to discuss the following prompts:

• Tell us a bit about the object you have brought.
• Why did you select this object/s?
• How does this object relate to the notions of belonging or unbelonging?
• How does it relate to your wider questions, theories, research, teaching experiences on unbelonging/belonging?

After sharing our reflections on (un)belonging in this creative way, we will think together about what this creative approach, and other creative methods used to approach un/belonging, can add to our understandings. For example:

• How might working with objects as prompts provide alternative readings of un/belonging?
• How do various forms of creative practice enable or inhibit belonging or unbelonging?
• How can we understand creativity as a concept in relation to un/belonging?

This will be an active Thinking Space, so please come ready to share your thoughts-in-process and to learn from and with others.

When: Wednesday 20 May 2026, 3pm-5pm
Where: OC1.07, Oculus Building, University of Warwick

If you have any questions, please contact Hannah Jones on h.jones.1@warwick.ac.uk