From the EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:  Carolyn Noble, Co-Chair Publications Committee and Executive Editor of Social Dialogue  

Again, we are pleased to launch the 19th edition of social dialogue with the focus on Art and Social Work. The call for articles resulted in an overwhelming response as you will see from this edition and we are very pleased with the result. Professor Ephrat Huss from Israel is Guest Editor and along with her colleague Professor Eltje Boss have gathered an impressive array of articles. Through their academic work and research in the use of Art in Social Work as a teaching, engagement practice and research methodology we can see how Art and various forms of creativity such as drama, theatre, photovoice can enhance the work of practitioners and academics who work with vulnerable communities and explore ways to analyse and address the social issues they face in their daily lives. As relatively new approach to practice this edition highlights the many circumstances in which the use of creatively can enhance the well-being of people and communities offering a new approach to practice that engages directly with the very people experiencing problems in their lives. Enjoy!

From the GUEST EDITORS:  Professor Ephrat Huss, Chair: Arts in Social Work MA Specialisation, Ben Gurion University of the Negev AND Eltje Bos Professor of Cultural and Social Dynamics, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

Introduction to the Special Issue: Arts have much to contribute to social work theory, practice, teaching and research: Indeed, from the large response we received for the call for this special issue, we learn that art is relevant for service users, as a phenomenological, embodied and culturally embedded method of communication with self and with others. Social art focuses on an ecological gestalt of person-in-context, as compared to psychological theories that understand art as a projective expression of the decontextualized subconscious. Social art is also different from fine arts that create art products disconnected from the creator, and that are in dialogue with discrete fine art discourses. Social art correlates to social work’s central epistemology of “person in context” through the compositional tension and interrelationship that art creates between actor and stage, tune and accompaniment, dancer and space, and subject and background.  

(To Read More: https://socialdialogue.online/)