Tinnitus and the Arts Workshop: Online Activity Sheet

 

In 2021, Marie Thompson (The Open University), Patrick Farmer (Oxford Brookes University) and Sally Blackburn-Daniels (The Open University) ran a series of online workshops exploring how art activities might be used to share different experiences of tinnitus. The purpose of the workshops was to explore the following questions: 

• Can art activities be used by people with tinnitus to share their experiences? 
• Can art activities enrich understandings of tinnitus, and the diverse ways it affects listeners? 
• How might engaging in art activities about tinnitus be beneficial to members of the tinnitus community?

Participants were given instructions for six art activities and asked to complete at least two. The activities allowed participants to use a range of creative methods, including drawing, map-making, creative writing, and sound recording. No previous experience was needed to take part. Participants were asked to share their responses with the project team, as well as any thoughts they had about the activities. 

The six activities were: 

• Tinnitus maps: creating a map of where tinnitus is louder or quieter, or more or less noticeable
• Tinnitus portraits: developing a self-portrait that includes tinnitus, showing where the sound travels from and to
• Tinnitus drawing: exploring how tinnitus might be depicted without words by making a series of drawings 
• Putting tinnitus into words: a creative writing exercise, where each person chooses a word or set of words that they associate with tinnitus and provides a definition for them
• Keeping score: turning tinnitus into a ‘word-sound’ that is then used to create a visual score or sound recording 
• Capturing sounds: finding, making and documenting sounds that relate to each person’s tinnitus in some way 

This is the online activity sheet (hosted on Qualtrics) that was used for the Tinnitus and the Arts workshop. The activity sheet provides instructions for 6 activities, allows participants to upload files and share comments and reflections.