Artful Evaluation for Creative Health and Wellbeing

This open access book presents new methods for evaluating the contribution of participatory arts to health and wellbeing. Responding to shifts in arts and health discourse, it argues for challenging long-standing ideas about how value is theorised, measured, and communicated. This book critiques the dominance of social impact as the primary way of understanding change in arts, health, and wellbeing, proposing instead evaluation approaches grounded in contemporary Indigenous, post-humanist, and postcapitalist theories. Curated as a collaboration between academic scholars and arts practitioners, this book brings together theoretical research frameworks and practical expertise to consider the collective inequities that shape the delivery of community arts projects.
Molly Mullen
works at Waipapa Taumata Rau/University of Auckland, New Zealand. With a professional background in children’s theatre, youth theatre, applied theatre, and arts education, her research focuses on the intersection of policy, funding, and practice in applied theatre and socially engaged arts. She has published extensively, including
Applied Theatre: Economies
(2018), and is the co-editor of
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance
.

Rand Hazou
is a palestinian theatre practitioner and scholar whose work explores arts engaging with rights and social justice. In 2004, he was commissioned by the UNDP to work in the Occupied Territories in Palestine as a theatre consultant running workshops for Palestinian youths. In Aotearoa, he has led teaching and creative projects with prison, aged-care, and street communities. From 2019 to 2024, he was a researcher on the Health Research Council-funded project
Wellbeing and the Precariat
, examining how experiences of poverty affect working families’ wellbeing. He is an associate professor at Massey University, Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Sarah Woodland
is a senior lecturer in theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate theatre. Her research focuses on applied theatre, socially engaged and participatory arts, with particular attention to intercultural praxis for justice and wellbeing. She has published extensively on these topics and is a co-editor of
Australasian Drama Studies
.

List of contents

.- 1. Introduction: Re-evaluating evaluation,
Molly Mullen, Sarah Woodland, and Rand Hazou
, Section 1: What is of value.- 2. What is of Value in the Learning Disabled Theatre of Different Light?
Tony McCaffrey
.- 3. Southside Stories: Pacific artists, funding, evaluation, and wellbeing in South Auckland,
Michelle Johansson
, Section 2: Justice-Oriented Evaluation.- 4. Queevaluing The Coming Back Out Ball: Towards a creative framework for self-determined values,
Peta Murray, Marnie Badham, Tristan Meecham, and Bec Reid
.-5. Home Ground: Evaluating the liminal space,
Jacqui Moyes and Fran Kewene
.- 6. Listening, Witnessing, and Creative Repair: Towards justice-oriented approaches to valuing lived experience expertise and trauma-informed co-creative practice,
Poppy de Souza and Rebecca J Moran
, Section 3: Community wellbeing, participation and self-determination.- 7. Experimenting with Life in Vacant Spaces: Reflections on assessing and communicating holistic wellbeing outcomes,
Kelly Dombroski
.- 8. Hobson Street Theatre Company: Developing an evaluation framework,
Rand Hazou, Bronwyn Bent, Joeli Thacker, John Hughes, Richard Nightingale, Leonard Mathews, Kelly Tunui, and Gem McIver
.- 9. Project X: Co-creating a meaningful evaluation framework for a creative youth wellbeing programme in Aotearoa,
Amber Walls and Borni Te Rongopai Tukiwaho
.- 10. Participatory Songwriting as Evaluative Research: Learning from adolescent experiences of voice and voicelessness,
Gillian Howell
, Section 4: Arts as evaluative practices.- 11Contested Zones: Circus science collaboration on issues of Australian ecologies,
Linda Hassall and Natalie Lazaroo
.- 12. Fleshy Socialities: Evaluative practices in theatre, performance, health, and wellbeing, Freebody, Mullen, Snider, and Sterback.- 13. Conclusion.

About the author

Molly Mullen
works at Waipapa Taumata Rau/University of Auckland, New Zealand. With a professional background in children’s theatre, youth theatre, applied theatre, and arts education, her research focuses on the intersection of policy, funding, and practice in applied theatre and socially engaged arts. She has published extensively, including
Applied Theatre: Economies
(2018), and is the co-editor of
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance
.

Rand Hazou
is a palestinian theatre practitioner and scholar whose work explores arts engaging with rights and social justice. In 2004, he was commissioned by the UNDP to work in the Occupied Territories in Palestine as a theatre consultant running workshops for Palestinian youths. In Aotearoa, he has led teaching and creative projects with prison, aged-care, and street communities. From 2019 to 2024, he was a researcher on the Health Research Council-funded project
Wellbeing and the Precariat
, examining how experiences of poverty affect working families’ wellbeing. He is an associate professor at Massey University, Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Sarah Woodland
is a senior lecturer in theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where she teaches undergraduate and postgraduate theatre. Her research focuses on applied theatre, socially engaged and participatory arts, with particular attention to intercultural praxis for justice and wellbeing. She has published extensively on these topics and is a co-editor of
Australasian Drama Studies
.

Summary

This open access book presents new methods for evaluating the contribution of participatory arts to health and wellbeing. Responding to shifts in arts and health discourse, it argues for challenging long-standing ideas about how value is theorised, measured, and communicated. This book critiques the dominance of social impact as the primary way of understanding change in arts, health, and wellbeing, proposing instead evaluation approaches grounded in contemporary Indigenous, post-humanist, and postcapitalist theories. Curated as a collaboration between academic scholars and arts practitioners, this book brings together theoretical research frameworks and practical expertise to consider the collective inequities that shape the delivery of community arts projects.

Product details

• Assisted by: Rand Hazou (Editor), Molly Mullen (Editor), Sarah Woodland (Editor)
• Publisher: Springer International Publishing
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 29.05.2026
• EAN: 9783032170620
• ISBN: 978-3-032-17062-0
• Illustrations: Approx. 255 p. 22 illus. in color., farbige Illustrationen
• Series: New Directions in Cultural Policy Research
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Theatre, ballet; Soziale und ethische Themen, Gesundheitssystem und Gesundheitswesen, Community, Equity, Open Access, Health, Value, Wellbeing, Indigenous, Health Policy, Social Justice, Social Impact, Theatre and Performance Arts, participatory arts, Arts Evaluation