British Columbia

Seeing a process by Bonnie Soroke

Originally this series of images was a report on a meeting about an action research project. The first picture represented the initial feelings of wanting to run away from it all; then sitting down with the mess of ideas, proposals, and necessities of the project; gradually teasing out what we wanted to do and could do; and gradually weaving together ideas and activities, jointly making some structure that was do-able.

Later in the project this same series of images became representative of the whole cyclical process of research—that we eventually would again arrive back at a place of being overwhelmed with all the stuff of research (data collection, issues, tangents) and would again go through the process of sitting down, reflecting upon the most recent messiness, pulling out themes and issues, weaving together and creating—following an emergent design.

Now, this series of images speaks to me again. I read it anew in my present work, where the situation is different, the issues & messiness are different. What remains the same is the need to be aware of the process of being buried or overwhelmed by the data/issues/forces and having to take action to determine what is important, what goes together, and to create/find some clarity in order to move forward…only to know that we will again spiral back to a place of running away, getting mired in messiness, pulling out and weaving together what is necessary to move forward.

So this series of images can represent or be interpreted as:

• Process of research
• Process of analysis
• Process of writing
• Process of living

And it can be seen as circular, cyclical, spiral, in that each time we move back to the “beginning” we are somewhere else again.