Research & Publications

 

I have an interest in the interplay between art-making, social justice, and public health.  As an artist-researcher, I therefore enjoy supporting projects that focus on improving people’s lives and empowering communities through creativity and the Arts.

Recently, I was awarded a grant by the West of England Combined Authority to visit the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, to share learning and practice on using clay in Social Prescribing ‘Arts-on-Referral’ initiatives. In anticipation of this exchange in March 2025, I am reading Bernard Leach’s autobiography, ‘Beyond East & West’, to discover more about his social and spiritual motivations as well as what drew him to both Cornwall and Japan.

In 2024, I facilitated an arts-based application of the INNATE framework, formulated by researchers at University College London’s ‘Social Biobehavioural Research Group’, inviting people to contribute to a collaborative group art work at the inspiring ‘Creative Health in Action’ conference at the Bristol Beacon.  This was an opportunity to take research data about creative health and put it back into practice, inviting people to use clay to consider what they feel are the ‘active ingredients’ needed to have positive experiences of ‘arts in health activities’.  You can read more about it here.

I am currently consulting on the design and development of the first regional Arts-on-Referral service for Children and Young People working alongside creativeShift and Southmead Development Trust, and am an advisor for both the University of Bristol’s Create for Confidence project and the North & West Bristol Locality Partnership’s Children and Young People’s Mental Health Advisory Group.

I have been an advisor to the International Journal of Art Therapy (IJAT) and a contributor to the British Association Of Art Therapists‘s (BAAT) InSight publication, both of which publish peer-reviewed studies and articles on contemporary art therapy practice.  I also formed and co-facilitated BAAT’s first Special Interest Group for Art Psychotherapy trainees and students.

In the absence of literature on Art Psychotherapy and Functional Neurological Disorder, I am currently co-authoring a chapter for a book on clinical practice in this field.

Between 2022-2024, I supported Arts & Health South West on developing its arts and health toolkit.


Recently published work, conferences and exhibitions

• ‘Play with clay and have your say: What are the active ingredients needed for people to have positive creative health experiences?’ (2024) A collaborative clay art-in-action piece facilitated at the ‘Creative Health in Action’ conference co-produced by Bristol Beacon, Creative Shift, Culture West and University of Bristol. Available at: https://sbbresearch.org/innate-in-action-what-are-the-active-ingredients-of-creative-health-experiences/ 

• Contributor to the Reach In Reach Out Toolkit produced by Arts & Health South West (2024).  Available at: https://www.culturehealthandwellbeing.org.uk/sites/default/files/RIRO_Toolkit_FULL_V4.pdf

• Baum, J. and Sellors, S. J. (Summer 2023) ‘Starting out as an art therapist’, Insight. Available at: https://baat.org/publications/insight/summer-2023-24/starting-out-as-an-art-therapist/

• Baum, J. and Sellors, S. J. (Summer 2023) ‘Connecting with art therapist trainees and new practitioners’, Insight. . Available at: https://baat.org/publications/insight/summer-2023-24/connecting-with-art-therapy-trainees-and-new-practitioners/

• This Is Essential Work exhibition (2022). Available at: https://www.thisisessentialwork.com/ I showed my artwork, ‘A Watched Pot’, 2021, a collaborative digital film collage using mobile phone footage shot by 30 mothers on their mobile phones during the pandemic.

• Nurture Commodified conference (2021) feminists exploring work, commodification, and infant feeding, University of the West of England, the Australian University, and Open University. Works presented.

• International Women’s Day (2021), film screening at the Cube Cinema, Bristol.  I showed my artwork, ‘A Watched Pot’, 2021, a collaborative digital film collage using mobile phone footage shot by 30 mothers on their mobile phones during the pandemic.

• Baum, J. (2020) ‘Transformation: training in the pandemic, an emerging art psychotherapist’s perspective’ in ATOL: Art Therapy Online VOL 12 NO 1 (2021). Available at: https://journals.gold.ac.uk/index.php/atol/article/view/1498