Form Carries Experience: A Story of the Art and Form of Knowledge

Abstract

Artistic evocative autoethnography, as the author conceives it, is both a product and a process. In this article, she hopes to provide insight into some of the issues and questions involved in the process of creating such a work, by inviting the reader to be privy to the process of creating the oil painting: Form carries experience and its accompanying story. As in any ethnographic research and writing, the author’s personality; historical roots; spiritual, moral, and ethical beliefs; physical body; and senses are actively present in her painting and story—integral parts of her interaction with and interpretation of the world. Together they illuminate, represent, and critique the project of being a health worker/researcher in Vanuatu, a small island nation in the South-West Pacific.