The Bimblebox Art Project has participated in two Research Projects:

2020 – ongoing, Research Project by Andy Grodecki, Queensland University of Technology (QUT):

A new values-based model of stakeholder engagement in public art-science activity that supports societal transformation. (to address climate change and the environmental emergency)

Andy Grodecki is a doctoral candidate for a Doctorate in Creative Industries with Queensland University of Technology. He is developing a new values-based model of stakeholder engagement in public art art-science activity that supports societal transformation. Specifically in public art-science projects that can move and motivate people towards the rapid transition society must make to address climate change and the environmental emergency. 

Researching part-time, Andy is in second phase of research (as at April 2022). Phase 1 identified, assessed, and ranked over 140 public art-science projects that aimed to achieve a form of consilience (new knowledge or understanding from interdisciplinary collaboration). Four outstanding projects including the Bimblebox Art Project, were selected for detailed examination by case study. 

These projects involved many different stakeholders, and the first part of this research sought to understand what it was about their stakeholder engagement practice that enabled them to operate while still challenging the dominant discourse. This led to the development of a preliminary person-centred and values-driven model of practice stakeholder engagement. The second part of this research project will test this model in Meeanjin (Brisbane).

2016 – 2018, Research Project by Andrew Nicholson, University of New England (UNE):

Depiction of Environment through Art
The role of exhibited environmental art in public engagement with environmental sustainability: a case study of the Bimblebox art-science-nature exhibition.

This research project centred on a case study of the Bimblebox: art-science-nature touring exhibition, and associated media. The research project commenced in February 2016 and was completed in 2018 by Andrew Nicholson, University of New England.

Summary report here.
Completed thesis here.

Andrew Nicholson’s research explored the capacity of environmental arts advocacy to close a challenging communication gap. This gap exists on the one hand between conventional forms of environmental and climate science communication to citizens and communities. And on the other hand – the urgently needed and more effective level of practical engagement required from those communities in order to help them respond more effectively to the growing challenges posed by human caused climate change, loss of animals and plants, loss of groundwater and productive soils, and a host of other human-produced impacts on the natural world.