Sibel Kusdemir

Sibel is a PhD candidate in Nursing at Western University, working with art-based participatory methods in collaboration with people who have lived experience of substance use. She is interested in how photographs and stories can surface substance use, mental health, and everyday survival from the perspective of people who are usually spoken about rather than spoken with.

She has contributed to research at the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing as a Research Coordinator and Graduate Research Assistant on projects focused on homelessness policy, qualitative inquiry, and evidence synthesis. Her work appears in critical and psychiatric nursing journals in areas such as harm reduction, take-home naloxone, and mental health nursing theories. Her doctoral research has been supported by competitive internal funding at Western University, and during her PhD she has presented research on mental health, substance use, harm reduction, and homelessness at national and international conferences in Canada and Europe.

Drawing on this experience, Sibel is available to consult on photovoice and other participatory visual projects. Areas of collaboration can include:

• design of photovoice and other participatory visual studies
• facilitation and ethics of participant or collaborator groups
• supporting participants in producing and interpreting visual material
• planning visual outputs such as exhibitions, digital stories, and knowledge-mobilization materials that move between community, policy, and academic audiences