Karina Busquets
About the researcher
Brazilian with dual Spanish citizenship, currently based in Cornwall. I have over 25 years of professional experience, including more than 15 years in communication, strategy, and project management, alongside a decade as an illustrator, author, and artist. I have worked internationally, collaborated on multicultural projects, and published children’s books in Brazil and the USA. I have also exhibited my artwork in Brazil and across Europe, and I bring extensive experience in leading creative workshops and socially engaged practice for a wide range of ages in the UK and abroad.
Research interests
Based in my immigrant experience and Brazilian cultural background, my work engages with narratives of identity and multiple belonging. I investigate the intersections of personal journeys, recognising that everything produced is shaped by our lived, embodied experiences within specific contexts. I am particularly interested in how the exchange of things we make (rooted in arts and crafts) fosters social connections and becomes materiality.
PhD abstract
Thesis title
Reimagining Gift-Giving: A Participatory Art-Based Project for Radical Decolonising Practices
Abstract
This research aims to reimagine gift-giving as an art-based method for decolonising practice, adopting a horizontal approach of open dialogue that emphasises humanity and equality over unbalanced power dynamics. It is guided by the central question:
“How can the exchange of interpersonal narratives - through writing and art practices - combined with audience participation, facilitate meaningful conversations, foster social connections, and ultimately become materiality for new artwork within a decolonial context?”
The study unfolds in three stages. First, informing context involves examining decolonial literature on art-based research, analysing the anthropological and artistic meanings of gift-giving, including its colonial use as a tool of control, and reviewing material culture, focusing on the things we make (art and craft) as expressions of identity and belonging. Second, making and exchanging develops studio-based work grounded in my lived experience, facilitating participatory encounters where making is the basis of exchange, supported by documentation and critical reflection on gift-giving as an art-based decolonial method. Third, creating narratives and a new body of work informed by these exchanges, treating the products of gift-giving as materiality.
The project is framed by autoethnography, materiality, gift-giving, and feminist process-based practice. It draws on my own journey: growing up in a family of immigrants, becoming one myself, moving from a colonised nation to a coloniser, from the southern to the northern hemisphere, and yet from privilege to the margin. This movement foregrounds questions of belonging, border-crossing, and interconnection.
Acknowledging that relationships with people are often intertwined with relationships to objects, the research situates making and exchange within broader debates on material culture and gift-giving. Finally, it connects with feminist traditions centred on community, togetherness, and conversation.