Nurturing Change: Processes and outcomes of workshops using collage and gesture to foster aesthetic qualities and capabilities for distributed leadership

© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)This article reports findings from a study using arts-based and embodied (ABE) approaches to enhancing capacity for distributed leadership and explores the professional learning which took place as a result. The data reported in the article are from the UK research which formed part of the ENABLES (European Arts-Based Development of Distributed Leadership and Innovation in Schools) project led by the University of Hertfordshire, UK, co-funded by an Erasmus+ grant over a two-year period between 2019 and 2021. The article indicates why we see the professional learning as transformative and proposes a concept of aesthetic grounding to express the nature of change arising from the ABE approaches used. Aesthetic grounding has a generative and organic quality that introduces new elements and potential into participants’ future reflexive deliberations concerning their professional practice. Through enrihment of aesthetic grounding, there is potential for, but not certainty of, transformation of practice.Peer reviewe