Creating new stories for praxis: practitioner-led research in the creative arts

Abstract

In moving creatively into our practice we are fundamentally concerned to develop new knowledge, to challenge old beliefs and to speculate on the ‘what ifs’ of our concepts and processes. For the arts practitioner, whether studio or classroom based, new knowledge is made in the context of and challenge to the history, theory and practices of our relevant field. The research function for developing and extending knowledge is judged on the outcome of the research, which synthesises, extends or analyses the problematics of the discipline (Guba & Lincoln 1989). While my work now explores the possibilities of research for the artist as studio practitioner it is framed by my activities as a teacher of artists. Through my teaching I approach practitioner-led research as a way of working, investigating and theorising what it is to practice in the studio as researcher (Dissanayake, 1990; Van Maanen 1990; Turner & Bruner 1986). In this process, as with many teachers of art, my classroom has become synonymous with my studio, functioning as a laboratory for research (Weirsma 1995). My hybrid practice includes crossing between spaces and places, exploring and practising in diverse and often foreign fields, retaining an excitement about change and difference, practising simultaneously as artist/ researcher / teacher. This paper explores the process of redesigning pedagogy through an approach to practitioner-led research that conceptualises it as critical, reflective, investigative praxis. Praxis, for me, involves the crucial and inextricable meld of theory and practice. Thus practitioner-led research is concerned with processes for theorising practice, using appropriation, pastiche and collaboration as basic tenants.