Chelsea Watego in Another Day in the Colony describes the problem with the current way community is serviced, ‘…[T]here is something really sick about the situation of Indigenous peoples as described within the health sciences, which consistently insists that we accept the inferiority of our culture. And that the very ideological foundation upon which we become visible is as statistically inferior – on terms of their choosing yet again. And despite over a decade of policy failure we are being subjected to a refresh of those statistical ‘targets’ rather than a radical reframing.’
In this section, we’ll look at what we can learn from the artist-as-researcher model to create space for participant and community led research and evaluation, how community can build their own methodologies to develop and share knowledge, and the role an artist-as-researcher could play in the design and development of community led programs.
Still taken from “Adapting the grass skin”, featuring Vicki Kinai, videography by Liang Luscombe
The artist-as-researcher is a term that has been discussed in and around art schools, galleries, and public institutions for some time. These discussions have often revolved around the legitimisation of ‘research’ in art by academics, within an academic framework rather than artists leading the development and creation of methods and means to investigate, interrogate, and share their work.
In See it Again, Say it Again: The Artist as Researcher (2011), Janneke Wesseling sets out to challenge the notions of legit research, and academic frameworks by approaching artist-as-researcher as ‘research in and through art.’ She contends, ‘Reflection and research are closely interwoven with artistic practice. In some cases, the research has become the work of art itself; subject matter and medium serving as an instrument in the research or ‘thought process’.’
This tension is not limited to the field of art. The void between academic theory, evaluation frameworks and practice, whether it be the provision of goods and services to groups, or in the ways knowledge is communicated, celebrated or created exists across disciplines.
In the context of community services, often referred to as ‘development’ or ‘capacity building’ of communities, funding and program initiatives are tied to objectives, frameworks and success indicators that are established on the back of ‘research’ by higher education institutions, policy makers or bureaucrats who most often exist outside the ‘communities’ they aim to serve.
The artist-as-researcher model / role is one way we can challenge normative ideas of what is and is not ‘research’ and whose voices are included and who’s are left out. Especially where ‘proper’ frameworks have been established by the powerful and imposed onto those with less power. For example, anthropology was established by colonisers to know their subjects. In this way artist as researcher can challenge insitutions and offer creative practice as modalities to collaborate in differential and multitude of ways.
Cher Tan speaking on institutions and co-optation
Questions to Consider for Learning Objective 1:
WATCH Check out Aunty Vicki Kinai’s ‘Adapting the Grass Skirt‘ that was created as a part of Arts Gen’s K(not) program.
TASK Think about a time you learned something from an Elder, a friend or a community member, what did that experience feel like? What did it sound like? What were the surrounding smells? Write a short paragraph (250 words approx.) about this learning experience.
There are multiple inter-disciplinary ways of approaching this work. Hear from artists Hoang Tran Nguyen, Sophia Chai and Cher Tan on their approaches to artist as research in their practices.
Hoang Tran Nguyen on artist-as-researcher and social practice
Sophia Chai on how research has informed her practice
Cher Tan speaking about their practice in relation to research
The prerequisite for a good research environment is asking, ‘what do you do and why?’ The method or the methods are the answer to the question: How? In our daily practice we develop methodologies. Methodology in its simplest definition generally refers to a theory of method, or the approach or technique being taken or the reasoning for seconding a set of methods. Artists, and the artist as researcher is often most concerned by the second, the approach or technique being taken to answer, ‘How?’. Through practice, these approaches or techniques are explored and consolidated, making them gradually more familiar and possible to describe. If you have several different methods in your work process you can combine them to a methodology.
Unlike some academics or the policy officer of a government, the artist’s methods are broad and specific to them and their communities. They include conversation, familial knowledge, observation and embodied knowledge – the everyday knowledge of living with and within their communities.
Hoang Tran Nguyen on his artist-as-researcher practice
TASK We all carry life lessons, from the time we learnt to tie a shoelace, a story a Grandparent told us or our favourite book. These are all significant learnings, what’s something you might share with others and how?
Leavy, P. (2021) Method meets art: Third edition: Arts-based research practice, Guilford Press. Available at: https://www.guilford.com/books/Method-Meets-Art/Patricia-Leavy/9781462538973
Riley, S.R. and Hunter, L. (eds) (2009) Mapping landscapes for performance as Research, SpringerLink. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230244481
Riley, S.R. and Hunter, L. (eds) (2009) Mapping landscapes for performance as Research, SpringerLink. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230244481
Gray, C. (1996) Inquiry through practice: Developing appropriate research strategies. Available at: http://carolegray.net/Papers%20PDFs/ngnm.pdf
authors, A. and http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8869-0215, R.L.S. (2018) Creative practice as research: Discourse on methodology, Taylor & Francis. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14682753.2017.1362175
Nelson, R. (2013) Practice as research in the Arts, SpringerLink. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Available at: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137282910