Taming Your Inner Artist - Recontextualising Practice-based Research

About this project

• The C3 Centre: Creative Industries and Creative Communities

This extensive multi-layered project aims to re-evaluate the current state of creative practice-based research. It examines the status quo of this interdisciplinary, creative way to approach research, thirty-five years on. The ultimate goal of the project is to design a practical toolkit which can provide guidance for current and future practice-based researchers working within creative disciplines. It also aims to strengthen the university’s doctoral training provision by creating a robust hub for practice-based projects supervision.

The project is made of multiple components that contribute to the final outcome. These consist of:

• An Art/practice-based seminar series - ongoing monthly seminar which focuses on the whole trajectory of a research project journey – from definitions, research planning, methodologies design, transdisciplinary challenges and reflective practice to dissemination and impact
• Communities and Communication - an international interdisciplinary conference and art/film festival which aims to build the bridge between research and creative practice. It also functions as a civic engagement activity, reaching out to non-academic audiences to promote creative-based research
• There is also an editorial and publishing work with the International Journal of Creative Media Research where Agata Lulkowska is the Managing Editor. The journal is one of very few platforms to disseminate practice-based research, and it provides a great place for discussion and showcase for these kinds of projects while maintaining academic rigour through a peer-review system.
• Finally, the work gathered in the aforementioned activities will contribute to a series of book publications. The first one will be a practical toolkit for practice-based researchers working in film and screen media. The second will be a book series looking at different creative disciplines and practice-based projects (Static Visual Arts, Time-based Visual Arts, Audio/Sonic Arts, Live Performance as Expressive Art, Theatre/Dance, Everything in-between, and finally, Approaches Across the World)

This ambitious and wide-ranging project has a very practical objective and it aims at a tangible contribution to the field of creative practice research and its supervision.

Bath Spa University