Creativity - and research as creative practice

I mentioned in an earlier post that alongside the method of collage inquiry that I am using with participants in workshops, that I am also using the method of artography. This method generates data from a researcher-as-artist in response to a research phenomenon. The method invites conversation between visual ways of knowing (through artmaking) and writing through reflective writing. The method has been described as ‘a methodology of embodiment’ ​(La Jevic and Springgay, 2008)​ because it represents the physical engagement of artist-researchers, through making, with the world. 

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​Artography has been described as a ‘border' methodology’ ​(Wright, 2023)​ because it implies positional fluidity in the doing of research, between artist, researcher, and researcher as participant. It also implies fluidity in different forms of knowing, drawing upon both visual and written texts. The process of ‘border crossing’ holds the potential to humanize, rather than abstract and classify, human experience ​(Wright, 2023)​.

In my previous post, I reflected on the holding pattern I found myself in creating repetitive ink doodles and sketches. It was the art equivalent of holding my breath as I anticipated the first workshop of the project.

Now that the first workshop has taken place, I have had an opportunity to reflect on the themes that emerged from the participants in the room. Unusually, the commonly shared theme was about the absence of creativity in research, and more specifically, the environment around the researchers that was not conducive to creativity. I say 'unusually' because what prompted me to undertake the project in the first place were the stories told by researchers in these workshops last year, about imposter phenomenon, environments that failed to be inclusive of all, and some stories of poor behaviour from research leaders and managers.

So, the common theme was about creativity, and more specifically permission to be creative. This emerged in different kinds of contexts, such as using creativity as a method to explore one's positionality in research (and connecting one's heritage to one's research) as well as interrogating the perception of creativity and play in different disciplines. Someone talked about being 'deliberately messy' and 'colourful' in an attempt to break away from the ordered process associated with their discipline. A colleague sent me Pat Thomson's recent post on 'research as creative practice - possibility thinking', connecting 'What if?' statements to support researcher reflexivity.

The collages produced, and the discussion prompted by them was fascinating, and prompted me to revisit my creativity through artography in a deliberate attempt to move away from the repetitive iterative doodles of these past few months. I chose canvas and acrylics. I find it very challenging to be precise and detailed when I am painting and I deliberately tried to free up how I used the paint - in the spirit of being 'deliberately messy'. What emerged was messy (for me) and I was surprised as a squirrel emerged on the canvas. I had not intended him to appear!

The squirrel is particularly significant for me. When I first started making work again around three years ago - in part a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, one of the earliest collages I produced, 'Casting Flower Spells' (below) represented my joy in the transition to a new job after challenging experiences through the pandemic, and getting to grips with the reshaping of my professional identity.

I don't know why the squirrel has become so important as a symbol of creativity and agency for me (and something to be explored further in the research) but I am delighted that the participants in the first workshop embraced this spirit and through it explored different 'What if?' perspectives on their research, and on their positionality within a discipline.