Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

Volume 5 Issue 1, 2020

EDITORIAL

VOLUME 5, ISSUE 1

ENCOUNTERING ARTISTIC RESEARCH PRACTICES:

ANALYZING THEIR CRITICAL SOCIAL POTENTIALITIES

Karin Hannes

Research Group SoMeTHin’K

(Social, Methodological and Theoretical Innovation/Kreative),

KU Leuven, Belgium

karin.hannes@kuleuven.be

Rudi Laermans

Theory, Culture and Religion Research Group,

KU Leuven, Belgium*

rudi.laermans@kuleuven.be

*Joined lead authors

Karin Hannes coordinates research group SoMeTHin’k (Social, Methodological &

Theoretical Innovation with a creative twist) at the Faculty of Social Sciences, KU

Leuven and specializes in arts-based, place-based, multisensory and futuring research

designs as well as qualitative evidence synthesis as a meta-review technique. Prof.

Hannes works from an inclusive, academic activism perspective actively pushes

towards the development of methods and models for positive change in society. Her

perspective is transdisciplinary and multimodal in nature, combining numerical, textual,

sensory and/or arts-based research d.a.t.a to study complex social phenomena.

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Attempting to categorize the most important trend within the field of the then fine

arts, French art critic and curator Nicolas Bourriaud

(2002) coined the notion of

“relational aesthetics” or

“relational art.” The expression refers to a multiple set of

artistical practices “which take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the

whole of human relations and their social context” (p. 113). Claire Bishop (2006) saw

this trend confirmed in the following years and in 2006, in an influential essay in

Artforum International, launched the idea of a broader social turn in the visual arts. The

focus on different modes of collaboration with a variety of publics would no longer

characterize a specific artistic segment, but rather form the dominant trend in art/

research practice.

The social turn also deeply affected the various performing arts, including theatre

(see for instance Jackson, 2011; Malzacher, 2015), dance (Laermans, 2015), and music

(Colin & Sachsenmaier, 2016). A wide range of working forms, methods or practices is

involved, varying from participatory art still framed by a semi-directive approach over

more symmetrically informed community art projects to outright activist art that acts in

tandem with broader protest movements (Kester, 2011). What binds these socially

engaged and often research-embedded artistic projects is their encountering element,

with the artworks produced holding equal (in many cases less) importance to the

collaborative act of creating them and the interaction involved in doing so (Finkelpearl,

2013).

Most social art is guided by a critical perspective on power inequalities and their

effects within the spheres of for instance gender, ethnic majorities-minorities

relationships, the economy, or the daily lifeworld as impacted by environmental

changes. Together with raising awareness concerning social justice and equality, direct

individual empowerment and collective emancipation are often explicit goals of social

art. Artists involved in the corresponding practices tend to use art as a vehicle to engage

with the texture of social life, eventually disrupting the seemingly natural flow of the

social in order to stimulate reflection and invite action for change.

Notwithstanding the variety of deployed modes or methods, social art has some

marked features distinguishing it from the modernist stress on art’s autonomy. First, the

emphasis is on social processes or dynamics; hence, social art practices emphasize

immaterial social dynamics rather than the production of aesthetic objects. Second,

social art cultivates a critical approach that goes against the commercial grain of the

visual arts world in particular. Hence, the related practices opt for a de-commodified

creativity short-circuiting art markets. Third, the construction and reconstruction of social

relationships may take place in a gallery or museum context or within the more specific

established frameworks corresponding with the genres of theatre, dance, or music

performance. However, there is a definite preference not to work in the white cube or

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the black box and to experiment with existing or new emancipatory modes of sociability

within public space (Bax, Gielen, & Ieven, 2016; Meier & Frers, 2016). This is linked to

an anti-elitist stance and the will to reach out to social groups, or even collectives-yet-to-

be-defined, that are likely to be negated by art institutions (Kester, 2011). Fourth, the

process-identity of socially engaged artistic practices implies the possibility to use joined

creation for imagining new identities or to transform disruptive habits of minds evoked

by personal, structural, or life changing events shared with significant others. A fifth and

last key characteristic concerns the notion of “social” in the expression “social art.”

Given that it is nearly always made for a public, however small, art has per definition a

social rationale. Yet practices exemplifying the idea of social art emphasize

participation, dialogue, co-action or co-creation. As such, they subvert the traditional

notion of authorship and seem to ask for concepts such as multiple authorship. Besides

being multiple, authorship constantly shifts within collaborative artistic practices, which

precludes naming a final creator. Indeed, the created work is the outcome of a non-

linear work of encountering encompassing moments of explicit negotiation as well of

periods of social improvisation. In order to underline this open and dialogical character

of social art, we choose to speak of encountering artistic practices.

Making encountering art may not just be a way to create art with a high social

value. In many instances, this endeavor is intrinsically linked with an outspoken

research interest. Precisely because of their open social dynamics, encountering artistic

practices can shed light in an innovative way on the different social textures that may

emerge in relation to different modes of encountering (Wang, Coemans, Siegesmund, &

Hannes, 2017; Cahnmann-Taylor & Siegesmund, 2017). Such a research interest

includes a focus on the underlying dynamics through which artistic practices either re-

enforce or re-define general notions of “differing” and how they either challenge existing

societal power mechanisms or alternatively keep them into place (Beyes & Steyaert,

2011; McDowell, 2018).

Furthering social enlightenment or empowerment, and investigating existing or,

especially, potential emancipatory modes of sociality through encountering artistic

practices may be indeed two sides of one and the same coin. This requires new notions

of how to study socially engaged research practices. Not all encountering art also

testifies of a research attitude or is informed by a premeditated methodology and a well-

considered theoretical framework. Thus, many examples of straightforward activist art

consider effective social change as more important than an interest in how this may be

reached through a research informed encountering artistic practice. The evident danger

of this kind of artistic activism is that the process of encountering is instrumentalized to

such an extent that the intrinsic socio-political value of that very process is no longer

recognized.

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There are yet more direct, non-political modes of instrumentalization, even of

commodification. When organized within the confining walls or under direct impulse of

art institutions, encountering artistic practices may risk becoming collaborative in a

negative sense, i.e. to contribute to the public attractivity of a museum or theater without

much critical effect. Against their critical grain, encountering events can indeed be “just

fun,” preach to the already converted cultural bourgeoisie, or anything but heighten the

sense for social change because an overtly moral stance sits in the way of genuine

political claims (compare Bishop, 2012).

When assembling this special issue, we wanted to foster the already rich

dialogue between encountering art and research-based art. The material and immaterial

dimensions created during social encounters are not solely an expression of what has

been found. Artistically inspired processes work performatively. Hence in their

expression, the artworks become the research itself (Haseman, 2006). Given the just

mentioned potential pitfalls of the first, we were particularly interested in examples of

artistic research practices creating encounters between people and the public domain

that have a clear critical edge, embrace the power of critical dialogue and enhance the

common good.

Specific lines of interest for our call included non-intentional

“nomadic”

encounters in public space, as addressed by practices ranging from public art to

creative activism

(Braidotti,

2011), community framed encounters as addressed by

community and co-creative art projects

(Jackson,

2011), and audience based

encounters resting on a shared time and physical attention as addressed by live and

performing arts (Malzacher, 2015).

The contributions to this special issue further our understanding of the impact of

the blurred lines between art, social life, and scholarship as illustrated by encountering

art. Several authors critically challenge our current understanding of what art can

achieve or is supposed to provide in social terms; still others question the idea that

artistic practices should necessarily be perceived as a means to a social end. More

generally, all contributions go beyond the all too simple and questionable impact

approach of the use of art in widening audience participation or transforming

participants and communities. The studies we included testify of a reflexive attitude

informed by the kind of intellectual curiosity as well as awareness of potential limits

informing all genuine artistically inspired research. Moreover, several papers relate the

discussed case to broader issues by situating them in an economic, cultural,

educational, social and/or political context.

In the Theoretical Musings section, Maureen Flint uses Rosi Braidotti’s concept

“nomadic ethics” in relation to the process of making paper and develops new

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considerations on ethics and representation in research methodology and art through

social encounters with a broader public. Nerina Jane Caltabiano investigates the

concept of liminality defined as a phase of change, transition, and transformation from a

social justice perspective. Rather than limiting the work to the study of how artworks

may soothe childhood trauma, it is situated in the broader context of “professionalism

for sustainable societal change.” Lynn Sanders-Bustle takes a methodological stance,

explaining how qualities associated with social practice overlap with and extend existing

arts-based research practices. She presents the work of three socially engaged artists

wherein the emphasis is not on art as an object but rather on the alternative social

exchanges that emerge through participation with others. Shannon Forrestor engages

with the dynamics of exclusion through reparative painting and considers how systemic

cultural agents deploy inequity to obstruct human flourishing.

The Art/Research in Action section presents eight case studies written by authors

with a variety of different backgrounds. Enni Mikonen and colleagues present a

participatory theatre project with immigrant women to investigate how art-based

research can function as a decolonizing research method. Its analysis is based on the

combination of social work and art education disciplines for advancing social justice and

deconstructing power dominances. Davina Kirkpatrick embarks on a polylogue in

which a collaborative shared experience of loss is environmentally materialized. She

argues that “absence” has agency and can be located in a shared space. Justin

Langois uses the concept of antagonism as a guiding principle for his artwork. He

situates the idea of conflict in the broader context of social democracy, explaining how

artists may deploy disagreement against larger hegemonic structures and help foster

new expressions of agency. Kelly Clark/Keefe’s “Life Lines” project is an example of a

critical participatory arts-engaged research endeavor aimed at opening up conventional

theoretical wisdom about the nature of young adult college students identity formation.

She uses a multiplicity of expressive forms to challenge identity development models

that limit subjectivity to human consciousness and agency in the absence of

acknowledging somatically attuned sets of practices and productions. Heike Langsdorf

and Ernst Marechal invite us into reconsidering authorship practices, focusing on the

idea that what is overwritten through communal and multi-perspective experience is

always more promising (however, not necessarily better!) than what vanished the

moment when it mismatched our individual ideas. They illustrate this convincingly in the

dialogue they have built with each other. Time to invite our readers into “encountering”

art/science research practice.

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REFERENCES

Bax, S., Gielen, P. & Ieven, B. (Eds.) (2016). Interrupting the city: Artistic constitutions of

the public sphere. Amsterdam, NL: Valiz.

Beyes, T., & Steyaert, C. (2011). The ontological politics of artistic interventions:

Implications for performing action research. Action Research, 9(1), 100-115.

Bishop, C. (2006). The social turn: Collaboration and its discontents. Artforum

International, 44(6), 178-183.

Bishop, C. (2012). Artificial hells: Participatory art and the politics of spectatorship.

London: Verso, 2012.

Bourrdiaud, N. (2002). Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les presses du reel.

Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic theory: The portable Rosi Braidotti. New York: Columbia

University Press.

Cahnmann-Taylor, M., & Siegesmund, R. (Eds.). (2017). Arts-based research in

education: Foundations for practice. New York: Routledge.

Colin, N., & Sachsenmaier, R. (Eds.) (2016). Collaboration in Performance Practice.

New York: Palgrave.

Finkelpearl, T. (2013). What we made: Conversations on art and social cooperation.

Duke University Press.

Haseman, B. (2006). A manifesto for performative research. Media International

Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, 118(1), 98-106.

Jackson, S. (2011). Social works: Performing art, supporting publics. New York:

Routledge.

Kester, G.H. (2011). The one and the many: Contemporary collaborative art in a global

context. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Laermans, R. (2015). Moving Together. Theorizing and Making Contemporary Dance.

Amsterdam: Valiz.

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Malzacher, F. (2015), Not just a mirror. Looking for the political theatre of today. Berlin,

DE: Alexander Verlag.

McDowell, L. (2018). Gender, identity and place: Understanding feminist geographies.

New Jersey, NY: John Wiley & Sons.

Meier, L., & Frers, L. (2016). Encountering urban places-Visual and material

performances in the city. In L. Meier & L. Frers (Eds.), Encountering urban

places: Visual and Material performances in the city (pp. 17-24). Routledge.

Wang, Q., Coemans, S., Siegesmund, R., & Hannes, K. (2017). Arts-based methods in

socially engaged research practice: A classification framework. Art/Research

International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 2(2), 5-39.

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