Category Archives: Research Seminar

Art/Practice-Based Research Seminar Series #1

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The seminar series, led by Agata Lulkowska, also has its own webpages at https://www.agatalulkowska.com/seminar-series

This seminar series aims at establishing a dynamic hub, where inspiring discussions, reading groups and presentations concerned with art/practice-based research, based in creative methods could flourish.

Additionally, this series is paired up with a Special Issue for the International Journal of Creative Media Research focusing on the debate around the current stage of Practice-based Research. For more details about the CFP please check the link. 

​Please email Agata.Lulkowska@staffs.ac.uk to book your place.

 
 

Session 1: What is practice-based research? – link to the recording

27th October | 15:30-17:00

​This session will introduce the series, the formula, guests, and topics. It also initiates the discussion on the practicalities and nature of practice-based research. The session will attempt to answer the question of the scopes for practice-based research, what makes it different from regular research and purely creative practice. It will look at definitions, exceptions, expectations and a variety of potential outputs.

​Speaker: Dr Agata Lulkowska

Core reading: Linda Candy, Practice-Based Research: A Guide, 2006, Creativity & Cognition

Studios, University of Sydney.

Case study: The act of killing (+ REF case study)

Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 2: Creative Process meets academic rigour

24th November | 15:30- 17:00

​This session will explore the questions of the process – how do you approach creative methods in art/practice-based research? What are the priorities and how to maintain the right balance between creative freedom and academic rigour.

​Guest speaker: Assoc. Prof Michael Branthwaite 

​Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 3: Creative methods

15th December | 15:30-17:00

​This session explores the wide range of creative methods which could be applied to practice- based research. It reflects on the processes to choose the most relevant methodology, practical application of some, processes, and the implications.

​Guest speaker: Nicole Brown, UCL

​Nicole Brown (2019): Identity boxes: using materials and metaphors to elicit experiences, International Journal of Social Research Methodology, DOI: 10.1080/13645579.2019.1590894 Abhigyan Singh (2011) Visual artefacts as boundary objects in participatory
research paradigm, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 10:1, 35-50, DOI: 10.1386/jvap.10.1.35_1

Drawing on her understanding of and experience with Practice As Research as doing-thinking- being, Dr Nicole Brown presents on using objects and artefacts as creative methods for data collection and analysis. The presentation begins with an outline of methodological, practical and ethical reasons for the employment of object work and metaphorical representations before considering the research questions and foci best suited for these approaches. Nicole concludes with a consideration of the researcher’s role and responsibilities when engaging with participants, stakeholders and the wider scholarly community in Practice As Research.

​Core reading


Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 4: Transdisciplinary/post disciplinary

19th January | 15:30-17:00

Methodological quagmires in the post-disciplinary era.

​Guest speaker: Prof. Carola Boehm 

Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 5: Who is it for and how can we communicate it?

23rd February | 15:30-17:00

​With the traditional publications still defining many academic careers, it becomes a challenging task for researchers working with practice-based methods. Luckily, the emergence of alternative platforms for dissemination makes this task more attainable and relevant to various non- conventional outputs. This session explores the possibilities and challenges of practice-based focused online journals and other platforms focusing on alternative forms of research based in creative methods.

​Guest Speaker: Dr Charlie Tweed

Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 6: Research Assessment and Impact 

30th March | 15:30-17:00

​This session will look at research assessment in different contexts including the REF, research councils and academic awards. It will consider the particular challenges and opportunities for practice research within these contexts and how impactful practice research can be.

​Guest speaker: Prof. Joanna Callaghan

Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 7: Moving image as research practice

27th April | 15:30-17:00 pm

​This session looks into more details on film as a method for practice-based research.

​Guest speakers: Paul Ottey and Assoc. Prof. Fiona Graham

Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 8: Reflective Practice

25th May | 15:30-17:00

Guest Speaker: TBC


Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

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Session 9: How do you prepare future practice-based researchers? 

15th June | 15:30-17:00 pm

​This session summarises all the series up to date, and reflects on the best way to train future practice-based researchers. It reflects on the qualities and skills needed for a successful researcher working with practical, creative methods and it hints at the possibility to develop a toolkit.

​Speaker: Agata Lulkowska


Click here to join the meeting via MS Teams.

PaTHES Online Social Meets – Season 4

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PaTHES Online Social Meets – Season 4

Hosted by Carola Boehm, the International Society for Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education organising virtual social meets, where we come together and chat informally about topics around current challenges for Higher Education and for our Higher Education Futures.

Homepage is at https://pathes.org/pathes-online-social-meets-season-4/

SEASON THEME: Colonisation, Coloniality and Whiteness in the Academy

Led by Dr Thushari Welikala, St. George’s, University of London, UK & facilitated by Prof Carola Boehm, Staffordshire University, UK

Season 4 Online Social Meets focus on how the continuing processes of colonisation, coloniality and whiteness are being utilised by the geo-political Centres to create a particular type of ‘global’ higher education. Colonisation and coloniality are processes that perpetuate the hegemony and the supremacy of whiteness within higher education systems across contexts. Whiteness reflects a set of “narrative structural positions, rhetorical tropes and habits of perception” (Dyer, 1997, p. 12) that enable power structures to continue different forms of coloniality of knowing within higher education institutions, despite the absence of white bodies (Shahjahan and Edwards, 2021).

Audre Lorde (2007) identifies whiteness as a mythical norm that enforces the supremacy of whiteness over others’ life and thought, maintaining the core of white dominance brought on by colonization and enslavement. Whiteness, as the colonial superstructure (Quijano, 2000), operates within current higher education under the guise of global university rankings, globalisation, internationalisation and projects on decolonisation and inclusion, shaping our social and educational imaginary and futurity through colonial ontologies and epistemologies (Christian, 2019).  

The global higher education magnifies white supremacy through racial neo-liberalisation, capitalism and competition, constructing particular values and beliefs about what is meant by learning, teaching and Being human. In question here is, how the often invisible and uncontested whiteness moulds the social- cultural and intellectual imaginaries within higher education and their impact on the process of maintaining and continuing the coloniality of knowing, supressing alternative ways of perceiving the world.

References

Christian, M. (2019). A Global Critical Race and Racism Framework: Racial Entanglements and Deep and Malleable Whiteness. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2019, 5(2) 169–185

Dyer, R. (1997). White. Routledge.

Lorde, A. (2007). An Open Letter to Mary Daly, in Sister Outsider. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press, pp.57-62.

Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from South, 1(3), 533–580.

Shahjahan, R.  A. and Edwards, K. T. (2021). Whiteness as futurity and globalization of higher education, Higher Education 10.1007/s10734-021-00702-x

For your time zone check on https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/

Friday                15/10/2021                   4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)   LINK

Friday                22/10/2021                   4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time) 

Thursday (!)      28/10/2021                   4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)

Friday                05/11/2021                   4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)

Friday                12/11/2021                   4.30pm-5.30pm (BST, UK Time)

 

Beyond Preservation

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Endangered Ceramic Skills Symposium

Saturday 16 October 2021, 9am to 5pm
Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

Bethesda Street, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent ST1 3DW

Beyond Preservation: re-evaluating Intangible Cultural Heritage in the UK Ceramic Industry

Global economics and advances in automation technology have radically
transformed the landscape of the UK’s ceramic industry in recent decades.
Whilst these transitions have facilitated greater productivity, once
commonplace skills associated with ceramic manufacture have now been
displaced, threatening the continuation of much traditional knowledge.
Should such practices, deemed outmoded or economically unviable for
contemporary ceramic production be simply relegated to history or the
trails of heritage tourism? What value is there in safeguarding this
knowledge for the future? How can traditional practices be revived through
new modes of thinking and creativity in a digital age?


This symposium builds upon these questions, and highlights specialist
skills at significant risk of being lost from the industry, surveyed through
recent research for the Heritage Craft Association’s Red List of Endangered
Crafts. Making particular reference to North Staffordshire’s intangible
cultural heritage*, scholars together with former employees and current
representatives from the ceramics industry, will explore a variety of
perspectives concerning a re-evaluation of the industrial crafts and their
revitalisation through contemporary exchange and adaptation.


Although the symposium will be taking place within a cultural event, it will
discuss ways to connect with the local community beyond cultural
institutions, so that they can develop, engage and participate in ‘their’
intangible heritage. It is hoped that this event will introduce new ways of
valuing industrial ceramics skills that are not influenced by the immutable
heritage discourse of experts, by facilitating those that were and are still
involved in the industry to articulate the value of their own heritage.

More details at https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/c3centre/files/2021/10/Beyond-Preservation-programme-v1.5.pdf

 

 

Culture 3.0: Arts, Culture, Diversity and Gatekeeping

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On 21 September 2020 Carola Boehm (Professor of Arts and Higher Education, Staffordshire University) delivered a 15 minutes introductory session on Culture 3.0 concepts, and how they relate to the challenges of making arts and culture more accessible and more diverse.

It provides a good introduction to Luigi Sacco’s Culture 3.0 concepts, and Carola’s own application of these concepts to the UK creative industry contexts.

Abstract

The homicide of George Floyd in America, the Black Lives Matter and #MeToo campaigns have increased both the urgency and the profile of tackling discrimination, exclusionary practices, and institutionalised racism and thus provide a momentum that allows us all to push harder towards  achieving a more inclusive society with fair and equal access to our arts and culture sectors.. In this talk, I will not only explore the details of existing inequalities but put forward solutions for  shaping arts and culture towards becoming more diverse.

My own area is music technology, in general dominated by individuals who identify as being male. The whole cultural music sector, including classical music, has only 32% female artists. Museums on the other hand have 57%. Dance is an artistic practice that has the highest diversity with 18% BME workforce, compared to Museum having the lowest with 6%. Theatre and Visual Arts have the highest of LGBT artists with 9% with Museums only having 3%. This can also be sliced geographically, with  London having the highest diversity (15% BME), the Southwest having the lowest (6%), Midlands having the highest workforce (53%) identifying as female and London the lowest (42%) (ACE, 2019)

As individual creative professionals we often tend to think that the arts are ‘colour-blind’, but increasingly we have to accept that our cultural organisations, our creative funding models and our markers of quality provide barriers of access that are unevenly distributed in society. In this talk, I will present some initiatives and projects that Staffordshire University is carrying out in this area, all aimed to support Equality, Diversity and Inclusion challenges within our arts and cultural sectors. Terms I will use in this talk are co-production, cultural democracy, co-ownership and “Culture 1.0 to 3.0 ecosystems” (Boehm, 2016, 2017).

ACE (2019). Equality, Diversity and the Creative Case. A data report. ACE 2018 – 2019. [Online]. Manchester. Available from: https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/download-file/ACE_DiversityReport_Final_03032020_0.pdf.

Boehm, C. (2016). Academia in Culture 3.0: A Crime Story of Death and Birth (but also of Curation, Innovation and Sector Mash-ups). REPERTARIO: Teatro & Danca. 19 (2). p.pp. 37–48.

Boehm, C. (2017). The end of a Golden Era of British Music? Exploration of educational gaps in the current UK creative industry strategy. In: R. Hepworth-Sawyer, J. Hodgson, J. Paterson, & R. Toulson (eds.). Innovation In Music: performance, production, technology and business. Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

C3 Centre Research Seminar: Tim Anderson – The Death of Liveness

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Stupid, Bang, Stupid is a film by Tim Anderson with music by Corrin Jamal (aka Tim Anderson), exploring authenticiy, presence and liveness in a locked down workd.

C3 Centre Research Seminar

The Death of Liveness – Can Concerts and Collaborations compete with Computerised Choirs and Covid19

Tim Anderson (PhD Candidate)

Thursday 16th July 2020 14:00 – 15:00 (See MS TEAMS link below)


 Keywords:   Aura    Liveness    Presence    Collaboration    Performance   Coronavirus

 Artworks have been traditionally valued by what Walter Benjamin described as their aura – a “magic” property connected with their authenticity, made recognisable in their provenance.  With performance art, the equivalent quality is liveness, or presence.

In the current pandemic,  live performance is placed on hold, with co-performers and collaborators kept at arms’ length.  This seminar considers possible strategies to create multimedia artworks under lockdown conditions.

Select References

  • Auslander, P. (2002) “Live from Cyberspace”, Performing Arts Journal: 70 pp. 16–21. MIT.
  • Bolter, J.D. MacIntyre, B. Gandy, M. and Schweitzer,P. (2006) “New Media and the Permanent Crisis of Aura”, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 12, no. 1 pp.21–39.
  • Stupid, Bang, Stupid (20 June 2020) YouTube video, added by Corrin Jamal [Online]. Available at https://youtu.be/ULmvEEvduio [Accessed 1 July 2020].

 

16/07/2020 14:00 – 15:00 on TEAMS