Fundamentals of Practice-Based Research and Research-Creation

Practice-based research means exploring research questions through creative practice. Also known as ‘research-creation’, it is a process of making, doing and thinking, to explore ideas, identities and experiences. This book offers a clear explanation of how practice-based research makes sense as a method, and explores how to develop, make, and present projects effectively. It features inspiring examples, including the work of Indigenous fashion creator Justine Woods, and Black bio-art activist Ashley Jane Lewis, as well as cases where drawing, performance, sound, and music technology are used to explore Black history, migration and social justice. Practice-based research is not ‘just another method’ on the menu: it is an ethical choice, and represents a commitment to empathy, dialogue, and a journey on which we gather a basket of processes, experiments and experiences. Unlike those methods which take a more extractive approach to achieve simplified explanations of the world, practice-based research means we can foreground complex realities, gentleness, and lived experience.