Research Revealed: A Space for Process and Practice

 

By Graeme Sullivan, Teachers College, Columbia University

 

What is it that artists do in their studios? What is it that teachers of art do in their classrooms? Both artists and art teachers are compelled by the excitement of art. For artist-teachers the impulse to make art is an exciting process from which we all learn. The practice of making and learning from art is an intensely human process that engages all forms of creative and critical capacities. What occurs in the imaginative spaces of the mind as well as in the inventive places where art is explored, encountered and experienced is a profound form of human engagement. This involves a rich mix of imaginative and intellectual sensibilities and complex cognitive processes. So it is not difficult to appreciate that what artist-teachers do, irrespective of where they carry out their practice, is to conduct inquiries into art, about art, and through art. Consequently artistic processes can be defined and described as research practices for an aim is to create new knowledge, awareness and understanding.

 

The art studio has long been a space where core learning experiences for artist-teachers takes place. The post-discipline mood of our current times, however, means that boundaries are readily breached as initiatives are undertaken across media areas, domains of knowledge, technologies and communities. This raises challenges and opportunities for artist-teachers in higher education as new forms of creative and critical research begin to open up. Some of these are on view at the Pearl Street Gallery. The research processes and practices revealed here do not try to imitate or adapt methods from the human sciences. Rather the quest for new knowledge emerges from traditions of inquiry found within the studio space, yet the attention to systematic and thoughtful research is apparent. What is compelling is the role the imagination and intellect play in constructing knowledge that is not only new but has the capacity to transform human understanding. The exciting way artist-teachers create opportunities that realize new insights which critiques what it is we know is revealed through the studio art research on display in 'Space: Process Revealed'.