Collagegrids: generative metaphor and emergent composition. The interplay of inherited tradition with human agency in fine art practice

Abstract

ABSTRACTOften presented as mutually exclusive or conflicting discourses in the history of art, grids and collage exist in parallel, each having its own discourse, strategy and associations. The PhD project brings together collage and grids and investigates the interplay of inherited tradition (habitus) with the immediacy of human agency (reflexive deliberation), of structures, structuring and agency in practice-led research. Set up to interrogate the collagegrids practice, of constructing open grid formulations and alignments using strategies of collage, the project seeks to extract insights from practice and articulate the role metaphor plays in the construction of new meaning. Insights are thought to lie in (a) exploring how metaphor functions in the ‘movement’ of making and (b) how meaning is constructed through practice. This paper explores the correlation of theory and practice through reflections on the collagegrids project. It argues for the primacy of practice in the construction of new theory and proposes collagegrids as metaphor structuring such thinking and knowledge.