Abstract
Practice-led research has been under debate for three decades. One of its major issues concerns how the researcher who is also the practitioner documents and reflects on her creative process in relation to a research topic. This article reviews and discusses documentation and reflection in practice-led research through three cases of doctoral dissertations that were completed at Aalto University in Finland. Through the cases the article examines the role the documentation and reflection of creative processes and products in these studies. In conclusion, documentation in the practice-led research context functions as conscious reflection on and in action. Any means of documentation, for example diary writing, photographing, or sketching, can serve as a mode of reflection.
Highlights
In the past three decades, practicing artists and designers have adopted an innovative position as practitioner-researchers in academia by conducting academic research through their own practice
The notion of research through practice can be traced back to the separation made by Christopher Frayling (1993), one of the early contributors to examine the role of art and design, in relation to research practices. He divides design research into three different categories, depending on the focus and mode of the task at hand. He uses the term research into art and design to imply that art and design is the subject of inquiry and a phenomenon to be studied from the outside
The term research through art and design proposes that creative production can be understood as a research method
Summary
In the past three decades, practicing artists and designers have adopted an innovative position as practitioner-researchers in academia by conducting academic research through their own practice. Maarit Mäkelä and Nithikul Nimkulrat Documentation as a practice-led research tool for reflection on experiential knowledge installations and their spatial construction (Figures 7 and 8), individual exhibits and the process of setting up the exhibitions. Maarit Mäkelä and Nithikul Nimkulrat Documentation as a practice-led research tool for reflection on experiential knowledge vehicle for the research, whose structure was divided based on the periods of the art productions and the exhibitions into five phases (Figure 12). Throughout the research process, documentation was conducted both visually and textually in various forms, such as diary writing, photographing, sketching, diagram drawing and questionnaires These means of documentation were used during the creative processes and exhibitions and when studying theories related to the research topic (Nimkulrat, 2007). Documentation makes the implicit artistic experience attainable and debatable in the context of disciplined inquiry
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