Ecosystemic Practice-Research (for the Benefit of Others)

Abstract

This writing is about the relationships between artistic processes, artistic works, and how we might frame these as practice research. It has two aims: 1) to describe when artistic processes are framed as practice research through written forms, and the implications of this timing; and ii) to propose that our responsibility as practice researchers is to draw our work deeply into dialogue with other artistic work that exists in tangible ecosystems of artistic practice. The alternative is the status quo in which we rely on arguments made by the authority of totemic theoreticians who exist beyond our communities of practice. These ideas are not specific to dance practice research, but rather are about practice research more broadly. As part of the writing I use as an example an artwork of mine that emerged through body-based practices – Children of the Soil – to explore the messiness of how we might reliably produce practice research while respecting the unfinished thinking of the artwork itself. 1