Reflection and reflexivity: The archive and the creative process

Abstract

This article attempts to address some of the limitations currently felt by creative practitioners in the UK (with wider implications) when presenting their practise-led work as research. Taking as a starting point the self-reflective critical component generally accepted as a key criterion in the recognition of practice as research, I ask if a case may be made for metafictional devices being recognised as legitimate forms of practice research methodology. Using a current creative work in progress that focusses on the question of how one may represent the past without simply appropriating it to one’s own position, I investigate whether it is possible for a self-reflexive component internal to the creative work to fulfil the requirements for the formal recognition of practice as research within the UK’s research structures and processes whilst also serving as an inter-generative, vital part of the creative process.