This semester has been challenging and complicated. I have poured much stress and anxiety on my body and mind that I never imagined I would have. However, it was all due to suffering through anticipation that resulted from the final coursework. With a sense filled with restlessness concerning the most derisory details of possible projects that would turn out poorly, I had difficulty reaching my goals.
Is my work so far sufficient for what is to come? Is my uncontrollable urge to keep researching and preparing justified, or is what I have at the moment good enough?
These are all questions that question me even as I write this publication. My most important fear centres, without a doubt, on the possibility of the painting project being too ambitious. Of the two projects, the project of synchretic painting is the riskiest and most likely to go wrong. However, I have learnt over these three months that failure is part of the whole learning and research process.
This condition of learning from mistakes, or instead learning by doing, has benefited me a lot, and I feel that it is in this way, whatever the outcome, that I will be able to achieve my goals and answers. This is called Practice as Research (PaR).
According to Robin Nelson, PaR is:
PaR involves a research project in which practice is a key method of inquiry and where, in respect of the arts, a practice (creative writing, dance, musical score/ performance, theatre/performance, visual exhibition, film or other cultural practice) is submitted as substantial evidence of a research inquiry.
It is a practice that antagonises the classic university research method, where theory and practice are distinct nuances of each other. In this case, and in this method, PaR is an asset in the arts. In my opinion, PaR enables the following factors:
- It demystifies the pressure one has on both the creative process and the process of theoretical rationalisation. One absorbs mistakes and less favourable responses to research more lightly than the other way around.
- It makes possible and credible the creation of more artistic content adequately contextualised. It embraces innumerable nuances and investigates new methods.
The philosophy of this method also lies in ideologies that are very posthumous to today’s date. It reminds me of David Hume’s theories of knowledge – a posteriori. The knowledge is only taken for granted after practice. Or, also Lev Vygotsky’s ideas about the Zone of Proximal Development – the distance between what a learner can do unsupported and what they can only do supported.
Robin Nelson reminds us of David Pears’ bicycle example:
I know how to ride a bicycle, but I cannot say how I balance because I have no method. I may know that certain muscles are involved, but that factual knowledge comes later, if at all, and it could hardly be used in instruction
This is a good example of practical knowledge and resembles the same method I’m using for painting. I do not know anything about it. But through documentation, trial and error experience, and practising, I will accomplish fundamental results.
I’m looking forwards to this next phase, and I will embrace the best way possible.