Practice As Research

Nicole Brown
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Practice As Research aims to bring together the many different strands of practice-led/based research across all disciplines so as to not be limited by disciplinary conventions, but instead to benefit from cross-disciplinary fertilisation. In the wider academic communities, there are many terms in use to describe the research-practice nexus. For the sake of consistency we adopt the term 'practice as research'. Fundamentally, we consider practice as research any practice that is underpinned by scholarship and academic rigour. The primary aim of Practice As Research is sharing practices, providing constructive feedback and thus enabling the mutual development of understanding around practice as research.

  1. DEC 4

    Stitches of Self: Restorative textile-based approaches to define the lived experience

    Stitches of Self: Restorative textile-based approaches to define the lived experience. Stitches of Self was and is an inclusive, textile-based research project exploring the restorative and empowering potential of textile work for those experiencing displacement. Through sensory and somatic approaches, the project engaged teacher education students working with children, young people and families with forced migration experiences, using art-engaged, non-verbal activities to prompt hidden stories of resilience and identity. By creating safe, listening-friendly spaces, the project explored how textile methods can support healing, amplify voices, and open dialogue where words may falter. Developed in acknowledgement of Refugee Education UK’s work, Stitches of Self highlights the power of creative research to foster dignity, hope and collective understanding. Dr Suzy Tutchell is Associate Professor in Art Education at the Institute of Education, University of Reading. As an artist-researcher-teacher, she explores diverse, sensory and creative methods at the intersection of art and social justice. Suzy leads the art specialism on the BA Primary Education programme and the creativity pathway on the master’s in education, whilst also serving as School Director for Racial Equity and Justice. With a background as an art subject leader and consultant in London schools, she brings over fifteen years’ experience in higher education to her work in shaping inclusive and imaginative practices in education.

    52 min

  2. NOV 14

    Embodied knowing: Foregrounding the multi-sensoriality of the body as epistemological site

    In this session Dr Elsa Urmston will consider the body as a site of knowledge as well as a tool for generating knowledge. Embodiment is a complex construct with varied meanings in different fields. What unifies research on embodiment is its emphasis on the body, where embodied knowledge production challenges Cartesian privileging of mind over body as the locus of knowledge. Drawing on phenomenological understandings of embodiment where the body is proposed as an epistemological site, and movement, alone and with others is the “originating ground of our sense-makings” (Sheets-Johnstone, 1999), this presentation is grounded in research exploring students’ and teachers’ embodied pedagogical experiences in vocational dance education. In this session, participants will be invited to consider filmic data gathering and analysis approaches which move beyond documentation and (re)presentation, to instead evoke complex, multi-sensorial, subjective positions and experiences. To do this, we will explore the visual, sonic and sensory affordances of data gathered from body-mounted cameras as a means to get close to research participants’ embodied experiences. There will also be time to reflect on whether such data can be analysed without an over-reliance on reductive written and linguistic documentation, to question whether embodied knowledge can ever adequately capture and reflect its ontological position when it is disseminated. Sheets Johnstone, M. (1999). The primacy of movement. John Benjamin Publishing.   Dr Elsa Urmston is a UK-based dance educator and researcher with interests in vocational education, community practice, dance science, and the impact of arts participation. Her PhD in Education focussed on the implications of periodisation for dance education. Elsa is artist-in-residence at Copperdot Studio, Norwich and works at numerous Higher Education Institutions including London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS). She consults on educational change, having written several UK dance degree programmes, and recently supported LCDS’s curriculum development. She co-leads the institution’s health and wellbeing research, and co-facilitates the institution’s Learning Exchange Programme for teaching artists. Elsa is also an evaluator, exploring dance participation and its impact on people’s lives from social, psychological and health perspectives with companies such as Dance Umbrella, Royal Ballet and Opera and East London Dance. Elsa is Editor-in-Chief of the Bulletin for Dancers and Teachers published by the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS). She is also Chair of Dance Network Association, a dance for health organisation based in Essex. Elsa was the winner of the IADMS Dance Educator Award in 2025.

    50 min

  3. OCT 13

    Major crisis, no easy exit: Ways to research and sowing seeds.

    In this session Dr Mayara Floss reports on her work using creative methods to explore the entangled crises of our time. Mayara Floss proposes a shift in how we approach the entangled crises of our time, arguing for methods that are generative rather than extractive. Moving beyond the traditional binaries of in/out or academic/subject, as the Möbius strip model of continuous engagement. This is illustrated through the idea of working with (not for or about) communities, as demonstrated by the quilombola experience of the Ilha de Maré, where research becomes a collaborative act of sowing seeds. The talk will explore how writing fiction can bypass scientific communication to through storytelling to convey the realities of climate change. Mayara Floss is a Brazilian Family Doctor, writer, and filmmaker. She holds a PhD in Pathology from the University of São Paulo (USP). She is one of the creators of the Rural Seeds initiative and a former ambassador for it. Her work is deeply interdisciplinary, focusing on activism and planetary health. She is a member of both the WONCA Working Party on Rural Practice and the WONCA Environment group. At the University of São Paulo, she is a member of the Planetary Health group at the Institute of Advanced Studies (IEA/USP). She is also the creator and coordinator of the MOOCs Planetary Health and Planetary Health for Primary Care.

    54 min

  4. JUN 24

    Challenges and opportunities for practice researchers: the PRAG-UK reports

    In this session practice researchers and PAR network members Scott McLaughlin and Tim Stephens  will discuss the 2021 PRAG-UK reports on practice research in the UK.  The reports were written as a way to gather current thinking across the breadth of arts disciplines, but also to try and offer some core principles and discourses as a way to help anchor a field whose vibrancy and experimentalism inevitably also comes with fragmentation of approaches and issues of communication both internally and to those outside the field (e.g. the dizzying profusion of terms for what we do: practice-led/based/as-research, artistic research, etc.) In the words of the report's supervision team: "[they] provide a way to articulate and advocate for the concerns of the practice research community. [...] to look at how we might move from a sense that ‘sharing practice research is just for REF’ to a clear and open stance where ‘practice research is for life’. In this view, outputs from practice research projects remain accessible in perpetuity to diverse audiences, are discoverable in the public domain, and practice research operates as a critical component of an open, contemporary and thriving research ecology." As we approach another REF cycle, the lessons and insights of these reports are more important than ever. Frequently practice researchers find themselves alone or poorly-served in institutions and systems that struggle to understand non-textual outputs. The PRAG-UK reports offer an excellent advocacy position to support practice researchers in articulating and sharing their work, and also to develop communities of good practice in valuing the FAIR approach to research to make all of our work Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. To reflect the complexity of positions within practice research two very different academics will enact a  conversation: Scott and Tim. Dr Scott McLaughlin (b.1975) is an Irish composer/improviser based in Huddersfield (UK). He is associate professor in composition and music technology at the University of Leeds and directs CePRA (Centre for Practice Research in the Arts), as well as convening the RMA Practice Research Study Group. He is a steering group member for PRAG-UK. Scott was Co-I on the AHRC SPARKLE project (Sustaining Practice Assets for Research, Knowledge, Learning and Engagement [2022]), and PI on an AHRC Leadership Fellowship (2019–21), the ‘Garden of Forking Paths’, on composing with contingent materialities. His current research uses different methods to excite resonance in sounding bodies to exploit physical non-linearities and generate musical patterns/structures.  Tim Stephens is an education developer, with a specialism in curriculum, at the University of the Arts London, a writer and photographic artist. He has 30+ years’ experience of working in education, with learners, artists, teachers and organisations and his areas of interest are: the inter-play between art and writing practices, embodiment, the relationship between cognitive and non-cognitive experience, equality, western and non-western ethics, organisational and social change.

    57 min

  5. MAY 21

    Listening with images: Photography as method in creative practice research

    This presentation explores photography as method in creative practice research, demonstrating how lens-based methodologies create unique opportunities for expression, reflection, and knowledge creation beyond traditional research approaches. The research illustrates how photography’s accessibility and immediacy make it particularly effective for fostering understanding and accessing embodied knowledge. Dr. King shares her photography as method project work with older adults, examining various photographic approaches including photo reminiscence, photovoice, collaborative photography, photo walks, and text-to-image AI generation. These visual methodologies provide participants with agency in the research process while revealing nuanced relationships with place and environment that might otherwise remain unexpressed. The presentation highlights visual storytelling’s power to elicit experiences, memories, and perspectives that traditional verbal or written methods may struggle to access. Through various case studies, Tricia will demonstrate how photography enhances data collection, analysis, and presentation in research documentation. She will showcase techniques for creating meaningful photo narratives that authentically represent participants’ voices while generating rich qualitative insights. Additionally, the presentation addresses essential ethical considerations when working with lens-based practices, highlighting complementary approaches such as Friendship as Method, which prioritize participant care, dignity, and collaborative meaning-making throughout the research process. Dr Tricia King is a researcher in creative arts health, specialising in innovative approaches to enhancing older adults’ well-being through participatory visual methodologies. Her work employs lens-based techniques like photo voice and collaborative photography to explore and amplify the lived experiences of older adults, challenging visual ageism and promoting social connection. Among her recent projects, Dr King founded the community led Ageing Well Creative Lab where she develops interdisciplinary programs that bridge creativity, technology, and social engagement. This fortnightly program introduces older adults to cutting-edge technologies including augmented reality, photographic editing, and drone photography, fostering intergenerational learning and technological empowerment. She is a founding member of the UniSC Creative Ecologies Research Cluster and theme leader in the Healthy Ageing Research Cluster, – working across both clusters to promote place based environmental and social connectedness for older adults and explore how embodied experiences in natural environments can cultivate ecological empathy and cultural knowledge. Her approach uniquely combines creative practice, social research, and place-based methodologies. She is currently convenor of the Australian Association of Gerontology’s Creativity, Art, and Design Special Interest Group and National Leader of the Student and Early Career Researcher Communications Working Group. Tricia is a member of the QLD Arts Health Network, is an Associate Editor of the Arts & Health Journal (Taylor & Francis), and a founding editorial member of the Journal of Creative Research Methods (launching late 2025). Dr King’s ongoing research continues to further knowledge understanding of creativity’s role in healthy aging and social connection.

    54 min

  6. MAR 25

    Intersecting the tourist gaze with visual arts practice-based research

    In this seminar, Dr Louise Todd will discuss her visual arts practice-based research to understand the visual culture of tourism and the tourist gaze thesis (Urry & Larsen, 2011). Here, it is suggested that tourists’ and others’ visual practices and performances, such as photography and sightseeing, form an intersection of gazes (Crang, 1997; Lutz & Collins, 1991). Although tourism’s visual culture, and the tourist gaze, are of interest on interdisciplinary bases, much research in this area is written. The discussion is frequently captured and framed through considering photographic practices: particularly those undertaken by tourists, and within tourism settings (Ekici Cilkin & Cizel, 2021). Nevertheless, there has been little attention directed to tourism through visual arts practice-based research. As an interdisciplinary approach which entwines creative arts with non-arts research contexts, visual arts practice-based research uses artistic process and practice as a way of understanding (Leavy 2020; McNiff, 2008). Louise's presentation will introduce her own visual arts practice-based research through drawing and painting. She will discuss using this method to reflect upon the intersection of my own others’ gazes, as she shifts identities of being an artist, a researcher, a tourist, and a viewer. She will then consider a recent series of paintings. In this work, past, present, and future, interplay with figures performing tourism and leisure in spaces. Concrete and intangible imaginaries, memories, artefacts, experiences, and hauntologies evoke the ‘not yet’, and ‘never was’ (Fisher, 2014) through visual associations and memories. She will conclude my presentation by reflecting on the potential of visual arts practice-based research in interdisciplinary settings such as tourism. Dr Louise Todd is an Associate Professor and interim Head of the Tourism and Intercultural Business Communications Subject Group at Edinburgh Napier University. Louise leads the University’s Visual Methods and Ethnography Interdisciplinary Research Group and Public Engagement with research in the Business School. Louise’s background is in visual art and her practice and research are complementary. Her interests are in arts, cultural tourism and public engagement. She is concerned with visual culture, creative and visual research methods, alongside the potential of festivals and tourism to engage with community stakeholders.

    59 min

  7. MAR 16

    Sonic postcards as an arts-based approach to encourage collaboration

    In this session, we would like to discuss a recent project that explores some of the ways in which arts-based thinking and practice might intervene productively to support transformative action and environmental planning at the local level. A project with George Revill from the Open University used arts-based practice to find ways of opening up spaces of engagement. Our work was part of an attempt to find ways to use creative and co-produced materials more systematically within policy engagement. We co-produced a short sonic documentary called Fishing for Life, which is currently being hosted at the Wells Maltings Arts Centre. ‘Fishing for Life’ is a sound work called a ‘sonic postcard’ co-created with stakeholders, fishers, researchers and a sound artist for a UKRI project called Sounding Coastal Change. Fishing for Life explores the social, economic, and environmental challenges facing fishing communities and the strategies that fishers use to cope with them. Sonic postcards are co-produced pieces made by publics, researchers and sound artists working together in ways which creatively assemble and voice otherwise ‘unheard’ human and non-human voices. They work with sound, voice, music and different kinds of listening. They do not tell or instruct but are instead intended to raise awareness to enhance sensitivity and attentiveness to issues that might otherwise be unnoticed. A primary aim is to stimulate better-informed discussion around the issues concerned in order to generate productive dialogue and learning. We would like to reflect upon the social and political roles that arts-based methods and creative practices might perform and, in particular, how they can encourage and enable engagement, collaboration, and learning around environmental challenges: processes that are all central to successful planning. Liza Griffin is an Associate Professor of Urban Health and Environmental Politics at UCL’s Development Planning Unit, Bartlett. Liza’s research on urban health and spatial politics includes projects on community responses to urban flooding, relationships between greenspaces and wellbeing, and placemaking for people with dementia. Her work on ‘Creative Practice and the Anthropocene’ explores how publicly engaged arts-based thinking and practice can intervene productively in the current environmental crisis.  George Revill is Professor of Cultural Historical Geography at The Open University. His work is concerned with landscape as a way of understanding past and contemporary experience and understanding of place, environment, and nature. Research projects involving creative practice include the AHRC funded “Earth in Vision,” focusing on digital broadcast archives and environmental history,  “Sounding Coastal Change” and “Sounding Out Wells” which used sound and music to explore environmental and social changes on the North Norfolk coast.

    59 min

  8. MAR 16

    Practice As Research in the studio

    Andy will use this presentation to discuss aspects of his practice and inquiry. He will use the gallery space and the presentation to explore how he is progressing in the latest commission for the Winter Sculpture Park at the Thamesmead estate with Gallery No32. He has shown his art both in the UK and internationally, including exhibitions in Japan, Singapore, Finland, and Canada. Based in Brighton, Andy works out of his studio at the Red Herring artist cooperative in Portslade and serves as an Associate Professor at University College London (UCL). Andy Ash is an artist, researcher and educator. His practice is primarily sculpture, but an expansive notion of a sculpture, and therefore includes film, performance, objects, sound, drawing, print, and text in an installation or site-specific contexts. Collaboration and dialogue play a big role in his creative process, making his work socially engaged and interdisciplinary.

    48 min
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About

Practice As Research aims to bring together the many different strands of practice-led/based research across all disciplines so as to not be limited by disciplinary conventions, but instead to benefit from cross-disciplinary fertilisation. In the wider academic communities, there are many terms in use to describe the research-practice nexus. For the sake of consistency we adopt the term 'practice as research'. Fundamentally, we consider practice as research any practice that is underpinned by scholarship and academic rigour. The primary aim of Practice As Research is sharing practices, providing constructive feedback and thus enabling the mutual development of understanding around practice as research.

Information

  • Creator
    Nicole Brown
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2025
  • Episodes
    45
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Practice As Research
  • Show Website
    Practice As Research