Call for Papers
The Sources of Research-Creation: Historical and Multicultural Perspectives
RACAR special issue to be published October 2023
Guest Editors:
Isabelle Pichet, UQTR and Cynthia I. Hammond, Concordia
(rc.hist.multi@gmail.com)
Chitarman (Indian, active ca. 1627–70), Shah Jahan on a Terrace, Holding a Pendant Set With His Portrait, from the Shah Jahan Album, dated 1627–28; verso: ca. 1530–50, Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper, 38,9 x 25,7 cm. Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Deadline for proposals: February 1, 2022
Deadline for final contributions: August 15, 2022
Throughout history, artistic production has manifested the links between theoretical and practical knowledge, likewise the links between conceptual reflection and empirical experience. Whether we look to humanists of the Italian Renaissance, the academicians of the Grand Siècle, conceptual artists of the second half of the twentieth century, or the cultural output of diverse Indigenous peoples worldwide, artists have long united creative undertakings with research, broadly defined. This approach, lately, has been named "research-creation." Although research-creation is generally viewed as an emerging field of practice, we would suggest that its characteristics position it within a discontinuous historical lineage, marked by interruptions and re-emergences rather than novelty.
As part of a SSHRC-funded research project, we are seeking original contributions for this special issue of RACAR from art historians, curators, critics, and artists. By seeking evidence of research-creation in the past, this collection will suggest new perspectives on research-creation as a historical and multicultural practice and discourse. We suggest the following four axes as starting points:
At the crossroads of the sociology of art, material history, and the anthropology of scholarly practices, this special issue of RACAR aims to paint a historical and multicultural portrait of research-creation’s antecedents. We thus propose to set aside the apparent consensus that research-creation is something new, and not only to better understand the dialogues between western disciplines in the past. Our goal is to identify different alliances, over time, across the modes of knowledge production and creative production. By reconstituting past ways of thinking and doing, by considering different types of production within various societies and contexts, be these traditional or ancestral, academic, or within the art world, this collection will provide an overview of the manifold ways in which the entwined worlds of art and discovery have led to what we call research-creation today.
We invite proposals in either French and in English exploring the question of research-creation from a historical and multicultural perspective in the visual arts, architecture, theatre, dance, literature, and music. Articles (maximum 7,500 words, including notes), accounts of practices (maximum 3,500 words, including notes), and portfolios (maximum 10 images and 1,000 words, including notes). The articles and accounts of practices will be submitted to peer review.
Please submit your proposals of a maximum of 250 words and a short CV before February 1, 2022, to Isabelle Pichet (UATR) and Cynthia I. Hammond (Concordia): rc.hist.multi@gmail.com
Deadline for proposals: February 1, 2022
Deadline for final contributions: August 15, 2022
Throughout history, artistic production has manifested the links between theoretical and practical knowledge, likewise the links between conceptual reflection and empirical experience. Whether we look to humanists of the Italian Renaissance, the academicians of the Grand Siècle, conceptual artists of the second half of the twentieth century, or the cultural output of diverse Indigenous peoples worldwide, artists have long united creative undertakings with research, broadly defined. This approach, lately, has been named "research-creation." Although research-creation is generally viewed as an emerging field of practice, we would suggest that its characteristics position it within a discontinuous historical lineage, marked by interruptions and re-emergences rather than novelty.
As part of a SSHRC-funded research project, we are seeking original contributions for this special issue of RACAR from art historians, curators, critics, and artists. By seeking evidence of research-creation in the past, this collection will suggest new perspectives on research-creation as a historical and multicultural practice and discourse. We suggest the following four axes as starting points:
- Historically, artists spearheaded technical and formal innovation in their conjoining of research, theoretical reflection, and creative practice. How did artists develop techniques and technologies that then reshaped artistic production? We are interested to discover how various kinds of innovation and the new media, tools, and technologies—including new means of dissemination—encouraged artists to enrich their creative work.
- The relationship between historical research and the development of artistic practices led artists to reinvent their creative production by studying the methods, history, and forms of the past, while actively participating in the renewal of creative discourse or working methods in their own time. How have artists—alone or together—developed self-reflexivity in their artistic practices?
- The training of artists and the transmission of artistic knowledge is of interest to us. How have different teaching and learning models that emerged over time—such as the transmission of knowledge through oral traditions, theoretical studies, and pedagogical strategies—shaped creative knowledge and production related to research-creation in various societies and cultures?
- How might close consideration of traditional societies and their cultural practices shed light upon the discourses of research and creation today? This axis is expressly concerned with radically opening up the discursive space of the term “research-creation” in order to consider its non-western antecedents and manifestations.
At the crossroads of the sociology of art, material history, and the anthropology of scholarly practices, this special issue of RACAR aims to paint a historical and multicultural portrait of research-creation’s antecedents. We thus propose to set aside the apparent consensus that research-creation is something new, and not only to better understand the dialogues between western disciplines in the past. Our goal is to identify different alliances, over time, across the modes of knowledge production and creative production. By reconstituting past ways of thinking and doing, by considering different types of production within various societies and contexts, be these traditional or ancestral, academic, or within the art world, this collection will provide an overview of the manifold ways in which the entwined worlds of art and discovery have led to what we call research-creation today.
We invite proposals in either French and in English exploring the question of research-creation from a historical and multicultural perspective in the visual arts, architecture, theatre, dance, literature, and music. Articles (maximum 7,500 words, including notes), accounts of practices (maximum 3,500 words, including notes), and portfolios (maximum 10 images and 1,000 words, including notes). The articles and accounts of practices will be submitted to peer review.
Please submit your proposals of a maximum of 250 words and a short CV before February 1, 2022, to Isabelle Pichet (UATR) and Cynthia I. Hammond (Concordia): rc.hist.multi@gmail.com