Arts Research Africa Project
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Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Arts Research Africa project in the Wits School of Arts consists of a range of activities designed to spark dialogue, stimulate practice, enable research and inspire collective engagement around the question of artistic research in Africa.
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Item A Musical History Through Vocal Expressions at the Abbey Cindi Cosmology Concert(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Moshugi, KgomotsoThis paper reports on a research project that culminated in a concert honoring South African musician and activist Bra Abbey Cindi. The project involved reissuing Cindi’s album, forming a band of young musicians to perform his music, and creating a vocal group called No Limits to reinterpret Cindi’s earlier South African choral works. The paper proposes the use of music to explore the past, present, and future, linking generations and addressing social issues. It discusses specific compositions, their lyrical and musical merits, and the process of arranging them for vocal performance. The paper also highlights the role of community engagement and the value of reimagining historical musical works.Item A Return to Practices and Pedagogies: Artistic Research as Untethering and Foraging(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Barry, Hedwig; Andrew, DavidThis paper reflects on the intertwining of artistic research and pedagogies within the context of a collaborative project conducted at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. The authors explore the concepts of proximities, grids and flows, confrontations, and time as entry points into the space of artistic research. They emphasize the importance of untethering and foraging, challenging established boundaries and embracing discomfort as a catalyst for creative growth. The paper also highlights the significance of proximities and the relational aspect of artistic research, inviting a communal and interdisciplinary approach. The authors reflect on their experiences during the pandemic and the evolving nature of teaching and learning in relation to time.Item Addressing Artistic Research at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius: Challenges for a Small Island Developing State in Africa(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Ramduth, HansCan small island contexts, through the extreme simplification of more complex processes that occur on the continents (e.g., ecocide), provide unique insights into binaries such as artist versus researcher, fiction versus non-fiction, and art-making versus writing?Item African Spiritual Healing in Drama Therapy: An Exploration of Movement and Sound as a means of Facilitating Healing(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Siko, ZaneleCan African spirituality in African dance be used as a means of facilitating the healing of women’s trauma? This performance explores the possibilities of fusing Credo Mtwa’s notion of African spirituality with the ritualistic elements of the Senegalese Ndeup dance healing method. The notion of embodiment of trauma is the entry point into this consideration of the embodiment of African dance as a healing tool.Item Applied Improvisation in Africa: Facilitating Embodiment Work in Online Rooms(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Apotieri-Abdulai, Oluwadamilola; Janse Van Vuuren, PetroAn important aspect of Applied Improvisation is using and perceiving the body and those of others in the room. Can adaptations be made to enable embodied work online without jeopardising impact? In this workshop, we present different improvisation methods that can be used in online settings.Item Archiving as Artistic Practice(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Batzofin, JayneThis paper looks at the development of an online showcase repository for the ReTAGS (Reimagining Tragedy from Africa and the Global South) practice-as-research artistic productions, Antigone (not quite/quiet) and iKrele leChiza, and the methodology behind documenting and digitally archiving their processes. The paper reflects on the author’s involvement as the digital archivist for the ReTAGS research and the choices made and implemented on the online showcase repository. It considers the strengths and challenges of these archival choices and explores the possibilities of understanding the archive as a means of artistic engagement in its own right.Item Art in Action Research (AIAR): Integrating Tacit Knowledge Into Research(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Lammli, DominiqueThis paper introduces the concept of Art in Action Research (AiAR) as an alternative paradigm for art practitioners working in sociocultural settings. AiAR aims to accommodate diverse notions of art, theories, and knowledge bases, integrating tacit knowledge into research frameworks. The paradigm is grounded in the issues emerging from the work environment, focusing on real-life challenges to co-create a liveable future. The paper addresses the need for methodological guides in researching art practitioner perspectives and discusses the concepts of knowledge and tacit knowledge. It explores the problem of non-groundedness in art practitioner research and highlights the global turn and the need for retooling disciplinary perspectives. In sum, the paper argues that AiAR provides an alternative paradigm for methodology crafting that considers the global turn and acknowledges diverse notions of art and knowledge bases.Item Articulating a Movement Pedagogy in Retrograde: Mapping an Embodied Research Process(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Johnstone, KristinaThis paper discusses an artistic research project that challenges representationalism in South African contemporary dance. The author argues against the use of discursive methodologies that reinforce colonial scripts and instead proposes an alternative approach based on embodied practices. The paper explores the concept of choreography as embodied research and its potential to align with a decolonial praxis. The research project involves tracing embodied practices and creating a digital cartography to capture and explore these practices. The author also discusses the emergence of a movement pedagogy that unfolds in retrograde and disrupts conventional understandings of time and pedagogical continuity.Item Artistic Research and African Musical Performance: Listening Beyond Euro-American Canons(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Pyper, BrettAre certain forms of African music-making inherently advantaged or disadvantaged through engagement with artistic research? How does the quest to advance decoloniality factor into such efforts? What does such belated recognition mean for African musics and more general African arts practice outside academia?Item Artistic Research and the City Space: New Orientations and Collaborations(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Winter, StefanThis paper explores the evolving relationship between artistic research, architecture, and urban design in the context of shifting paradigms in the understanding of architecture and urban development. It highlights the transition from top-down planning to inclusive bottom-up processes and emphasises the importance of perceiving the city as a habitat rather than just a built environment. The historical precedents of artistic avantgarde movements, such as dérive and psychogeography, are examined, and their limitations in the contemporary context are discussed. The potential of artistic research to contribute to sustainability in ecological, economic, and societal dimensions is explored through various examples. Overall, the paper argues for the transformative power of artistic research in shaping future city spaces.Item Artistic Research and the Institution: A Cautionary Tale(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Fleishman, MarkWhat impact do the specific institutional contexts in which we produce research have on the artwork? What would an ethical approach to the work of art-making entail with reference to these institutional pressures/distortions?Item Artistic Research as African Epistemology(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Stolp, MareliCan artistic research be understood as an African epistemology? Through a mapping of the field of African epistemology together with the key notions of artistic research, this paper argues for the decolonising potential of artistic research in Africa.Item Artistic research in Africa with Specific Reference to South Africa and Zimbabwe: Formulating the Theory of Afroscenology(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Ravengai, SamuelHow can artistic research offer the opportunity to create knowledge based on African practice and produced from the African context? This presentation will delineate seven approaches to artistic research and argue for decolonial imperatives.Item Artistic Research in Music as Doctoral Study: Challenges and Opportunities for Universities in South Africa(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Sandmeier, RebekkaWhat are the opportunities and challenges of doctoral studies in South Africa, in music, through artistic research? What are the definitions of research— specifically artistic research—in the existing educational policies, and how can research and creative practice become one in a doctoral thesis?Item Arts Research Africa 2022 Conference - Introduction(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Doherty, ChristoIntroductionItem Arts Research Africa 2022 Conference Proceedings - Full(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Doherty, Christo (Editor)In the two years which have elapsed between the first and second Arts Research Africa conferences, the recognition of creative practice as a research modality in South Africa has increased in leaps and bounds. The question of what to call this research modality, be it practice-based, or practice-led, or artistic research remains unresolved, but these two conferences have gathered together a stimulating array of approaches to this new mode of research, while raising the banner for ‘artistic research’. This second conference, with its focus on how artistic research has transformed pedagogy as well as art practice in Africa, recognises that many academic practitioners, who have themselves completed advanced degrees with a creative practice component, are now looking to pass these learnings to their students through a transformed pedagogy. The 2022 conference thus provides an opportunity to assess the pattern of this development, still largely limited in Africa to the South African arts and education environment.Item Closing Address: Artistic Research in Africa - rethinking the "avant-garde"(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Deribew, Berhanu AshagrieIn order to implement artistic research in Africa need to recognize the different contexts - cultural, political and institutional – on our continent; and that artistic research is a subject not yet full clear in its function. The colonial model of the university has had the effect of “epistemicide” on indigenous knowledge. This aggravated by Western refusal to recognize traditions understand nature as Mother Earth with her own rights. Argues for a “rearguard” approach to art activism to learn from sources of embodied knowledge in communitiesItem Creating New, Previously Unknown Outcomes: Joy by and by Remade(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Moshugi, KgomotsoHow can new knowledge be produced through processes of musical arrangement that have not traditionally been canonised? Through analysis of the versions of the hymn Joy By and By, which local arrangers have created since the 1980s, the process of re-imagination and defamiliarisation will be explained.Item Creative Curatorial Practice as a Means of Reorientating Display Tropes in Museums of Natural History(Arts Research Africa, 2022-09-16) Langerman, FrithaThis paper provides a critical analysis of natural history museums and their display practices. It explores the contradictions inherent in the concept of “natural history” and the dominance over nature it implies. The paper argues that museums still promote authoritative classification and knowledge systems that reinforce hierarchical structures and colonial ideologies. The author, an artist-curator and printmaker, shares her experiences with three exhibitions that challenge traditional display methods. By disrupting linear progression, introducing complex interconnections, and emphasizing sensory experiences, the exhibitions aim to create alternative models of display that reflect the entangled and web-like nature of speciation. The goal is to move beyond colonial narratives and imagine new ways of representing and understanding the natural world within museum spaces.Item Creative Practice and Research: An Artist-Scholar Perspective(Arts Research Africa, The Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, 2020-07) Stewart, MichelleHow do measurable methods of research move between theoretical critique, technical reporting and creative practice? This question is explored with reference to her own practice-based PhD, the experimental animation, Big Man.