School of Arts - Arts Research Africa Project (Conference Proceedings)

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https://hdl.handle.net/10539/38581
The Arts Research Africa (ARA) project at the Wits School of Arts, Wits University, is an initiative that explores the notion of artistic research in a decolonizing, Global South context. The project aims to advance the recognition of creative practice as a valid research modality in the South African context, while raising the banner for "artistic research" as an emerging field of study and inquiry in Africa. To achieve this goal the project is pioneering the exploration of artistic research approaches that challenge traditional academic boundaries and center African perspectives and methodologies.

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Browsing School of Arts - Arts Research Africa Project (Conference Proceedings) by Author "Doherty, Christo"

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    Arts Research Africa 2022 Conference - Introduction
    (Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2022) Doherty, Christo
    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 practise-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. The first ARA Conference was held as a live event on Wits campus in February 2020.1 Unknown to the organisers or any of the participants, the world was on the brink of the Covid-19 epidemic, and the draconian responses to the crisis by national governments, which locked down most of the world for the rest of 2020 and 2021. As a live event, however, the 2020 conference gave the ARA organisers the opportunity to experiment with different formats of presentation, breaking with the conventional mode of paper presentations and instead offering space for workshops and what we called ‘lecture-performances’ or ‘lecture-demonstrations’. The second conference, planned during the uncertainty that followed the waning of the pandemic in 2021/22, was initially envisaged as an entirely online event; but as the effects of the pandemic began to subside, we chose to offer the first two days as a purely online event to facilitate international engagement, and a third, final day, again on Wits campus, as a live face-to-face event. Sadly, as a result of this structure, the bulk of the 2022 conference presentations were conventional textual outputs, albeit often reporting on creative research that was embodied or performative in nature.
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    Arts Research Africa 2022 Conference Proceedings - Full
    (Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2022) Doherty, Christo
    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.
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    Editor's Introduction - Arts Research Africa 2020 Conference Proceedings
    (Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Doherty, Christo
    Editor’s overview of the ARA2020 Conference. Explanation for the strategic emphasis on pan-African outreach, and the conference theme of “How does artistic research decolonise knowledge and practice in Africa?” Justification provided for the experimental format-architecture of the conference, and the use of “performance-lectures” as a new genre of conference presentation.
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    Full Proceedings - Arts Research Africa Conference 2020
    (Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Doherty, Christo
    The full proceedings of the Arts Research Africa Conference 2020, held at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 22 - 24 January 2020. Description: An international conference organised by the Arts Research Africa project in the Wits School of Arts. The conference featured a wide variety of inputs, from traditional conference paper presentations and panels, to performances, interactive engagements and workshops. The conference brought together artists, scholars, and artistic researchers to collectively address the question of artistic research in Africa in the 21st century.