School of Arts - Arts Research Africa Project (Conference Proceedings)
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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 Keyword "Arts research"
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Item Addressing artistic research at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius: challenges for a Small Island Developing State in Africa(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 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 Artistic research and African musical performance: listening beyond Euro-American canons(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 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 Institution: a cautionary tale(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 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 (ARA), 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 (ARA), 2020) 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 (ARA), 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 Closing address: Artistic Research in Africa - rethinking the "avant-garde"(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 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 communities.Item Creative practice and research: an artist-scholar perspective(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) 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.Item Decolonial AestheSis Parcours(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Khan, Sharlene; Asfour, FouadThe Decolonial AestheSis Parcours is made up of exercises informed not only by recent theories around decolonial aestheSis, but by Black and African Feminist creativities, Critical Race Theories, postcolonial histories, liberal arts pedagogies, and anti-hegemonial cultural movements. The workshop invites participants to reflect on non-hierarchical relationships, embodied knowledges, creative theorisation, the African Feminist concept of theorising from the epicentres of our agency, the use of imagination as a tool of freedom and experimentation, the need for interrogation of capitalist modes of artistic production, interconnectivities, as well as the need for critical pleasure.Item Editor's Introduction - Arts Research Africa 2020 Conference Proceedings(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Doherty, ChristoEditor’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.Item Engaging with sound writing(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Liebenberg, VisserHow can forms of sound writing be used for a project in artistic research? Based on the author’s own experimentation with sound writing for the clarinet, this paper argues that sound writing is a manner of engaging with sound that strengthens the link between practice and theory in artistic research.Item Finding the lost fishermen: a study in recovery and performance as preservation(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Nii-Dortey, MosesThis paper engages what strategic/ethical research options can be deployed for preserving, performing and documenting artworks such as The Lost Fishermen, a dying folk opera, which is arguably one of Ghana’s most successful musical artworks, created by Saka Acquaye in the immediate aftermath of Ghana’s political independence.Item Full Proceedings - Arts Research Africa Conference 2020(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Doherty, ChristoThe 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.Item Inganekwane, folktale, Anansi Story: recognising indigenous knowledge in the performing arts(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Foli, JessicaWhat happens when the source of knowledge is part of a unique oral history passed down from generation to generation? How do we frame such knowledge? How do we nurture the development of knowledge based on African folktale, superstition, or myth?Item The Norwegian Artistic Research School: structure and content(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Strøm, GeirHow has the structure and content of the new Norwegian Artistic Research School built on the two-decades-long experience of artistic research in Norwegian universities and university colleges?Item Opening address: dynamics(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020) Schwab, MichaelEmphasises the changing fabric of knowledge and that artistic research has already had an effect on this fabric. Argues for a historical epistemology, and for unsecured forms of knowledge. Uses the experience of editing the Journal of Artistic Research to explain the challenges in operationalizing this concept of knowledge.Item Perspectives on practice-led research in Visual Art at the University of KwaZulu-Natal(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Hall, LouiseDrawing from Hall’s own experience with the first Practice-led Research (PLR) PhD in Visual Art at UKZN, this paper argues for the potential of PLR to generate a very particular kind of knowledge based on the dyadic relationship between the artist and the intelligence of materials.Item A PhD in Practice-based Design Research in Architecture at Wits University(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Felix, SandraHow does the new PhD in practice-based design research in the School of Architecture at Wits position itself? This paper is an account of the author-practitioner’s exposure to the long history of engagement with design research in the school through the example of architects such as Pancho Guedes and others.Item The philosophy of art in Ewe Vodu religion(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Adjei, Sela KodjoHow have miseducation and Eurocentric anthropological scholarship actively deluded Africans into perceiving their religion and arts as “inferior” and “barbarous”? Drawing from years of practice-based investigation into the art of the Anlo-Ewe Vodu religion, this paper interrogates and redefines the misleading theories of “fetishism” that have obscured the appreciation of Vodu art.Item Revisiting Dorothy Masuka’s Hamba Nontsokolo: tales of women, migrancy, and Jazz in the 1950s(Arts Research Africa (ARA), 2020-07) Mzimela, PhumeleleHow does a classic song like Nontsokolo, discussed and newly imagined, tell us a larger musical story that South African jazz history has forgotten? This paper revisits the “classic” vocal jazz piece Hamba Nontsokolo, which was composed, performed, and recorded by the late Dorothy Masuku in 1954. In contrast to the focus in the existing literature on the lives of black jazz singers and the socio-political contexts of their time, this paper examines the music of the song and offers a new arrangement, as a process of creative research, suggesting how the “classic” may be re-imagined today.