University of the Witwatersrand: Artistic Research is blurring academic and research lines
In the Wits School of Arts, the Arts Research Africa (ARA) project explored the notion of artistic research in a decolonised, Global South context at the three-day International Conference on Artistic Research in Africa, with 2022 being its second iteration.
There were two dedicated online days, curated panel discussions covering the many aspects of artistic research practice, and the integration of performances within the conventional conference paper presentation format.
The wide array of local and international scholars grappled with the role of artists, artist-researchers, artist-fieldworkers, and artist scholars in considering humanity’s pressing concerns: migration, trauma, identity, pandemics, and the pervasive effects of colonialism.
Importantly, arts research in Africa is seen to produce knowledge, rather than receive it from the Global North, where artistic research has been established in the last few decades.
An Afrocentric arts research uses the amorphous strategies of poetry, storytelling, call and response performance, dance, music, play, architecture, and trauma-based knowledge practices to inform its output, and wider engagement.
Further, these research explorations are often left open-ended, and lead to unexpected outcomes.
On the conference’s third day, which was held in person at the Wits Sports Conference Centre, an example of enquiry was a paper and performance demonstration, entitled The redemptive theatre experiment: when the performance is in the silence, presented by Dr Petro Janse van Vuuren in Wits’ Drama for Life, and several theatre practitioners. Here, audience members became performers and active participants in the play’s cathartic intention. Silences in the performance served not only as pauses, but as an opportunity to redirect the performance’s trajectory. Here artistic research is seen as an invitation to journey to the unknown, to the not-yet discovered and to the unexpected.
Jayne Batzofin from the Reimagining Tragedy from Africa and the Global South (ReTAGS) project at the University of Cape Town, spoke about how the concept of tragedy (from its origins in European theatre) is being reimagined from an African perspective to inform possible futures inside and outside of the performance and theatrical disciplines.
ReTAGS prizes the works of major writers and theatre makers in Africa, including Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi, Femi Osofisan, and Saad Ardash.
Batzofin’s role in ReTAGS is to create a living archive of tragic texts and performances in Africa. This archive is open to public contributions.
Artist Leora Faber, from the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg, discussed her immersion in ‘bioart’ or creative bioresearch. Here, the fusion of art, biology, biotechnology and life sciences is predicated on the artist divorcing themselves from outcomes, and to open themselves to play and exploration. On the other hand, scientists could ‘dance’ with an initial hypothesis, and understand that a result can never be predetermined. Furthermore, the use of living matter, such as mould and bacteria, allows for the interactions between object and agent.
Arts research in this context comes alive in the recognition of transspecies interaction, and to consider the more-than-human across disciplines. Indeed, the power of artistic research lies in its interdisciplinarity, and its blurring of academic and research lines.
On the third day of the conference, Michelle Stewart from the University of KwaZulu -Natal presented her paper Ghostly Imprints: Revisiting the death mask in digital clay, which allowed for a visual response to the medico-scientific area of identifying human remains. This visual response, in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross Missing and Deceased Migrant project, created opportunities to humanise unidentified bodies, and deepen the narrative about death often located in violence and dangerous migration.
The Research Chair in Science Communication at Stellenbosch University, Mehita Iqani, spoke about the collaborative opportunities available to scientists and artists, through the project Humusha. This online platform allows applied artists and scientific researchers to communicate science to the broader public, and for artists to respond creatively to scientific research projects. Cross-disciplinary partnerships give meaning to ‘academic citizenship’ and researchers and scholars have a responsibility to engage multiple audiences in tangible, accessible ways.
The heady array of debates and discussions delved into other topics, such as liveable futures, musical collaborations between countries in the Global South, the growth of indigenous knowledge systems and epistemes, and decolonising teaching and learning.