Afterword: towards a future paradigm

Abstract

The use of art as research has greatly matured, and, despite the current preoccupation with measurement in the education sector, artistic research has continued to gain acceptance as a legitimate methodology for artists. Yet art-based research is still not completely and universally embedded within higher education learning and teaching approaches. The field’s continued lack of confidence in using art as a vehicle of research is one reason. There is a need to stop relying upon other disciplines to justify the power of art. If we acknowledge that words cannot always reveal the uniquely felt qualities of art, then we cannot persist in using words as exclusive modes of research. Personal, embodied ways of knowing are of interest to researchers, and values the importance of knowledge that is incrementally gained through the act of doing and being. However, art is empirical—art and art processes are observable and can be entwined throughout the art-making process as a methodology of inquiry. Proposed here, as a future paradigm, is the threefold primacy of art in research, learning and teaching—positioning art as the topic, process and outcome of research. Significantly art as research recognizes art objects as full participants and uses art as its evidence.