Study Day: "Creation-Research/Research-Creation"
Issues, Methods, and Tensions in Thinking from the Workshop
The concepts of “research-creation” and “creation-research,” widely used in artistic, academic, and institutional fields, often remain vague. The issue is not merely terminological: it concerns the very status of knowledge produced through practice, the place of the studio within the university, and the forms of scientific legitimization of artistic approaches.
From the perspective opened up by Henk Borgdorff, research in the arts is neither reducible to research about art nor to research for art; it involves an original investigation conducted within and through works of art and creative processes, articulating situated knowledge, experimentation, and interpretation. Artistic practice is recognized here as the bearer of embodied, tacit, and rational knowledge, albeit not strictly discursive.
Building on these ideas, Benjamin Brou points out that artistic “making” simultaneously involves action, technical skill, and process, and that it cannot be separated from a process of critical elucidation. The university thus constitutes a specific space where practice is confronted with theoretical, historical, and methodological frameworks, in order to establish a genuine connection between creation and research.
This study day thus aims to open a space for reflection on the epistemological, pedagogical, aesthetic, and institutional conditions of thinking from the studio. It invites us to consider creation not merely as an illustration of a discourse, but as a space for formulating questions, inventing methods, and producing knowledge.
