Experiential learning in practice as research : context, method, knowledge

Creative arts research is often motivated by emotional, personal and subjective concerns; it operates not only on the basis of explicit and exact knowledge, but also on that of tacit and experiential knowledge. Experience operates within in the domain of the aesthetic and knowledge produced through aesthetic experience is always contextual and situated. The continuity of artistic experience with normal processes of living is derived from an impulse to handle materials and to think and feel through their handling. The key term for understanding the relationship between experience, practice and knowledge is ‘aesthetic experience’, not as it is understood through traditional eighteenth century accounts, but as ‘sense activity’. In this article, I will draw on the work of John Dewey, Michael Polanyi and others to argue that creative arts practice as research is an intensification of everyday experiences from which new knowledge or knowing emerges. The ideas presented here will be illustrated with reference to case studies based on reflections, by the artists themselves, on successful research projects in dance, creative writing and visual art.