Practice

Each issue of Creative Matters will focus a particular creative practice research project. But for this edition we put out a call to the DDCA community to share recommendations on peer-reviewed outlets that publish creative practice works. We share this list with you here. This is not a complete list, of course, and there are many venues and publication opportunities in industry, but this list focusses those outlets specific to the artist-academic. We’re also interested in whether we can notice disciplinary differences based on the list that emerges, for example, is the ability to have online spaces for the written word a certain privilege that more spatially-oriented disciplines can’t benefit from?

We also note that the old ‘theory/practice’ divide is perhaps losing traction in the sense that there are publications listed below that also appear on our other REVIEW list – a space for more ‘theoretically oriented’ publications. It seems some publishers are positioning the work we do outside of this binary.

We’re keen to grow this list! Please email the editor with any further recommendations.

Axon: Creative Explorations

An international peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the characteristics of creativity and the creative process. It is published twice a year (usually in March and September) and encourages research into and discussion of the broad domain of creativity.

Journal for Artistic Research

JAR is an international, online, Open Access and peer-reviewed journal that disseminates artistic research from all disciplines. JAR invites the ever-increasing number of artistic researchers to develop what for the sciences and humanities are standard academic publication procedures. JAR provides a digital platform where multiple methods, media and articulations may function together to generate insights in artistic research endeavours. It seeks to promote expositions of practice as research.

Journal of Embodied Research

The first peer reviewed, open access, academic journal to focus on the dissemination of embodied knowledge through video. It advances the scholarly video article as an experimental form supporting diverse embodied research projects. Articles are published on a rolling basis and offer the cutting edge of videographic scholarship, innovating relationships between textuality, audiovisuality, and embodiment.

Screenworks

A peer-reviewed online publication of practice research in film and screen media. We offer a forum for the dissemination and discussion of practice research that includes space for reflection on research contexts. Work is published alongside a research statement, which offers a ‘route map’ of the research process, together with two anonymous reviews, which provide critical feedback on both the work itself and its research context.

Sightlines

Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy Journal is Australia’s leading venue for screen-based non-traditional research outputs. It features an array of work (including screenplays, documentary, and moving image pieces), all of which are published alongside written practitioner statements and peer reviews of the work. This format fosters critical debate on the evolving nature of screen-based creative practice research, by highlighting a variety of research aims and approaches.

TEXT

An international peer reviewed journal published by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs. TEXT publishes academic and other material concerned with creative and professional writing programs.

TEXT includes research articles on creative and professional writing and processes, the teaching of writing, and allied topics. TEXT also includes creative work, book reviews, letters and notices. TEXT occasionally publishes specific-topic collections or longer works in its Special Issue Series.

VIS Nordic Journal for Artistic Research

VIS hopes to use expositions as a means of pushing the boundaries set by existing forms of research publication and dissemination around the ambitions and potential achievements of artistic research. By developing different formats through which expositions can be carried out, the community of artistic researchers aims to address the challenges that arise when research is formulated and presented in forms that communicate through an artistically-conceived experience.


Contributors: Clive Barstow, Beata Batorowicz, Simon Biggs, Ian Gwilt, Daniel Juckes, Susan Kerrigan, Margaret McVeigh, Noel Maloney, Daniel Palmer, Marie Sierra

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Review

Each issue of Creative Matters will focus a particular theoretical work on the topic of creative practice research. For this

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More from this issue

SMILJANA GLISOVIC, CRAIG BATTY, GRAYSON COOKE, TULLY BARNETT –––– As we read these voices side by side in this edition the field that they make visible is complex but coherent, the expression of the complexity is clear. The insights, suggestions and visions for the future are bold. The maturity we hear has been cultivated for years – trial and error and attentive consideration on how to create conditions for good research.
GRAYSON COOKE, CRAIG BATTY, TULLY BARNETT ––– As leaders in creative research in our institutions, we want to foster success, engagement, ambition and sensitivity to the needs of the sector. As artists, we want to focus on making and supporting creative work.
TULLY BARNETT, EMMA WEBB AND JUSTIN O'CONNOR ––– We contend that work will need to be done to ensure that the policy can be implemented in a timely and resourced way and in a manner supports a bipartisan approach to cultural policy so that Revive can set a foundation for the sector for decades to come.
SUSANNA CASTLEDEN ––– Being an artist and an academic is about contributing to the cultural capital of a community. From its inception a work of art is created to engage, however, navigating how to measure the success of this, what the cultural impact is, remains difficult to measure and evidence. This ‘wicked problem’ seems to be pertinent for funding bodies, galleries and universities alike.
JOSEPH TOLTZ ––– Artistic practice researchers had been battling internally (within the academy) for years for peer recognition and a slice of the awards and grant offerings. Inclusion in ERA may have seemed like a victory in 2009, but it was fairly pyrrhic. Is it any wonder that academics engaged in artistic research are weary?
VANESSA TOMLINSON ––– Endless questions linger about creative research processes – and everyone reading this article would have heard these before: what is the threshold (size, length, importance) for a work or a body of work being accepted as a creative research output? Who is qualified to endorse this decision? How do we have parity and consistency across artistic disciplines with different working methods, timelines and artefacts (a feature film may take longer to produce than a poem, an exhibition of works longer to paint than an improvised music event)?
PROFESSOR JULIAN KNOWLES ––– By way of background, I have been working as an academic since the mid-1990s across four different institutions... and my career has been built on creative practice research and the leadership of creative practice-based disciplines and schools. In that time, I have worked as an ERA code leader and Head of School at three of these institutions and assessed ERA for all four rounds...

Each issue of Creative Matters will focus a particular theoretical work on the topic of creative practice research. For this edition we put out a call to the community to share their most dear, influential or go-to publications. The list below is long, the dates span 1993-2022, and we also note the discipline-specific and more […]

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Creative industries are characterised by a gig economy featuring short-term, intensive contracts, word-of-mouth recruitment, ten-hour days, and precarious work. Such conditions can pose challenges for filmmakers with disability to flourish.