A university challenge

For the past few years, the Cultural Industries Development Agency (CIDA) International has been working in two successive transnational partnerships helping to develop local creative economies, but also looking at some strategic issues that affect the development of the creative and cultural sectors. In our first programme we looked at the difficulties around access to finance for creative entrepreneurs. In this, our second, we are concerned with innovation and the role of the sector in providing a model for other industry sectors. We decided to start with the arts, the very core of the creative sector, and to see what models it could offer other industry sectors as we develop new innovation eco-systems to counter the difficult times ahead.

‘ALL ART IS RESEARCH’
Last year, I was asked by CIDA, on behalf of the European consortium ECCE Innovation, to look at arts research: what is it and what are the circumstances that enable it to thrive? People I asked about the first question offered a wide range of definitions – from ‘all art is research’ (as every artistic experience is a new foray into the unknown) to scepticism about whether the term was appropriate at all. In the face of many different views, I chose to focus on work that seeks to ask – and sometimes answer – questions through artistic practice.
The second question also elicited a range of responses. Clearly, valuable research takes place both within and outside the academic world. The question is not, therefore, which is better, but rather what is most appropriate for individual lines of enquiry. Some types of research need the rigour provided by an educational context, others require an artistic berth that enables artist-to-artist and company-to-company collaborations and experimentation. In whichever context, it is clear that the development of artistic practice and its interface with other disciplines often relies heavily on research of one sort or another.

WHY MIX ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS?
Many academics assert very strongly that the arts hugely enrich the academic environment. They cite a number of benefits from the interface between arts and academia. For the artist, this includes a context of academic rigour; providing clear methodologies and enabling the evaluation of practice. It also forces the time and opportunity to reflect on practice, thereby stimulating and incubating creative ideas. It is also easier to develop and present the artistic outcomes of a research process in an appropriate, ‘safe’ environment without immediate exposure to the market. Furthermore, artists can also forge links with international peers, professional communities and other students.
For the institution, it means gaining stimulating inputs from, and exchanges with, exciting artists and builds on institutional reputation through association. It also opens up a sometimes closed academic world to a higher level of public engagement (e.g. through performance and exhibitions) and helps foster and develop external connections. Ultimately, for both artist and academic institution, the experience is challenging and develops mutual respect, knowledge sharing, shared learning and exposure to other expertise. This is not to suggest that it is all plain sailing. Critics identify a number of characteristics which can militate against successful research projects: a lack of ‘fit’, say, between artist and institution.

BE AWARE OF PITFALLS
Personal, sympathetic relationships between artists and academic hosts are critical and scepticism can build on the part of some artists about the value of a research approach. There can be an imbalance of power between artists or small independent arts organisations and large, formal, relatively inflexible academic structures. A suspicion that artistic research processes can be insufficiently rigorous and that artists can be more focused on the development of their own practice than on pursuing academically-validated research objectives can emerge. There is also a lack of value accorded to the artists’ experience and both the arts and the academic world depend on individual and organisational authority derived from achievement and experience. Respect and trust based on understanding and mutual sharing are therefore critical.
A position in a higher education institution often entails significant teaching and administrative responsibilities which also diminishes the time available for the artist’s own work. There can be a disparity in terms and conditions between academics and artists; issues around intellectual property rights; a lack of communication often linked to different usages of language and the different cultures; and, finally, the tricky subject of funding: some artists are concerned that research can become funding-driven rather than art-led and that Research Council approval can be too dominant in a mixed arts economy where income is generated from many sources.
These challenges suggest that, although academia is suitable for certain sorts of enquiry, other forms of research thrive in more flexible settings which have the capacity to be more focused on the practice and development of art (and, perhaps, on the role of the consumer). This approach may also enhance the status of artist-researchers by putting them and their creative imagination more at the centre of an enquiry.
This complementary approach should be better understood and more valued. To that end, academic and arts funders might jointly consider whether they could support an initiative to enable the development of extra-academic spaces and situations where arts and arts-influenced research could occur. A possible outcome of that discussion might be the creation of more adequately resourced European facilities on the lines of Banff in Canada, Aldeburgh Music or Akademie Schloss Solitude, designed to facilitate arts and research collaborations, across geographical and disciplinary boundaries.