Practice-based Research and Creative Arts Practice: Intra-action, Self and the Other; Drawing and Installation in the British Peak District

Abstract

This research uses a creative arts practice emerging from the processes of drawing and installation to create and explore the relationships between the artist and the outdoor spaces of the British Peak District. A mobile working kit made from paper, fabric and wood is used to make temporary installations outdoors in response to wind, weather and topography. The mobile working kit modules are then returned to the studio and later installed in art exhibition spaces, their display indexing the connection between self, other and the outdoors. The multitude of processes in outdoor environments and their relationships to landscape and its inhabitants’ actions is used as a methodological template to frame change. Based on the dichotomy of mobility and inscription, artmaking actions and the research process are described through the conceptual lenses of ‘gesture’, ‘practice’ and an expanded understanding of drawing. Following this, a taxonomy is suggested that categorises the embodiment of artmaking events from the tensions between their experienced particularities and the artist’s perceived material practice frameworks.