Smith, Hazel, and Roger Dean. "Introduction: Practice-Led Research, Research-Led Practice - Towards the Iterative Cyclic Web." In Practice-Led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts edited by Hazel Smith and Roger Dean, 1-38: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.

Practice-Led Research, Research-Led Practice in the Creative Arts is about exactly that – the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between research and creative arts practice, particularly within the context of the academy and the increasing popularity of higher research degrees informed or led by arts practice.

The introductory chapter provides a handy overview of the book’s key themes and sets up a distinction between practice-based research and practice-led research and uses the term ‘practice-as-research’ to combine the two.  Its contributing chapters are drawn from academics and practitioners with a strong emphasis on the Australian context and includes perspectives drawn from dance, music, theatre, film, visual arts, writing and new media. 

The book presents a strong argument for the recognition within the university, particularly in the established research environment, to both recognise and include different forms of knowledge and knowledge production into its paradigm to include embodied or tacit knowledge generated through reflective and engaged arts practice and processes.  In doing so, it challenges some of the assumptions about ‘research’ and knowledge’ when framed in the traditional terms of academia.  The introduction also introduces the ‘iterative cyclic web’ – a conceptual framework which connects practice-led research, research-led practice and academic research in a way which allows movement between and amongst each stage, as well as multiple entry and exit points. The chapter also emphasises the importance of evaluation in elevating creative processes to the same level as other forms of research, and to value it in both economic and socio-cultural terms.

Smith’s and Dean’s opening chapter is a handy introduction to any higher research degree student trying to navigate the slippery terrain of knowledge production, arts practice and academic research within the university environment.  Highly recommended.

- PdS

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