Writing as Reflection, Writing as Practice
Writing as a mode of thinking. Writing as reflection. Writing as dialogue. Writing as friction. Writing as research. Writing as practice.
How might writing itself become a method of inquiry? What forms can a research document take beyond the conventions of academic structure? And how might the processes of researching and writing become inseparable from one another?
This one-day workshop invites participants to critically and creatively reconsider the role of writing within artistic and research-based practices. Together, we will explore experimental approaches to the research document through examples drawn from contemporary art and design, literature, critical pedagogy, and socially engaged practice. Attention will be given to forms of writing that operate not only as documentation, but also as methodology, speculation, reflection, and material practice.
Through collective discussion and a series of guided writing experiments, participants will engage with writing as an embodied and exploratory process — one capable of generating knowledge, deepening research trajectories, and opening alternative modes of articulation.
Led by research professor in Social Practices, Michelle Teran, this workshop is intended primarily for students developing their final graduation research document, while remaining open to all those interested in experimental and critical approaches to writing.
Schedule
10:00 – 12:00
Discussion of research criteria and presentation of examples from experimental research practices
12:00 – 13:00
Break
13:00 – 15:30
Writing exercises and collective reflection
In this exercise, artist Liv Bugge conducts séances with a trilobite alongside participants, engaging the fossil as a presence rather than a distant relic of the past. The conversations are recorded and transcribed into texts, opening a non-linear relation to time, history, and the body as an image-producing apparatus.
In this work, artist Liv Bugge produced bronze casts of traces left by former inmates and reinserted them into the prison buildings, where they remain accessible only to inmates and prison employees. The accompanying book includes texts by inmates developed in collaboration The Monster Network.
Spencer Harrison creates a painted dissertation by covering the inside and outside walls of a circus freak show tent, exploring the experience of growing up gay in rural Ontario.
Daria Loi’s thesis explores participatory design through Playful Triggers, tools that foster meaningful relationships and collaborative learning before co-design activities begin. Presented as a cardboard suitcase containing textual and tactile materials, the thesis invites readers to physically and emotionally experience its ideas beyond written language.
A.D. Carson’s doctoral dissertation takes the form of a 34-song rap album within a digital archive, exploring race, history, rhetoric, and performance.
Nick Sousanis writes and draws his dissertation entirely in comic book form. His dissertation, Unflattening, argues for the importance of visual thinking in teaching and learning.
