researching youth arts
an introduction
In 2008, a group of young artists from the outer eastern Melbourne communities of Upwey and Belgrave asked local photographer Tiffaney Bishop to support them in making and presenting a body of artwork that would speak to their contemporary experiences and collective identity. As a photographer drawn to social documentation, this request delighted Tiffaney, and she agreed. What followed was the development of a more than decade-long collaborative arts practice that has supported Tiffaney, several artist mentors and more than one hundred young creatives in artmaking and presentation. This artistic collaboration is known by the moniker tbC. Young members of the group range in age from twelve to twenty-something and self-identify as artists. tbC makes and presents artwork in the studio, the gallery, online and in public spaces.
This thirteen-year-old youth-driven, adult and peer-mentored artist-run initiative has also inspired doctoral research - research that examines and positions the young artist. This investigation, undertaken by Tiffaney Bishop, sits at the intersection of youth arts, socially engaged art and informal arts pedagogy. It investigates the impact a collaborative arts and joint authorship practice has on the development of young artists, specifically examining how a united front approach to making and presenting art supports young artists in building artistic agency and status.
The inspiration for this research came from studio conversations at tbC about how young artists often feel that their age, experience and perceived lack of expertise restricts the building of artistic agency and status. These conversations routinely culminate in collective declarations that it shouldn’t matter if an artist is young and that artistic merit should be viewed through an aesthetic lens rather than a biographical one. In response to this ongoing dialogue, tbC focuses on collaborative art and joint authorship practices that facilitate a united front approach to making and presenting art, an approach that privileges artworks ahead of the artists’ identities. Tiffaney’s research examines the proposition that this united front approach liberates young artists from the constraints of their biographies and supports the building of earlier artistic agency and status.
The design of this research combines academic exposition with creative expression and includes a dissertation and companion website. The dissertation presents the central theoretical tenets of the investigation. The companion website contributes important experiential, descriptive and case study knowledge on the subject - operating as a digital platform (where online communication, interaction and archiving take place)[1] and a digital portfolio (that electronically presents and examines artistic works and working processes).[2] Hyperlinks appear throughout the dissertation, linking the two sites of knowledge. The linear structure of the dissertation and the non-linear layout of the companion website reflect the hybrid dynamics of Tiffaney’s artist-researcher position, mapping an ecology of practice and inquiry via interconnected dialogue and multisensory expression. Together, this dissertation and companion website provide a fuller understanding of how a collaborative arts and joint authorship practice supports young artists in building artistic agency and status.
Chapter One begins by defining the term youth. It also distinguishes the term youth arts from youth development and studio learning from arts education. This discussion contextualises youth arts as a voluntary, self-directed activity that engages young artists in creative practices and outcomes, as opposed to youth development, which is a more structured activity that reaches out to young people in general through broader education, health and welfare programming. It contextualises studio-based learning as self-organising, informal and driven by practice, as opposed to arts education, which is more formal, school-based and driven by prescribed curriculums. tbC operates outside formal education, health and welfare programming and is specifically interested in advancing young artists artistic agency and status.
A review of the literature around young people has revealed a plethora of research within what academic Reed Larson calls the “burgeoning field of youth development”[3] and what arts educator Jennifer Bott calls “the growing body of research in arts education.”[4] In contrast, this review has revealed a distinct lack of research around the benefit and value of dedicated youth arts practice and limited practical examples, especially within the visual and experimental arts. Chapter One builds a case for more dedicated youth arts research and practice by demonstrating the limited instances of both.
Chapter One also examines contradictory youth discourse, which scholar Henry Giroux argues both celebrates and reproaches young people.[5] It critiques what social psychologist Christine Griffin refers to as the common perception of young people as troubled or troubling[6] and the cultural tendency to fear and/or misunderstand young people in general. It discusses how this fear and misunderstanding of the youth condition stigmatises and marginalises young people. Chapter One further argues that there is a disproportionate focus on the educational and welfare benefits of youth arts practice and that this devalues the intrinsic artistic qualities and benefits of such practice. It also argues that this disproportionate focus interrupts the building of artistic agency and status.
As an artist-researcher, Tiffaney is a participant and observer, simultaneously engaging in creative and scholarly practices. Chapter Two examines how this embedded and symbiotic relationship methodologically shapes the design, purpose and value of this investigation via what academic Kelly Guyotte refers to as “a rich entanglement of thought, art and language.”[7] With the help of theorists like Guyotte, Erin Manning and Brian Massumi, this chapter builds on the theory that artistic practice can be a mode of thinking,[8] revealing valuable implicit knowledge that theorists like Carole Gray, Julian Malins and Shaun McNiff argue only emerges through the actual process of artistic expression.[9] This discussion also highlights the importance of making this implicit knowledge more explicit – something artist-researcher Barbara Bolt argues can be achieved by examining the recurring and evaluative data that emerges from and within creative practice.[10] This chapter further argues that when combined with the discursive space of the dissertation, this recurring and evaluative creative data can lead to the successful explication of implicit knowledge.[11]
The past thirty years have seen the emergence of a range of research methodologies specifically aimed at supporting artist-researchers and artistic inquiries. Key examples include arts-based research,[12] practice as research,[13] practice-based research,[14] practice-led research, research-led practice,[15] action research,[16] arts-based action research[17] and research-creation.[18] These differently named but similarly enacted modes of artistic inquiry situate the creative practice within the research activity (or the research practice within the creative activity) and share an underlying understanding that valuable knowledge can be found in extralinguistic experimentation, examination and expression.
Chapter Two includes a detailed review of the expanding literature around artistic inquiry, mainly focusing on the nuances found within the above approaches and how this review led to the decision to engage a research-creation methodology for this investigation. An extended discussion focuses on a range of academic viewpoints about research-creation’s defining features and its application and potential. This includes the methodology’s track record for what Natalie Loveless refers to as the interdisciplinary scope of research-creation,[19] the potential Owen Chapman and Kim Sawchuck see in research-creation’s ability to support new media experimentation,[20] the way research-creation supports what Manning describes as the inherent collaboration often found within artistic inquiry,[21] as well as the pedagogical innovation that Loveless and Stephanie Springgay attribute to the methodology.[22]
Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s metaphorical concept of the rhizome[23] supports the theorising around the design and presentation of this research-creation. Chapter two demonstrates how the rhizomatic and adventitious nature of tbC’s practice has influenced the cross-media format of this research. Concepts like multimodal and multimedia, hypertext and hypermedia will be defined and contextualised - especially in terms of how these cross-referencing tools support this artistic inquiry's horizontal, extralinguistic and multifaceted context and design. The metaphorical concept of the rhizome also supports theorising around tbC’s non-hierarchical model of group practice and governance.
Chapter Three extends tbC’s foundation story, which includes discussion around the characteristics that define the group and its modus operandi. While the main focus of this research is on tbC’s collaborative arts practice and joint authorship model, underpinning the success of this model is a dedicated arts practice, non-hierarchical governance and informal arts pedagogy. Chapter Three examines these key underpinnings before a more detailed examination of the group’s collaborative arts and joint authorship model in Chapter Four.
The first part of Chapter Four defines, historicises and contextualises established understandings of collaboration and demonstrates this understanding within the context of tbC’s contemporary collaborative arts practice and this inquiry around it. It specifically demonstrates what theorist Claire Bishop describes as the “empowering creativity of collective action and shared ideas”[24] and how this supports young artists in building artistic agency and status. This discussion also speaks to the sites, modes and materials of collaborative arts practice at tbC and their critical role in the journey towards artistic agency and status.
The second part of Chapter Four defines, historicises and contextualises the concept of authorship and how joint authorship supports tbC’s united front approach to building artistic agency and status for young artists. Stéphane Mallarmé’s philosophy around the authorless text/artwork speaking for itself,[25] Roland Barthes’ philosophy around the inherently collaborative and social nature of authorship[26] and Michel Foucault’s philosophy around how the function of authorship affects the way we view, value and validate texts/artworks[27] help theorise the way tbC’s joint authorship practice presents young artists and their work through an aesthetic lens (rather than a biographical one) and how this directly supports the development of artistic agency and status.
Chapter Four includes a comparative analysis of other collaborative arts and joint authorship practices, such as New York City’s Tim Rollins and The Kids of Survival (K.O.S.) and Dublin’s Rialto Youth Project.
It is important to note upfront that although this investigation focuses on the power a collaborative arts and joint authorship practice has in developing artistic agency and status for a group of young artists, this focus doesn’t invalidate or ignore the individual artist. Chapter Four includes a discussion around how tbC’s collaborative arts and joint authorship practice simultaneously build collective and individual artistic agency and status by developing skills, experience and confidence within both the group and the individual.
Chapter Four concludes by addressing recurrent challenges to the democratic nature of group practice and the persistent figure of the individual author, as well as the tension found in presenting solo-authored research about a collaborative and jointly authored practice. While tbC artists are not co-authors of this research, they are co-creators of the work and practices being examined. Respect for the impact this collaborative environment has had on this research is expressed in more detail in Chapter Five.
This research-creation uses the case study as an “in-action”[28] method of data collection, reflection, and analysis. Chapter Five presents four case study artworks that illustrate tbC’s united front approach to making and presenting art and the success this approach has in building artistic agency and status. tbC’s key operating characteristics (collaborative arts practice and joint authorship, a dedicated arts focus, non-hierarchical governance and informal arts pedagogy) act as analytical frameworks for this examination. Again, while the main focus of this investigation is on how a collaborative arts and joint authorship practice enables a group of young artists as practitioners and how this model of practice builds artistic agency and status, references to the way a dedicated arts practice, egalitarian governance and informal arts pedagogy support this building of artistic agency and status are interwoven throughout the case study examination. Although not as formal as solicited interviews or surveys, these case studies reveal valuable experiential knowledge, which is validated through embedded experience, deep reflection and a critical analysis of recurring and evaluative data.
Three of the four case study artworks are dialogical,[29] engaging what social practice artist Joseph Beuys describes as “interdisciplinary and participatory processes in which thought, speech and discussion are core ‘materials.’”[30] The knowledge contained within these dialogical artworks and the in-practice discussions that supported their making and presentation constitute valuable artistic data. Tiffaney’s dissertation links the reader to a companion website where these dialogical artworks and in-practice discussions are creatively housed. Together, these sites of knowledge provide a fuller understanding of how tbC’s united front approach to making and presenting art succeeds in supporting young artists in building artistic agency and status.[31]
The decision to employ a case study data-gathering method also stems from the fact that many members of tbC are under eighteen years of age. Most of these young artists also engage with the project independently of their parents. This makes seeking consent for formal data collection (via interviews and surveys) complex. Chapters Four and Five explain how this observational research manages consent issues while benefiting from the valuable creative data tbC’s practice reveals.[32]
The significance of this research is demonstrated via its contribution of an aspirational model of collaborative youth arts practice and its contribution to the scholarship around such practice. It is hoped that this research will encourage other youth arts projects and even ambitious teachers and classrooms to explore and experiment with collaborative arts practice in a similar way. This investigation also highlights limited (longitudinal) research around dedicated youth arts practice and the benefits and value of such practice, with the aim of inspiring others to contribute to expanding the research in this area.
The four case study artworks at the centre of this investigation include:
1. Hoodie Mag: A collaboratively made and jointly authored youth arts publishing project that combines literary, visual, interactive, and digital creations in a group presentation. Hoodie Mag is published in both a printed format (as a book) and an electronic format (as a website) and has been in development since 2010. This case study focuses on the 2017 edition and examines the artistic agency and status achieved through a collaborative and jointly authored publishing practice.
2. Blacksmiths Ways Graffiti and Street Art Project: A collaboratively made and jointly authored public art project created in a semi-anonymous way by means of the pseudonym.[33] This case study focuses on the 2017 iteration of this project and examines the artistic agency and status achieved through a collaborative and jointly authored public arts practice.
3. The Art of Conversation (Digital): A collaboratively made and jointly authored dialogical artwork that engages the public in conversation with tbC artists via interactive digital technology. Anyone can scan the artwork (with a free app) and engage in a creative discussion. Conversation starters come from tbC’s social and studio spaces. The wider public adds to these conversations by interacting with the artwork. This case study focuses on tbC’s 2017 version of The Art of Conversation (Digital). It examines the artistic agency and status achieved through a collaborative and jointly authored practice that is socially engaged and digitally augmented.
4. The Art of Conversation (Gallery): A collaboratively made and jointly authored exhibition project. Works take the form of 2D prints on paper that contain fine mesh-like layers of text (and sometimes accompanying imagery). These works present colloquial and visual dialogue about young artists, tbC’s group practices and the collective building of artistic agency and status. This dialogue originates from tbC’s social and studio spaces and practices, and the work is authored and presented as a group conversation. This case study focuses on tbC’s 2017 exhibition of The Art of Conversation (Gallery). It examines the artistic agency and status achieved through a collaborative arts and joint authorship practice within the gallery space.
(Link to footnotes)
Link to full research