MA Week 14 - Writing as practice

Reflection on taught session, Friday 22nd January 2016

Creative Practitioner Presentation

A talk with a difference today as Karen’s practice is creative writing. Her research focuses on “stories from an art institution; the writing lives of students with dyslexia”. She has three main threads: 

Dyslexia teaching and research

Karen is telling the stories of the lives of dyslexic students; a longitudinal (= over time) narrative enquiry. She talked about how she engages with dyslexic students. Here I found less in common with her practice than the other two strands. 

Creative Fiction Writing

Karen writes short stories and she read one aloud to us. As she was reading I could get an idea of her choosing words carefully, and also of creating enough of a character for each person that appeared in her short (4-page) narrative. I like to hear the author read their work; I think you get much more from it in their vocal inflection. I found the same when the poet, Helen Mort, read her poem about the public artwork “Aspire” (see Simon Fujiwara post for more details of the artwork). I also think, from listening to both Karen’s and Helen’s commentary on their work, that there is a lot of the creative process in common with art practice; research ; testing, choice and justification; refining the finished product; reflection and improvement; but using words and written constructs rather than paint, ground and so on. 

Journal writing

Karen contributes to the discourse around writing in an art institution. She has also written narratives of other people’s research. I flashed back to Sam’s talk in the first week of this term and questions arose in my mind:

• How much of academic papers are fiction, arising inadvertently or deliberately from the researcher or their subject?
• How much is gently embroidered into the narrative enquiry by the researcher’s desire to fulfil their research purpose ?
• Are fact and fiction ever really separated,in life as well as in research?
• What part does opinion play?

I don’t suppose anyone knows the answers to the above. Ethics comes into play. I try to write honestly but perhaps sometimes I should be more guarded. Hmm. Karen quoted someone called Richardson (I didn’t get a reference for this) : “The question is not if we will write the lives of others but how and for whom”. For me, I can substitute “depict” for “write” and apply this to my own practice. 

Karen mentioned a journal called “Journal of Arts Writing by Students” (JAWS). This is definitely something for me to have a look at. Much though I find it hard work, I do like the rigour and challenge of academic writing. 

She listed a number of terms which, for her, cover the role of writing in art. I list these here as a kind of reference for my own writing:

• Explicatory
• Democractic
• Inclusive
• Exclusive
• Word play
• Metaphor
• Dyslexia
• Can contribute to the ethical considerations of art

Via this blog I am trying to be explicatory about my practice. I am also trying to be reflective, which is a word I would add into the list above.