Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies

This special issue of Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies delves into some of the persistent questions surrounding creative practices in knowledge communities, and probes the boundaries of a creative research orientation or “episteme.” Considering a multitude of artistic practices, including archival projects, creative writing, communications, documentary film, film essay, mapping and locative projects, sound art, theatre and performance, transmedial storytelling, the issue explores how reconfiguring traditional outputs and knowledge dissemination can complement or displace the power invested in knowledge producing institutions like universities.

An important aspect of the special issue is whether different forms of community can emerge with the shift toward research-creation, and if that sense of community is durable to withstand the winds of change that face university teachers and researchers in the present.

Drawing on fourteen unique contributions, including the commentaries by the guest editors, the issue explores the research-creation episteme through various modes: Co-creation, practicing art, learning methodologies, the boundary between human and non-humans, and writing.

The special issue follows from a conference on the subject that was held at Trent University, October 30, 2023, which featured thirty-seven presentations. This conference was framed with the following questions:

• What is the boundary dividing creative from non-creative practices?
• What are approaches that artists can adopt to practice in a university context?
• How can academic audiences for practice-based work be sustained?
• How can academic research-creation be incentivized to meet demands for community involvement and accountability? What are the institutional guarantees?
• What are the implications of redirecting artistic value to meet the university’s market demands (distinct from those of the culture industries)?
• Creative workers have developed pathways through the established benchmarks of securing research funding. Are they viable?
• What are the implications of developing work under different linguistic, national, regional, or global conceptual umbrellas (e.g. “practice-based” vs. “practice-led”)?
• What does research-creation entail for undergraduate teaching, graduate supervision, and mentorship?
• How can research-creation transform the evaluation rubrics for hire, reappointment, tenure, and promotion?
• Do creative outputs advance causes of equity and access, and if so, how?
• To what extent does research-creation, modelled as an intervention, participate in the ongoing labour to decolonize universities?
• What does research-creation reveal for reputedly “traditional” researchers about their own practices?
• What are such researchers concerned about when they encounter research-creative projects?
• What does the diversification of knowledges and methods add to historical debates on the subject and whom do these serve?