Three Phases of Artistic Research

Abstract

About 30 years ago, new research approaches based on artistic practice began to emerge alongside traditional art research. A lively debate took place, especially at art schools that had gained university status, about various combinations of art and research in which art was not just a research object; this debate later grew in different directions. The vocabulary for these new approaches and their institutional analyses in international contexts was complex: practice-based research, practice-led research, art-based research, artistic research, research creation... In Finland, the term taiteellinen tutkimus (artistic research) has become an umbrella term that is used when the focus is not on a specific methodology. The choice of words in Finnish is at least partly based on the fact that the sense of the word ‘practice' is difficult to render in Finnish.