Making as a method of inquiry. The work itself generates the questions, material and insights you go on to analyse.
- +Fits Pragmatist Epistemology, Phenomenological Epistemology
- –Tension with Positivist Epistemology
Key thinkers: Graeme Sullivan, James Elkins, Michael Schwab
The longer story
Studio work as method means your own creative practice generates research data. Make something to understand something. The knowledge isn't separate from the making—it's in the doing, the decisions, the material encounters. Documentation matters, but so does articulating what you're learning through practice. This isn't 'do some art and write about it later.' It's systematic inquiry where practice and reflection inform each other iteratively. The challenge is demonstrating that research-level knowledge has been produced, not just personal development.