Changing Art into Research

This book sets out a new and simple, yet theoretically aligned methodology for arts-based researchers, with an emphasis on phenomenology. It shows how to use arts practice for data analysis and presentation, while remaining aware of the requirements of rigour in research.

---

Changing Art into Research: Soliloquy Methodology presents a research methodology that enables inquiry into one’s personal experiences in an endeavour to reveal essential commonalities of human experience. Arts-informed research methods are becoming increasingly popular with scholars in Arts, Education and the Social Sciences, but there is often confusion about how to turn arts practice into rigorous inquiry.

This book examines the theoretical perspectives needed to inform these research approaches, which are often missing in methods teaching and research. Soliloquy is a new methodology that interprets and applies Husserl’s philosophical concept of Transcendental Phenomenology. It marries together the synthesizing powers of the unconscious mind with the analytical capacities of conscious cognition and articulation. It further explores the possibility that both cognitive and intuitive ways of knowing are valid and appropriate for academic inquiry, provided these methods are aligned through a philosophically consistent, theoretical framework.

This book will be of great interest to academics and postgraduate students engaged in arts-based qualitative research and those doing an arts-based practice dissertation.