Centre for Practice Research in the Arts
Introduction
Announced in November 2022, the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts is a new research centre. Its aim is to contribute to key debates around the nature of contemporary art and design practices, with a view to becoming a prominent advocacy voice for creative practitioners nationally and internationally. The founding director of the centre is artist, theorist, and educator Dr Bill Balaskas – Director of Research, Business and Innovation at the School of Arts.
Researching through making
The Centre for Practice Research in the Arts is grounded in Kingston School of Art's long tradition in "thinking through making" – the guiding principle of the School for more than 140 years. In addition, the centre builds on the institution's recent success in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), which saw the area of Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory achieve an outstanding performance: 55% of the research outputs submitted were ranked "world leading" and 87% "world leading or internationally excellent". Notably, the majority of the outputs submitted by the institution were in the form of art and design practice.
From experimentation to innovation
The centre incorporates existing research groups and clusters working across creative disciplines: fine art, design, architecture, film, photography, performing arts, and beyond. Encouraging and enabling experimentation, the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts will explore how we can expand our collective and creative potential through combining innovative research practices.
Following a year of initial consultations, the key structures of the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts will be finalised through a series of dialogue-based processes that will extend throughout 2022-2023.
Groups
These are the core groups operating under the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts.
Additional affiliations
Contact us
For further information, please contact the centre's director, Dr Bill Balaskas: b.balaskas@kingston.ac.uk
Events and Outputs
Through its events and outputs, CePRA is bringing together researchers from different disciplinary areas, while also nurturing collaborations with external partners to support advocacy initiatives that strengthen the position of practice research nationally and internationally. A selection of recent events and collective outputs is provided below. To find out more information about group-based events and outputs, please visit the individual webpages of our constituent groups.
- 19 July 2023
Publication of the Document of the Testimony, Deliberation and Reflection of the Artist Citizens Jury - 29 June 2013
Article in Times Higher Education: ‘Will the new REF rules level the playing field for the arts?' - 21 June 2023
Festival of Research and Innovation 2023: ‘Resource Extraction Beyond Earth: Unpacking Sustainability Narratives' - 24 March 2023
Organisation of the ‘Master of Reality' conference, Royal Festival Hall - 15-16 March 2023
Participation in the CHEAD Annual Conference, Kingston University - 1 March 2023
Establishment of the ‘Wrong Writing' JOAN Publishing Residency at Kingston School of Art - 22 February-7 May 2023
The Centre has sponsored the catalogue and co-organised the public events programme of the survey exhibition of Professor Mike Nelson ‘Extinction Beckons', Hayward Gallery - 12-13 November 2022
Participation in the Artist Citizens Jury, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art - 10 November 2022
e-flux Education announcement
