Doing “Research”
A small exploration of thoughts about the evolution of my research in my intervention practice with a few rambles along the way.
Fishermen at the old port of Patras, Greece. September, 2022
How it started
Painting in Amman, I came about this overpowering sensitivity or maybe better described as a social obligation towards what I painted. This might be triggered from ‘performing’ in the public eye which mixed with fear, excitement and wanting to poke around. Early on, this sensitivity of public space evoked a near aggressive approach towards researching.
An attempt at finding answers for any question that might arise: What is this piece about? Why do you paint it here? What are you trying to say with it? What are people’s reactions? Who are you to claim a part of the street?
For some reason, I found that the research supplemented a justification to the existence of the piece itself and to the ‘right’ that I had of executing it. This need to justify isn’t entirely formulated from my own relationship with my art, rather it became a product of this Ammani environment. The point to justify, to bring reason to the art that you do, i.e to make it useful is a narrative that has weeded its way into our public psyche. I believe this is for numerous reasons, our lack of training towards a visual culture with more dependency on the written didactic. The concept of an artist in Amman itself is not granted the “art for art’s sake” pass from any party, whether the society, governmental and cultural institution, or foreign institutions. An artist and their art under this sphere become a mere tool used to further incite public agendas of awareness-based work.
The artist becomes a marketing tool so that the European Institution that’s pouring money into your country’s development can illustrate to you how to recycle properly, conserve your water and act less barbarically towards your women with colorful murals. Under a local institution, the artist is utilized to present reminders of the rules, of what not to do, whether it’s smoking, texting while driving, or littering. It’s important never to forget what your national identity represents, where you are and who rules you.
For an artist in Amman, this leaves very little for the highly praised ‘artistic autonomy’ that in the western contemporary sphere is a near sanctity, and this becomes increasingly obsolete when places in a highly regulated and monitored public sphere. What is left for the artist then? How are they able to express and what are they allowed to express? For me, this method of research became a near solution to the limitations found in the Jordanian context. Subversiveness comes to play, and the use of art remains higher than its sake, its normalized use for furthering any funded public awareness, get subverted to a use of critiquing and igniting conversation that aspires to lead any kind of true transformation. Fundamentally, it is to regain the power that comes with reclaiming public space for the sake of disrupting it. Research then has its place in trying to ensure that.
For Lack of a Better Word
I really do use the word research loosely. It is not in any way up to par to the almost rigid manner of the conventional academic research, but early on, I was surely trying to emulate it. Research then connotes this scientific methodology, with collecting data and analyzing it and drawing up conclusions. I had this rigorousness in the back of my mind, which ultimately led me seeing things as purely objective and made the ‘research’ too anthropological, where people and topics become subjects of study. I left no room for my own experiences.
It didn’t take long started to to stray away from that rigidness. I wanted a form of gathering information that served the knowledge that was being shared to me rather than a means of classifying it. To generate a collective of stories and experiences that had room to breathe and grow within itself and within the work. It also allowed experiencing this knowledge sharing which can take form through miniscule observations to organized large gatherings. It also allowed for less objectivity; My own experiences and understanding were not sidelined anymore. The research eventually became different ways of collectively producing a work that had parts of myself weaved into parts of different people and stories.
It’s situational
The concept of research truly changes greatly depending on the space. Amman holds a unique place in my explorations; to try and continuously look at a place that you’re very used to in different lights. I find it to be the most interesting space to play in, as if it’s because I know what the rules are, I can find different ways of bending them or evoking more specific reactions.
I’m slowly in the process of finding different methods that are situational based on different contexts. Methods change based on location, time and the type of work that’s being done. I’m also trying to be less formulaic about it. After a recent trip to Kosovo, I learnt that sometimes when hat you’re seeking through the research is not aligning within the context, it’s fine to let it go and see what’s spontaneously enticing you once you’re experiencing the space firsthand. This doesn’t make your research efforts worthless or irrelevant, at the very least, they create a premise for you to take off from.
My methodology recently when exploring completely new spaces and countries is to take the situationist route. To get lost and let the city take stage in guiding my findings rather than imposing anything.
Roaming around the streets of Patras Greece, September 2022
Research in the Street Art/Muralism World
From what I’ve noticed, the research practice within muralism and street art and its approach towards research usually take specific forms. Almost always based on the context, the most accessible manner usually takes form in capturing the everyday. Where the artist takes an anthropological lens to get to know the people and surroundings and from it find individuals or stories that have some significance to the area. Such a way of working although for the most part interesting, I find can be somewhat redundant and limiting to ways of exploring spaces.
Since working in public spaces, I aim for the outcome to inevitably have a balance of accessibility and depth. The viewer does not need to know the entire research framework that produced the work, rather the research shows through the manner of pausing and contemplating at the work. When viewing the work, you can sense that there’s a story behind it, that’s what I aim for, to nudge this sense of curiosity.
Types of ‘research’ from muralists that I do enjoy are like escif, Name, and Eltono. Where their work ‘researches’ not only manners of subject but also through spatial play of material, scale, and social spheres.
What’s of great interest to me is going about these different artistic practices and their ‘research’ is slowly blurring the definition of street art in between different artworlds. Aspects of accessibility and use of public walls can still place it within the ‘street art’ world, but with new ‘nuances’ of this art form existing in the same space, the amount of conceptualizing can also make it exist in more contemporary art spaces. This malleability and ability to exist in these different worlds I find to be unique in street art, as it brings back to hopefully serving its main primordial function of graffiti; reclaiming and disrupting space. But this does come with a set of different interrogations.
Can an inherently anti-institutional art form retain its characteristic when dealing with art institutions? Is it possible for it to disrupt the institution? Is validity of an art form only achieved when it’s tied to an institution or mimicking it? Increasingly, we find descriptions of murals as open air museums, or find museums purely dedicated to street art. Is this anti-institutionalization only performative similar to the institutional critique of contemporary art? Does the involvement of institutions sterilize and attempt to de-politicize street art?
Future of my ‘research’
For the time being this research element of my work has solidified its place in my practice. I believe it will further develop and take its own shape depending on the artistic product at hand. For the future, I can imagine this ‘research’ having a life of its own outside of the work that it formed to. The research can become highly extensive to the point were much is omitted when viewing a final work like a mural. Now, I’m thinking of numerous ways that the research can take shape of its own in different spaces and contexts as it can also develop on its own regardless of the status of the more visual work.
When creating public interventions, the work really takes on multiple lives, the preparation i.e research, the execution and the post-life all encompass a very rich and unusual livelihood and history for an ‘wall painting’. Something that is not the case if it was on a canvas in a white cube setting. Hence, this richness really is what motivates me, at least for the parts that I have control over to make it shown. There’s so much that goes into creating one piece that I try to showcase the work more holistically. The stories that I’ve heard, people I’ve met, excursions, and everything in between, they become almost a work of their own. It’s impossible to put all of these and exemplify them in one mural, that’s why I rather try to weave one cohesive narrative in a mural that could be expressed at face value. Rather, this abundance of narratives that lie behind the work deserves a place of its own some way or another.
Outside of the usual, how can the research take a life of its own? How does its relationship change with the work? How can it also be present with the work under the public sphere and how would it look like? How can documentation of the research and the process take form into a work of its own?