The ‘ontopology’ of the artist’s studio as workplace: researching the artist’s studio and the art/design classroom

Abstract

Studies in creativity most often neglect the aspect of place, of the artist’s situated practices in the studio. One reason for this is that the artist’s studio is one of the most difficult workplaces in which to gain entry and conduct research. This article is based on grounded research into the studio workplace of the sculptor Oswald Stimm, reflections on the author’s own studio and art classroom, and the studios of Francis Bacon and Alberto Giacometti. The relation between the reflexive dimension of research into the author’s studio and classroom, participant observation of the workplace of a living artist and research into two no longer extant workplaces, produce what Derrida has termed an ‘ontopology’ that links ‘the ontological value of … being to its situation, to the stable and presentable determination of a locality, the topos of a territory’. The methodology that lies behind the findings presented in this article are multi‐strand, but hinge primarily upon a tropic analysis of the configurations and rhythms of activity in the studio as well as the philosophical perspectives, among others, of Heidegger on the ‘densities of meaning that lie in the immediate, in the most obviously to hand’ and Winnicott’s psychoanalytic theory of ‘potential space’. Tropic analysis exceeds the traditional view of creative activity as place‐independent, obliging us to reconsider the ontological relation to the topological as a relation that can be understood through the elaboration of the ‘tropic concept’ as a practical and productive force for learning and change. This research has been successively applied to the preparation of art students for further education and has profound implications for researching the workplace and post‐compulsory education in art and design.

Acknowledgement

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Symposium for Work‐Based Learning, Middlesex University, Trent Park, January 2007, and at the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PSEGB) Annual Conference, New College, Oxford, March 2007.