Writing life narratives through art practice

ABSTRACT

This article shares some of my doctoral experiences in a practice-based PhD research in arts developed at the Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London. It locates art practice within the academic research realm and contributes to researchers working on autobiographical studies and practice-based research methods. By offering an overview on my research topic focusing on the relationship between language and place in the life of Brazilian women living in London, I reflect on the relevance of “not-knowing” as a fruitful space for researching autobiographical and situated life narratives through art practice. The article concludes that qualitative methods are relevant for building passages from the individual to the collective sphere of an art practice developed within geographical displacement and in the context of academic research.

KEYWORDS:

• Art research
• Brazilian women
• life writing
• life narrative
• language
• Practice-based research
• place
• qualitative methods
• researtist
• visual arts

Acknowledgements

The author thanks David Cross and James Swinson from the University of the Arts London, Linda Sandino from the University of Sussex, Hayley Newman from University College London, Maria Tamboukou from the University of East London, and the research participants Alba Cabral, Allane Viana, Alessandra Leighton, Alessandra Molina, Carolina Angrisani, Cristiane Pederiva, Jamile Kollar, Joselita Padilha, Marisa Aranda, Marta Fernandes, Rosa Gonçalves, and Talita Bolzan. The author is also grateful to Alexandre B. Strapasson and acknowledges the support of the CAPES Foundation, Ministry of Education of Brazil.

Notes

1. “In the disputes of the control of knowledge, of authority, of the economy, of the norms regulating gender and sexuality, and the assumptions regulating racial classification of people and regions, there are several options [Christian option, liberal option, Marxist option, Islamic option, feminist option, and so on]” (Mignolo 2011, p. xv). One of the characteristics of the decolonial option is “the analytic of the construction, transformation, and sustenance of racism and patriarchy that created the conditions to build and control a structure of knowledge, either grounded on the word of God or the word of Reason and Truth” and considering that such hierarchies “have been constructed in the very process of building the idea of Western civilization and of modernity” (Mignolo 2011, p. xv).

^2. The term “auto/bio/geography” first appeared in an academic source in the online journal Reconstruction, published by Wolf-Meyer and Heckman (2002), but they did not mention the decolonial option. Therefore, by looking at the term “autobiogeography” through the lens of decoloniality, I propose a decolonial methodology grounded in situated autobiographical acts for developing a practice-based research in visual arts that can confront coloniality and raise immigrant consciousness. This is one of my original contributions to knowledge.

^3. Coloniality is different from and survives colonialism; it “refers to long-standing patterns of power that emerged as a result of colonialism” and “is maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic performance, in cultural patterns, in common sense, in the self-image of peoples, in aspirations of self, and so many other aspects of our modern experience” (Maldonado-Torres 2007, p. 243).

^4. “Decoloniality names attitudes, projects, goals, and efforts to delink from the promises of modernity and the un-human conditions created by coloniality” (Mignolo 2014, p. 27).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manoela dos Anjos Afonso Rodrigues

Manoela dos Anjos Afonso Rodrigues, Lic. Arts, MA, PhD, is senior lecturer and coordinator of the Bachelor of Visual Arts course at the Visual Arts College (FAV) of the Federal University of Goiâs (UFG) in Brazil. She is member of the National Association of Art Researchers (ANPAP) and of the Brazilian Association of Oral History (ABHO). She leads the practice-based research project “Autobiographical art practices: intersections between visual arts, life writing and decoloniality,” focusing on the creation of places of enunciation for decolonial selves through art practice.