Chewing and Pooing: The digestive system as a metaphor for practice-research in participatory contexts (Panel)

Abstract

The commonality between the panel leaders lies in our use of participatory art methods to explore particular contexts (e.g. hospitals, public galleries, call centres, local authorities) in order to explore the material processes and conditions of these places with the people who work in them. Hope will present Manual Labours: Building as Body taking Nottingham Contemporary as a case study, Schrag will present Fight Club: Physicality and Office Workers within Glasgow City Council and Shaw will present Hiding in Plain Sight: Moving between Care and Research at Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery.

We propose a panel in which we will each present our methodologies, making use of the metaphor of the digestive system to find out what is being ingested, masticated and digested, and by whom, and what is being excreted at the end of our research processes. We are interested in exploring the processes of exchange, interaction and co-production in the process of investigating the functions and malfunctions of organisations. What is it that is participatory about this practice-research? What are the intersubjective relations between artist-researchers and participants? How can the fleshy, pulsating, masticating, symbiotic aspects of the digestive system help and/or hinder doing practice-research in these settings?

We will examine how the artist-researcher and participant fits within the metabolism of the body in which they work and how possible it is to challenge the relationships they have with the specific contexts they work in. We invite feedback and discussion on diverse methodologies which use participatory art methods to explore working environments, examining where the metaphor of digestion fails and where new metaphors, systems and imagery might be needed.