What Knowledge?  What Practice?

Peter Seddon using examples from his recent work presents a polemical alternative that questions the very nature of much that informs this area regarding research within so called practice-based research. When does one become the other.

Biography

Peter Seddon’s research work has been informed by interest in historiography; both in the sense of histories of art, and wider political/social/cultural histories. It is also informed by an interest in image/text and theories of language.

Since 2001 his art practice has been reconfigured through a ‘mentoring’ programme of collaboration, consultation and critical conversation with Andrew Wheatley, curator and director of the Cabinet Gallery, London. The practice that developed from this experience grew out of a decision to work more rapidly on paper and through digitally produced prints. Part of the aim of this method is to bring into alignment what have been seen as differing and dispersed interests and ways of working.  He seeks to evolve a working method that brings together visual images, writing, and researching into something he terms ‘historiographical practice’.

Although his practice crosses ‘genres’ and in its historical referencing can seem quite complex, its technical resources are very simple and easy to grasp, using as it does straightforward easily available means, such as a computer, digital cameras, large format inkjet printers, stencilled vinyl text and the materials of the stationary/office/graphics supply store. There is no mystery to its production and in that sense it is a practice amenable to conversation, discussion, participation and dialogue across different levels of audience interest and audience experience.