Formation of Research Competences in the Arts

Since the 1990’s Artistic Research has become an independent area of artistic thinking and acting on a global scale. Independently or in exchange with the humanities, social and natural sciences Artistic Research proclaims a level of tolerance which allows to integrate new practices thus creating an extended mindset for artistic production and research. In recent years the resulting new forms of knowledge have highlighted how diverse and inspiring methodological transgressions of the arts can be.

Although the history of Artistic Research in Switzerland is relatively short – research funding by national funding institutions startet only in the year 2000 in the context of the Bologna Reform – an intensive debate has emerged.

From 2010 to 2013 the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation SBFI (formerly BBT) supported this development with the project Formation of Research Competences in the Arts. The three-year measure of SBFI was integrated into the process of institutional development of the Academy of Art and Design FHNW and puts the emphasis on the development of research content and structures. The publication Forschungsskizzen has been realised in this context and provides a summary over project activities and gives insight into the research activities of the academy in this field which have been realised partly across institutes. There are textual and visual contributions by Leyla Belkaïd, Elke Bippus, Daniel Brefin, Flavia Caviezel, Dias & Riedweg, Simone Etter, Beate Florenz, Melanie Franke, Alain Gloor, Damian Jurt, Hannes Rickli, Johanna Rolshoven and Jörg Wiesel.