This practice-led research investigated the ways in which a reflective translocal creative practice might facilitate a sensitive approach to creating in unfamiliar cultural environments. Although the encounter with culturally unfamiliar places, and the exploration of this encounter through creative practice, can lead to personal growth and creative innovation, it can also lead to culturally inappropriate uses. Encountering the other can be an instance of ‘uncertainty and risk’ (Boey 2016) for the creator, especially where it takes place in a postcolonial context in which past acts of cultural appropriation, theft or erasure have been the foundation for contexts of cultural exchange. This practice-led research, starting from my experience of writing poetry about objects in Barcelona, investigated the development of a reflective practice (Schön 1983/2016; Candy 2020) that could be applied to contexts of translocal creative practice.
My analysis centred on two challenges creatives may face when creating work about an unfamiliar context: 1) seeing clearly during the initial stages of living somewhere new and 2) the influence of past experience and frames of knowledge on this process of seeing (drawing from Bourdieu’s concept of habitus). While perception and past experiences are challenges faced in a creative writing practice in general, they are particularly sensitive in the high stakes encounter with an unfamiliar culture, and it is in these contexts where a thoughtful approach to these challenges can be particularly beneficial. Yet a rigorous evaluation of personal position, perception and experience can be confronting, and can lead to disengagement with such a challenging context. Instead of disengagement, this research proposed an approach that centred on uncertainty and questioning, while encouraging an ongoing process of learning and editing in creative practice, which can potentially foster a reflective practice that is open to change in complex intercultural spaces.
I conducted initial fieldwork for this project in Barcelona from October 2016 to April 2017, although I travelled between Melbourne and Barcelona (as well as revisiting northern Thailand and Singapore) throughout most of the research period. I developed many creative iterations between 2016 and 2021, in a cycle of creating, reflecting, adjusting, revising and renewed creating.
Creative outputs:
Annotation: A collection of annotated texts that explore the oscillation between the physical and the virtual localities. It is an experiment in how the multi-sensorial elements of a video work, and the juxtaposition of photography/text, might talk back to the text on the page.
The Grains Are Rough Here (13:20 min, single channel video).
Double Glazed (1:37 mins, single channel video)
Leave your shoes here (2:10 mins, single channel video)
Screenings:
- On the Move Poetry Festival in Canberra, Australia
- Tranås at the Fringe – International Arts Festival, Tranås, Sweden
- ANCA Gallery group exhibition, Canberra, Australia
- Moving Poems journal
- Cordite Poetry Review
- Verity La
Claire Rosslyn Wilson 