The CREW

BACKGROUND: Since its recognition in the 1980s, the growth of Creative Practice Research (CPR) in Australian Universities has been exponential. When involving human and animal subjects, this has rendered CPR answerable to the University's research ethics processes and procedures, imposing assumptions about the nature of research that are alien to CPR. This has created many acknowledged and well documented problems that can undermine the quality and integrity of CPR. In response, a group of CPRs from multiple universities gathered across two months to explore these primary research questions: What if the development of ethical expertise was approached as an integral part of creative practice research? Could this help leverage an enduring cultivation of ethical know-how? CONTRIBUTION: 'The CREW' exhibition was designed and curated to open up this collective enquiry to a broader group of CPRs in a conference setting, involving them in the questions, issues and resulting propositions. The exhibition comprised a series of interactive and/or performative works that were activated through floor talks, audience participation and discussion groups. This research tackled identified tensions between CPR and ethics via a key proposition concerning the analogous relations between CPR as a process and the cultivation of ethical know-how, as discussed in key literature (Francisco Varela). SIGNIFICANCE: The project was funded by an OLT project grant (2016-2017) and was part of a national, scholarly conference, iDARE held at The University of Melbourne, VCA. Three conference keynotes, Professor Jane Rendell (UCL, London), Associate Professor Steve Loo (UTAS) and Oron Catts (SymbioticA, UWA) were actively engaged in leading two, hour long, public discussions in direct response to the exhibition. A review and images of the exhibition were featured in a 2017 article in 'Research Ethics Monthly' (ISSN 2206-2483).