Interrogating the Visual as a Site of Knowledge Production: Contemporary Art as Visual Research

• In Event: Thinking Ourselves “Out of” and “Into” Visual Research Methodologies in Education

Abstract

This paper examines the photographic mural Abbott and Cordova, 7 August 1971 by Stan Douglas as a complex site of visual research, which makes possible the production of knowledge. Located in the atrium of the renovated Woodwards building in Gastown, Vancouver, the mural reminds passers-by of a troubling moment when the police squad violently broke up a peaceful hippy gathering. Following this tragic event, the City of Vancouver transformed the lively neighbourhood into commercial zoning, consequently leading to a steady social and economical decline. Since the early 1980s, Douglas has produced conceptually dense artworks in a creative process that combines detailed archival and historical research. His films, photographs and cinematographic installations address historical moments as a way to underline and critique their political, cultural or sociological impacts. While documentary based, his works revisit fixed narratives, eschew simple answers and require an active reading on the part of the viewer (Watson, 1998).

Theoretical Framework and Methodology
Drawing from the work of O’Donoghue (2008) and Rogoff (2005), I will explore the processes and mechanisms of how art becomes, and is the product of, visual research. Delving into photographic documents taken during the riot, Douglas made choices, selected scenes, or deleted others to create a staged reconstitution of the event that preserves and activates memory. In a very explorative way, Douglas did not base his photographic installation as a way to illustrate or simply reproduce accepted versions of the event. His research mode of activating the visual creates another pedagogical space to enable the work of memory and the production of knowledge. Irit Rogoff (2005) argues that art is a form of research since instead of producing an answer based on accepted knowledge, it is able to produce both new knowledge and new modes of knowing which have the potential to unframe serious issues.

Following Rogoff’s (2005) notion of ‘unframing’ as an operative concept, Douglas’ photographic mural is an exemplary case study to examine art as visual research and to consider visual research as a methodology. The artwork unframes the historical Gastown Riots and opens it up to a visual, social, architectural network of discursive relationality. Douglas did not use the archives as data in a quest for definite historical readings; The work suggests a new way of remembering and interpreting this troubling event. Borrowing from O’Donoghue (2008), I contend that in conceptualizing his piece, Douglas has “created opportunities and conditions for an encounter and a dialogue”. The Woodward’s atrium becomes a pedagogical space where to know is not enough; through his artistic process and visual research, Douglas invites conversations on the Law, the place of the Subject, the repercussions of history and the consequences of gentrification.

Scholarly Significance
This research problematizes visual research methodologies; it highlights, in particular, ways in which contemporary artists mobilize the visual to write about an issue and considers how their creative process makes possible a dialogical spaces of experimentation to “write with” an issue - therefore opening up the potential of the visual (Rogoff, 2002).

Author

• Marie-France Berard, The University of British Columbia