Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Despite being often dismissed as incapable of producing “real knowledge” as considered theoretically weak by Western scientific traditional standards, narrative inquiry has long been of interest to researchers seeking qualitative data, especially for those attempting to understand the multi-sensory and embodied experience. The use of experimental or creative writing (including Indigenous story telling techniques) to evoke the complexity of such encounters has been promoted as the as an ideal medium to express and describe what Lorimor calls “sensuous dispositions” (2005:84), particularly non-visual experiences (taste, touch, hearing, smell) of time and place.This paper proposes a narrative inquiry methodology and offers preliminary findings from a research project that seeks to understand the nature and shape of liminality produced at Sculpture by the Sea (an annual public art exhibition staged at Bondi Beach Sydney Australia) by exploring and interpreting audience experiences, encounters and aesthetic/social interactions with public art. Through empirical analysis and drawing on key debates, this paper will furnish the claim that as people increasingly buy into shared, embodied, multi- sensory experiences that encourage the negotiation and adoption of new and creative behaviours, researchers are encouraged to transform their own positionality within disciplines and re-assess theories of knowledge acquisition and meaning-making.