My new book, Fundamentals of Practice-Based Research and Research-Creation, was published on 29 May 2026, by Unfolding Records. It is available open-access, as a free download, as well as an actual physical book.
It’s a whole new 172-page book about the how and why of practice-based research. The back cover says:
Practice-based research means exploring research questions through creative practice. Also known as ‘research-creation’, it is a process of making, doing and thinking, to explore ideas, identities and experiences.
This book offers a clear explanation of how practice-based research makes sense as a method, and explores how to develop, make, and present projects effectively. It features inspiring examples, including the work of Indigenous fashion creator Justine Woods, and Black bio-art activist Ashley Jane Lewis, as well as cases where drawing, performance, sound, and music technology are used to explore Black history, migration and social justice.
Practice-based research is not ‘just another method’ on the menu: it is an ethical choice, and represents a commitment to empathy, dialogue, and a journey on which we gather a basket of processes, experiments and experiences. Unlike those methods which take a more extractive approach to achieve simplified explanations of the world, practice-based research means we can foreground complex realities, gentleness, and lived experience.
David Gauntlett is Canada Research Chair in Creative Practice at The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada, and the author of 10 previous books including Creative Explorations (2007), Making is Connecting (2011, 2018) and Creativity (2022).
To repeat the same links again: you can get the book as a free download, or as an actual physical book. I hope readers will find it useful and enjoyable!
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