Friday 29th May 2026 sees the release of two new things from me, published by Unfolding Records.
Fundamentals of Practice-Based Research and Research-Creation (UNFOLD018) is a whole new 172-page book.
Souvenir is a new Sculpture Projects single (UNFOLD017), one track, two minutes 45 seconds long.
There’s a launch event for both things on TMU campus, on that day, Friday 29 May 2026, at 2.00–3.00pm, in the Image Arts IMA117 Open Space. It will be an informal gathering, with Q+A, and refreshments.
Here’s the back-cover description of the book:
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).
The book will be available as an open-access (free online) book, and also in the physical form of an actual book.
Here’s what I said on Instagram about the new single, Souvenir:
I spent seven months making this track, which is two minutes 45 seconds long, like a finely polished jewel, a fact that makes me very happy. It is about a real experience which took a whole year to process.
German-speakers will recognize that this careful distillation, which enabled me to move beyond the experience but is also a souvenir of that experience [hence the name] is evidently an example of Gesamtkunstwerk, the complete work of art. Hurray!
These are the 17th and 18th things produced by Unfolding Records. You can view the whole catalogue here.
Hope to see you at the launch!
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