Art Is the Evidence: A Guide to Art-Based Research

By Shaun McNiff

A practical guide to art-based research.

Art-based research uses artmaking as a primary mode of inquiry and presents art as evidence. While sharing many qualities with scientific inquiry, it is distinguished by the unique character and personal dimensions of each artwork. Artistic intelligence is a gestating, unpredictable, and often challenging crucible of creation that furthers discovery ahead of conscious thought. Rather than treating art as data to be analyzed by social science procedures, this guide lets art speak for itself, offering empirical evidence of artmaking's contributions to human understanding.

Art Is the Evidence emphasizes how methods emerge, sometimes unplanned, from the art-based research process rather than from following fixed and preexisting institutionally approved methods. The book explores how to work creatively within prescribed structures and embrace tensions with them as sources of artistic transformation. It explores the role of video and digital media in generating convincing art evidence, universal accessibility involving trained and untrained artists, and the future importance of natural art experiments happening throughout the world beyond academic and professional settings.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1835953085
• ISBN13: 9781835953082
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Intellect (UK)
• Length: 200 Pages