Practice-Based Research book

Fundamentals of Practice-Based Research and Research-Creation
by David Gauntlett

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).

Kalaisan Kalaichelvan: Golconda vinyl release event, 10 November 2025

To celebrate the release of Kalaisan Kalaichelvan's beautiful Golconda on 180g transparent vinyl, you are warmly invited to the special launch event on 10 November 2025, 6.00–7.30pm, at Canada’s Music Incubator, 310 Spadina Ave, Toronto.

Admission is free – just come along – but you can let us know you’re coming here. There will be music surprises, as well as a conversation with Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, led by David Gauntlett.

Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is a composer and pianist based in Toronto, Canada. His compositional practice spans multiple disciplines, drawing from film, dance, theatre, installation and deals with themes of translation and transference.

Previous events

Unfolding Records has hosted a number of previous events, including:

  • Launch event for Sculpture Projects: ‘Everybody should be able to be whoever they want to be’ EP, 24 October 2024

  • New music workshop with Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, Creative Innovation Studio, 19 July 2023

  • Live performance by Sculpture Projects as part of the Creativity: Seven Keys book launch, 8 December 2022 (see video of the event).