‘Into the Unknown’ is a research seminar taking place on February 17th at 2pm in the Fine Art Seminar Room aimed at those already doing or thinking about undertaking a practice based PhD in Art by current Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Dr Lyn Hagan.
Imposter syndrome is common during the PhD process when a shift towards theory and writing can overshadow practice. Relying heavily on reflections about my own PhD experience, I hope to offer some useful guidance on how to take on and navigate the research, writing and examination process so that it feels authentic to your ethos as an artist. Unlearning and allowing yourself to get lost in the research is a fundamental part of the journey. What can you uniquely offer as researchers that those in other disciplines may not be able to? Should you be creative with the format of your submission or is it more productive to keep the format within set examination guidelines? There is a debate around whether a thesis is even necessary in practice-based research but how do you balance freedom to experiment, with the requirements of the examination process and the necessary publication of original knowledge? By showing examples of successful PhD’s that interrogated these seemingly set conventions, this seminar wants to open up the debate so that you can chose the path that is right for you with your research and defend your arguments before a panel.