The artists legacy research

Before the residential it would be good if everyone could have a skim read of the chapter we wrote on the original research we did on what artists did when they got involved in Connected Communities projects. It says some interesting things but, in my view, not enough about diversity, social cohesion and ways forward for communities.
It sometimes makes artists sound a bit special whereas one of the things I like about this project is that artistic methods become everyone's concern and we place art in the everyday.
It would be good if people had a think about what they consider to be a useful 'take home' from the research though.
In a nutshell, this is what we said:

Through our analysis of the interviews, we identified three different but interconnected modes of approach that partners took to collaborating with artists:

New object: points at which collaboration, methodology or arts practice considerations point towards the creation or consideration of a new object of study. This often meant unsettling or disorientating standard academic practices. This could mean new emerging findings or lenses which came out of this collaboration.

Conceptual: artists being involved in the conceptualisation of the project or research – this could involve writing the bid and constructing the theoretical or methodological lens for the project.

Instrumental: ‘artists being used in a specific manner to deliver’ – we do not necessarily see this as a negative quality, but rather the concept of artists as useful, delivering a shared goal, was one we encountered frequently.

The processes of integration and collaboration between academics  and artists involved both a widening of outcomes as well as a diversity of outputs.