‘No additional information required’: Creative writing as research writing

The question of whether artistic practice might be construed as a research practice is one that has been pursued extensively since the 1990s. Much in the discourse remains open to contention, though a degree of consensus has emerged on certain key themes: that art is indeed productive of knowledge, that this knowledge is to be understood experientially and non-conceptually, but that it must be framed in a form consistent with established academic procedures. Jen Webb’s several contributions to this discourse provide a valuable context for considering whether it may be possible to overcome the conceptual and practical separation between art and the academy. Using Webb’s work as a frame, this article engages with the debate about the knowledge status of art through a consideration of its contradictions, and suggests that a pragmatic solution is to be found in the operations of the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF), which now accepts the research credentials of creative writing as being self-evident.