In the long-ago, far-away of my media career, I produced and directed arts documentaries. One of the formats that I became expert in was short videos, especially for a decade-long project called CBC ArtSpots. So was interviewing.

When I transitioned into the academy, I naturally continued to use media production of all kinds in my research – as data collection, as data analysis, and as outputs. In my doctoral dissertation, my first and most sprawling attempt at this became a nearly unwatchable Korsakow non-linear documentary featuring hundreds of short videos. Great fun, but mostly inaccessible. Since then, I have refined my approach to incorporate media as a core way of examining or expressing something more ineffable or speculative or informative in research, policy, and practices. This approach fits squarely into the Canadian scholarly legacy of research-creation.

In a forthcoming article, I explore three theoretical principles derived from theory and practice related to research-creation in Canada (R-C Can). First, R-C Can is heterogeneous, multi-disciplinary, and oriented towards multiple identity positionalities, often involving resistances to the status quo or mainstream practices. This is reflected through its incorporation of feminist, intersectional, and queer theory and practices that emerged from civil rights and contested identity positions in Canadian culture dating back to the 1950s and 1960s. A second principle is R-C Can’s liberal use of exhibitions, film, and other festivals, televisual or social interventions, including performance art, as well as arts-based methods including community engagements. The former have traditionally been funded by arts councils rather than research councils (e.g., for exhibitions and festivals), or through experimentation in national institutions such as the National Film Board (NFB), (e.g., the Fogo Process), or the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), (e.g., CBC ArtSpots or ZeD), including interventions in social issues or on television. Clearly, my doctoral project drew on this second principle. A third principle is emphasized in the Francophone R-C Can trajectory, where research-creation draws on linguistic legacies and visual culture analyses as well as continental philosophy and symbolism, sometimes coming through film and media studies. Today, it is obvious that research-creation (R-C) incorporates a whole suite of theoretical commitments and creative practices that, together, enable the mobilization of creativity practices, literacies, and modes of thinking to help analyze social interactions and conditions, as well as to experiment with ways to shift society.

At the November 20, 2024 Mayor’s Gala, our research team set up a working space with signage, a backdrop, professional lighting and camera equipment, professional videographer Ronny Tam, and a system of processing their personal information activated by CLCF RAs Lauren Knight and Aline Zara, as well as to share information about the research project with the interviewees. I interviewed people using three short questions to elicit warm feelings about their relationship with the arts, and then to ask about their experiences with the Toronto Arts Council, including potential future roles. Each interview lasted no longer than 3 or 4 intensive minutes, resembling “on the street” questions commonly used in human interest TV news program items. But these were also combined with a wraparound ethical, informed consent approach prior to conducting the interviews and including follow-up to confirm use of the content in a variety of research settings. These short interviews were later coded for themes, keywords and ideas, as well as becoming pithy informative videos that the Funding Matters team or Toronto Arts could use in their respective knowledge mobilization environments as thoughtful examples of the dedication and concerns of artists, sponsors, and other supporters. While I coined the term, “Research Streeters” to describe the methodological approach following this first iteration, I have subsequently used it in other research spaces, and find that it resonates with other researchers in media and communications in particular. Research streeters work as a way of collecting spontaneous, heartfelt, but also complex research data. People are at their best; attending a gala, and invited to step into a limelight where their thoughts were clearly valued and centred. There are many other participatory situations where I can imagine using this. Additionally, the full expression of this approach would be to share a copy of the short edited interview with the participants, including that they could feel free to share it in their own environments.

In addition to the recorded videos, we asked an illustrator-researcher, Dr. Danielle Taschereau-Mamers, to join us at the November 20, 2024 event to do some live illustrations of the interviewees. At the time, Danielle was growing a burgeoning research-creation endeavour that incorporated zine-production and illustration for scholarly purposes. While we initially anticipated that Danielle would be able to complete sketches at the Gala during the interviews, the 3-4 minutes that these took simply weren’t enough to complete the sketch. While we talked over what each interviewee seemed to have addressed on that night, we were keen to see what Danielle would see as emblematic of the comments each person made. As a result, we provided Danielle with the short recordings to review, and her completion of the sketches with a bubble statement provided another way of triangulating the data we received. This became the “Live Illustration” method. Not only did we share these illustrations with Toronto Arts as a deliverable, we also use them in research publications and presentations. Perhaps most importantly, we have shared them with the individuals they feature as a way to reciprocate their generosity in participating in the research.

These two latest methods are a great addition to a constellation of integrated, creative, and ethical approaches to almost 30 years of making creative media, and researching creatively.