Novella Oliana
in NODES 28 →
2026
https://doi.org/10.57633/NODES-28/3-ENG
Research-creation (recherche-création) offers a way of weaving connections between one’s own practice and the work of others. Like threads crossing a fabric, these connections intertwine with diverse intuitions, visions, and concepts, gradually forming a dense and ever-expanding network. Taking the Mediterranean as a metaphorical space of research – a fluid surface marked by islands, crossings, encounters, and discontinuities – this paper explores an “archipelagic” mode of thinking. Like scientific research, this approach calls for a definition capable of acknowledging the specific nature of its epistemological contribution. At a time when research doctorates are being introduced into Italian Academies of Fine Arts, such a definition becomes essential to reconsider how artistic research and its outcomes are understood and articulated. The distinction between the various forms and nuances of artistic research remains the subject of ongoing debate. This paper focuses instead on a space of generative, inter- and transdisciplinary practice: a form of inquiry rooted in artistic making and capable of producing new concepts while reshaping the spaces and conditions of everyday life through a mode of complex, relational thinking.
To cite this article: Oliana, N. (2026). Research-Creation. Artistic Research as a Form of Thought Interweaving Disciplines, Concepts and Practices. Nodes (28):52-59, Numero Cromatico Editore, Rome