My long-standing love of research & how to not get swamped by it

I’ve been working on a new project about climate change (sounds awful but I think it’s going to be good 🤞). The research I’ve done, and the research I’m poised to do, is jet fuel for my creative process.

Today I wanted to share the beauty of research with you. Where it’s been a part of my work, how I conduct it, what the pitfalls are and why I recommend it so highly.

I have always loved learning. In one of my earliest journals there’s an entry that reads: I love to go to school. At the time I was ostracised socially, but the part of school where we got to sit and listen to a teacher and draw and write notes with our shaky penmanship always felt like a refuge.

When I watch a show that I like, I often do a deep dive into the creators, scouring the internet for interviews. This is what happened afterI saw the jaw-droppingly funny ventriloquist Nina Conti last year.

It also happens when something in my personal life shifts. For example, since getting two cats in March, I have subsequently read (no joke) 11 books on cats. We’ve started clicker training (but so far all we’ve done is associate the clicker with a treat haha).

If you’ve seen or read The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale you know that was a process fuelled by dogged research—interviewing to my exes, meeting with experts on economics, finance, math, learning about the history of yard sales, provenance, and trying to wring insights out of my own therapist!

Age is a Feeling saw me talking to people about fertility treatments, delving into the work hospice doctors and volunteers and trawling reddit threads to try to understand how soldiers understand mortality. I also gathered intel from you via my social media. In fact, answers to the questions I posed (like, Where did you first feel age in your body?), made their way into the show.

Maybe I love research because my mum is both a scientist and historian? Or because my dad’s scholarly projects often involved scouring old town records for clues about performances?

In 2011, I worked on a project about federal civil servants. Four of us interviewed 40+ civil servants, visiting their offices and homes, asking questions and observing… Then we’d head to the studio and improvise based on the research.

This gave me a blueprint for how research feeds a creative process: Find people and resources that can give you insights and answer your initial questions. Digest it, then turn around and use it to inspire your art. Create a scene, character, monologue, situation based on what you’ve discovered. More questions may arise… then go and get more intel and info.

Some people like to do all the research for a creative project up front, but when I’ve done that (and when I’ve taught artists who do that ), I’ve noticed that that can make things difficult. That volume of pure research often overtakes the initial creative impulse and becomes very, very heavy… we can feel like we’re drowning in it.

I believe, all art is meant to reveal deeper truths about humanity. Research gives us great specificity; it illuminates subjects and details we wouldn’t have known about otherwise, but it will never give us the beating heart of the art. The heart comes from YOUR humanity, your instincts, your strong sense of wanting to say something, to reveal something to us about ourselves.

What a piece of art is about is never the subject. The subject is there as a conduit to reveal something deeper about us as human beings. But the more specific and detailed we can be about the subject, the greater chance of being able to access one of those deep, resonant truths. The devil is in the details, as they say. (They also say, God is in the details. Take it how you like it.)

What do I think? Letting research happen in tandem with your creative process is the way to go.

Let your instincts and curiosities be in conversation with your research. Let the research be fun. Pull on threads that pique your interest, even if you’re not sure how they’re entirely related. Use any/all the methods that appeal to you: talk to people, read, listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, take research field trips, survey your friends, etc. and observe and listen to more than just the factual answers. Open yourself up to receive shiny, unexpected gems. Squirrel them away and see how they appear when you create.

If you’re stuck with a project, research can be a great way to inject new energy and FUN into it. If you’re oversaturated with research, cool it, put it aside and create what feels fun, trusting that the research will come in handy when you’re ready for it.

Most of all, follow your gut. Follow your gut when it comes to figuring out what kind of research you want to do. And follow your gut when it comes to choosing what bits of research you want to include in your art.

Go have fun.