Walking the Lines: Art, Research, and Unknowing

Abstract

This piece of reader's theatre opens up a conversation about how we create knowledge and change in arts-based research. Our attempts to know and help may need to be rethought, particularly when we write into fields of trauma. The methodological, epistemological, and ethical underpinnings of current practices are troubled, as well as the limits of reflexivity and the notion of 'the talking cure'. David Mamet's discussion of the nature and purpose of drama frames this performative exploration of the promise and limits of arts-based research, and the generative potential of tragedy as a post-modern way to produce knowledge about unspeakable losses.