Announced in November 2022, the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts (CePRA) is the newest research centre of Kingston School of Art. Its aim is to contribute to key debates around the nature of contemporary art and design practices, with a view to becoming a prominent advocacy voice for creative practitioners nationally and internationally. The founding Director of the centre is artist, theorist, and educator Bill Balaskas (Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange; School of Arts).
The Centre for Practice Research in the Arts is grounded in Kingston School of Art's long tradition in "thinking through making" – the guiding principle of the School for more than 140 years. In addition, the centre builds on the institution's recent success in the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2021), which saw the area of Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory achieve an outstanding performance: 55% of the research outputs submitted were ranked "world leading" and 87% "world leading or internationally excellent". Notably, Kingston School of Art went against sector trends, as it increased its practice outputs by nearly 7%, reaching almost 50% of its overall submission.
The centre incorporates existing research groups and clusters working across creative disciplines: fine art, design, architecture, film, photography, performing arts, and beyond. Encouraging and enabling experimentation, the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts will explore how we can expand our collective and creative potential through combining innovative research practices.
Following a year of initial consultations, the key structures of the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts were finalised through a series of presentations and events that extended throughout 2022 and 2023.
These are the core groups operating under the Centre for Practice Research in the Arts.
For further information, please contact Director, Dr Bill Balaskas (b.balaskas@kingston.ac.uk); or Deputy Director, Dr Valentina Ippolito (v.ippolito@kingston.ac.uk).
Through its events, outputs and advocacy, CePRA is bringing together researchers from different disciplinary areas, while also nurturing collaborations with external partners to support initiatives that strengthen the position of practice research nationally and internationally. A selection of recent events and outputs is provided below. To find out more information about group-based events and outputs, please visit the individual webpages of our constituent groups.