Prof Ian Brown: Speculative practice-based research in a miscellaneous context(Rebellious Research)

In this session, Ian Brown considers his speculative practice-based research, which has been taking place intermittently and over a long period of time at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It considers potential frameworks for speculative approaches, the often-disparate breadth of materials and information that arise through the process and the focus on ‘searching’ as both subject and methodology.

Professor Ian Brown’s research investigates how contemporary social identity is constructed through the rituals of consumption within popular culture. Other areas of Professor Brown’s research explore the human interface with the Invented World and the Natural World and plant/human relations. There is a focus on the mediation of these relationships through popular culture, as a form of communication, and the associated processes of commodification. The use of appropriation, as a methodological tool, and its relation to the history of the ready-made is of particular interest.