(Un)Knowing and Understanding

This chapter examines how the use of artistic practices can enact a mode of (un)knowing and understanding that helps us to reimagine the purpose and process of (scientific) knowledge production. Where classical scientific research traditions often privilege distance, objectivity, and control, our approach foregrounds relationality and the embodied dimensions of artistic practice. Central to this is doing research with the participants instead of only knowing about them by working on them. Reflecting from our own positionalities as migrantised researchers and artists, we will provide insights based on two case studies working with Iranian carpet weavers and Moroccan migrant mothers. By embracing the tacit, the affective, and the ambiguous, participatory artistic research creates openings for insight that might otherwise remain inaccessible. Our two case studies illustrate how these practices—whether co-designing and weaving or organising community film screenings—function as modes of inquiry that enable reciprocal learning and the transformation of relationships. In doing so, our participants' cultural and creative skills were not ancillary but central to shaping the direction of research. Ultimately, we argue that participatory artistic research demonstrates how embracing (un)knowing can produce more situated, ethical, and imaginative understandings of the world.