Abstract
This article examines how practice-led research (PLR) and socially engaged art (SEA) function as qualitative methodologies for socio-ecological inquiry. Drawing on the Australian arts–science project Carbon_Dating, it analyses the generation of non-traditional research outputs (NTROs), including site-responsive installations, participatory artworks, and a touring exhibition. Combining PLR’s process-oriented reflexivity with SEA’s relational and co-creative practices, the study shows how Carbon_Dating mobilises public engagement as both method and outcome, producing experiential insights and more-than-human forms of knowledge. The findings indicate that these hybrid approaches disrupt anthropocentric and individualised models of creativity, foregrounding care, reciprocity, and multispecies collaboration. The article argues that integrating creative practice, curation, and exhibition extends qualitative inquiry, positioning these as rigorous modes of knowledge production with implications for environmental research and transdisciplinary collaboration.
Keywords: creative methods, socially-engaged practice, arts-science, curating, more-than-human, native grasses, plant-blindness, cross-cultural collaboration
At the time of archiving this site this paper had ben submitted to the Journal Qualitative Research, authored by Leimbach, T., Palmer, J., Armstrong, K., Jackson, B., Driessens, JA. (2026). https://journals.sagepub.com/home/QRJ
Carbon_Dating is an experimental artwork designed to seed ‘consensual’ partnerships between Australian native grasses and humans, based upon their shared need to breathe each other’s ‘exhaled’ air.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the many lands on which we live, work and create, including our collaborators on Yirrganydji, Barunggam, Jagera/Yuggera, Turbal, Ugarapul, Jinibara, Kabi Kabi and Kombumerri Country. We acknowledge their ongoing connection and custodianship for Country. We pay our deep respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We recognise First Nations people as the first artists and scientists. Always was, always will be.
The 2024-5 Carbon_Dating exhibition tour is supported by the Queensland Government through Arts QueenslandAssisted by QUT School of Creative Arts, International Art Services (IAS), Native Seeds Pty Ltd, Artfully, and Embodied Media.
Between 2019-23 this project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. It was also supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland, Regional Arts Development Fund (RADF). The Regional Arts Development Fund is a partnership between the Queensland Government: Cairns Regional Council; Western Downs Regional Council; City of Gold Coast Council; Somerset Regional Council; and ArtsCoast as part of Sunshine Coast Council’s RADF program to support local arts and culture in regional Queensland.
Thanks also to QUT (School of Creative Arts, QUT Office of eResearch and Samford Ecological Research Facility). NorthSite Contemporary Arts, Cairns; Dogwood Crossing Gallery, Miles; HOTA, Gold Coast; The Condensery, Toogooloowah; Caloundra Regional Gallery, Caloundra; Native Seeds Pty Ltd and ReBul Packaging.
