In Process

‘In Process’ (2018) is a chapter for the peer-reviewed Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums Vol. 2 (Carreau et al, Sidestone 2018) written at the culmination of a 5 year European Research Council funding project of the same name, led by Prof Nicholas Thomas of University of Cambridge (2013-2018). I was one of the team of researchers on the project based with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, and these volumes are collectively one of the project’s significant outcomes. The chapter is my own research outcome, and stands as a critique of trends in the approach of social anthropologists to their research into contemporary art practice. The chapter proposes Process Philosophy as an appropriate and sympathetic approach to understanding art and how artists operate, offering it instead of the progressivist models of an elitist art history to which social anthropologists often adhere.