VPL engages in arts-based research projects that use verbatim performance to investigate larger questions about society, culture, politics, and the media. We embrace the idea that arts-based research evokes, provokes, and disrupts, as articulated by Patricia Leavy in Methods Meet Art (2021), and we agree with Andrew Freiband, founder and director of Artists’ Literacies Institute, that artists have unique skills and talents that can and should be leveraged to solve large-scale problems. Our goal is to catalyze analysis rather than catharsis, and our performed investigations reflect that.
VPL can collaborate with researchers from across disciplines in two ways. We can formulate a study with collaborators from inception, or we can provide a particular kind of artifact that a study requires as a stimulus.
Example: Can arts change political perceptions?
Collaborative Team:
Sorana Acris, doctoral candidate, International Education, NYU
Amanda Blewitt, doctoral candidate, International Education, NYU
Laura Cabochan, doctoral candidate, Educational Theatre, NYU
Keith R. Huff, Associate Director, VPL, adjunct faculty, Educational Theatre, NYU
Elisabeth King, Professor of International Education and Politics at New York University
Joe Salvatore, Director, VPL, Clinical Professor of Educational Theatre, NYU
This project seeks to determine if watching VPL artifacts where identity characteristics have been changed can affect a viewer’s perception of political candidates and their messages and/or increase a viewer’s awareness of their personal biases. The project is partially funded by the Herring Fund for Political Art, American Political Science Association (APSA).
If you have an idea for a research collaboration or need a particular kind of artifact that we can help to create, please contact us here.