Thesis research plan
Diving into the problem space
For the past week, I’ve been thinking hard about the implications of drilling into the NFT space and whether it was something I wanted to focus on for the rest of the year–well, I came to a conclusion that it isn’t. This made me think deeper about the kind of qualities I liked about the concept of NFT, and I let my mind brainstorm freely from there. This led me to the idea of ‘art investment’ or ‘investing in arts’ as a new topic for my thesis project, and here are some thoughts based on that:
Stakeholders
- Creator
- Viewer
- Buyer (Investor)
- Facilitators (Art market)
Here are some helpful ideas to think about:
For a given area of inquiry, are you better off going to a library and reading, or going out in the physical world and observing?
Do you have a goal for a number of people/places/books to give you enough information to inform your design process?
If you go to the library, what specific questions can you bring so that staff there can help point you to productive reading?
If you go out into the world to observe, which specific places will you start with, and what is your backup in case you don’t see what you are hoping to?
If you are observing or talking to people, what kind of people do you want to hear from?
How will you find them, and how will you approach them?
Will you be alone, or with a helper?
Will you interview them with a survey or a recorded conversation?
Will you take photos or make sketches?
How will you record and organize your observations, interviews, photos, etc., while you are on the go?
Preliminary research plan
Problem space
How might we…
democratize art investment?
make art investment accessible to a wider audience in MZ generation?
Summary
The primary research will be conducted as a combination of an online survey and in-depth 1:1 interviews with the stakeholders — art dealers, auctioneers, people interested in art, museum/gallery workers, etc. — relevant to the problem space. Secondary research will be performed by collecting relevant articles on media and reviewing works of literature with keywords such as art, art investment, art auction, art history, wealth generation, etc. The majority of the research will be carried out by myself without a helper. The interview will be recorded audio-only for in-person, and screen-recorded for online Zooom interviews.
Objectives
- To streamline the current art market practices.
- To identify the challenges and painpoints associated with the current art market.
- To gather insights into how we can actively involve MZ generations in the culture of art investment.
