There is much discussion at present in post-graduate education and research in the arts and architecture concerning the relationship between theory and practice. In some places these conversations take the form of stimulating dialogues; in other environments, the atmosphere is less conducive to discussion, instead thinking and making remain cast as separate domains whose specificities require careful regulation. I have spent a good deal of my academic career so far teaching and writing in areas such as textile art and public art, practices whose interdisciplinary modes of operation are more open to critical reflection. This paper examines five inter-related examples of activities that take place ‘between two’ – between theory and practice: teaching, thinking, making, talking, writing.

This paper was published as Jane Rendell, ‘Between Two: Theory and Practice’, Jonathan Hill (ed.) Opposites Attract, special issue of the Journal of Architecture (Summer 2003) v. 8, pp. 221-37.