Art, Critique and Social Practice

Deputy:

• Participatory and collaborative forms of artistic practice that explore and test art’s place outside of the gallery and the relationship between art and the public sphere, and, in turn, engage ways in which new forms of curatorship might support these explorations;
• Interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary work across the art/science interface, that looks at the artist as facilitator of new routes and pathways into art’s utility; and
• Cultural theory and the politics of representation, which covers the writing of cultural history, philosophy, art theory and photographic theory.

The first two strands mix different approaches to practice-based research (conference papers, essay writing and project work inside and outside of the gallery); the latter strand is predominantly theoretical and supports researchers engaged in book writing, contributions to journals and conferences papers.

Overall, however, the cluster draws on art theory, cultural theory and philosophy, to provide a theoretical framework for the support and discussion of art as a field of skills and competences that cross the art/non-art divide. In this sense the research of the cluster is concerned with the development of, and reflection on, new forms of social-critical art practice.

Research active staff

• Dr Andrew Conio
• Su Fahy
• Dr Louise Fenton 
• Andrew Hewitt  
• Dr Rona Lee 
• Professor John Roberts

PhD students

• Michael Birchall
• Carina Brand
• Laura Dicken
• Rob Grose
• Fiona Jardine
• Ben Seymour