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Irit Rogoff has shaped the emergence of an `educational turn' in the arts and humanities, arguing that contemporary artwork, together with its institutions and social platforms, transforms education practices in non-academic arenas such as museums, theatres, bookshops, art academies, and social and political occupations. This work started at the moment in which both the Bologna accord and neo-liberal impacts on education began pulling towards the professionalisation and homogenisation of Higher Education culture. All of the projects elaborated within this case study have aimed to expand the understanding of how cultural actors become educational stakeholders.
Rogoff's theoretical and curatorial research has taken diverse forms including scholarly publications, exhibitions and social forums, and she has brought these issues to audiences from the arts and public organisations beyond the university sector through advisory roles, public speaking, and social organising. Following numerous publications, exhibitions, and events, she founded freethought, an experimental platform for pedagogy, research and production. Launched in 2012 at the Austrian arts festival, Steirischer Herbst, freethought has subsequently developed a core project on `infrastructure' launched at Berlin's House of World Cultures in 2013. Her published research, exhibitions, and public forums have been widely influential in debates on education in the public sphere, as evidenced for example by her involvement as a funded partner in the establishment of a freethought laboratory in South Korea's new Asia Cultural Complex.
Nowhereisland by artist Alex Hartley was a public artwork curated and produced by Claire Doherty as part of the Situations public art commissioning programme. This large-scale touring public artwork and accompanying online programme of activity enabled over 23,000 active participants (including over 10,000 young people) from 135 countries to reimagine civic responsibility and citizenship and to rethink the nature of place, belonging and nationhood within the context of the London 2012 Olympiad. As an internationally recognised example of progressive, time-based, participatory public art Nowhereisland helped change perceptions about the nature of public art.
This project, Robots and Avatars (http://www.robotsandavatars.net) informs how young people will work, learn and play with new representational forms of themselves and others in virtual and physical dimensions in coming decades making an impact on participants, educators, employers and other artists. Funded by NESTA, the programme influences the way educators and employers engage with young people in workplaces that are likely to include increasing telepresence, collaborative work, flattened hierarchies and international mobility. Exhibitions around Europe showcase work by artists, scientists, designers and architects who explore the relationship between the body, technology and virtual spaces, while forums examine impact and ethics. The research is transmitted to students and young professionals through workshops and mentoring, while social networking provides platforms for international groups. The project is also concerned with special topics like women and technology, and alternative identities for cultural groups. Key beneficiaries include young students and professionals, scholars and members of the general public.
Andrew Burton's practice-based visual arts research, presented through international public exhibitions, commissions, illustrated lectures, conference presentations and publications has impacted on international cultural life and public discourse around the creative intersection between the worlds of sculpture, ceramics, architecture and craft. This research has:
a) provided opportunities for public audiences to experience unique artworks which embody and combine an articulation of fine art and craft sensibilities, methods and skills;
b) stimulated practitioner-led debate around the relationships between the practices and educational disciplines of sculpture, ceramics, architecture and craft.
Furtherfield has inspired and supported new forms of collaborative practice and expression at the intersection of arts and technology cultures to co-create critical, contemporary public platforms and contexts for arts in networked society.
Furtherfield's innovative programmes have advanced practices and theories of collaboration, remix, and openness; inspiring and informing thinking in the UK Arts sector and international digital arts culture. This work has worldwide cultural and social impact. It reaches and engages new audiences through public gallery programmes, online collections, websites, and other award-winning virtual platforms, acknowledged by artists, curators and critics for their contribution to emerging digital art contexts.
This collaboration between the UoE and six local authorities developed social work interventions to improve engagement with `involuntary' services users. The impact of the research is seen in the sharing and implementation of knowledge about `what worked' within and across the participating local authorities and in gradually shifting practice cultures within these authorities. The impact is evident at several levels:
Bournemouth University (BU) research by White (BU 2003 to present) focuses on the relationship between art, technology and culture. Exhibitions, workshops and presentations across the UK, Europe and in the USA have provoked societal reflection on critical topics such as genetics and germ warfare, among other controversial ethical issues. The work examines how sites, technologies and events shape our ideas of culture, political and personal life, whilst exposing audiences to ordinarily inaccessible information. Beneficiaries include the arts organisation with whom White has collaborated, and their participants, but more widely, those benefiting from his contribution to socially engaged art. The work has also furthered art-science discourse, providing impetus and critical breadth to the development of art and science as a cultural sector in the UK.
This case study describes the impact of a ten-year programme of research, which has influenced attitudes to traditional crafts and cultural heritage in India, and created an ethical model of sustainable crafts practice, leading to economic and social benefits. Research has underpinned the creation of the Ahmedabad International Arts Festival (AIAF) that started in 2009 and with MMU's contribution has now grown into a major, multi-stranded international festival.
MMU researchers have worked with museums and cultural organisations in the UK and India to develop ways of engaging new audiences, widening the reach of craft-based practices and thereby creating cultural impact. The project has also drawn attention to an endangered area of Ahmedabad, and assisted in developing a plan for conserving cultural heritage there.
The two-year ROTOЯ programme of exhibitions and events has been a cornerstone of the University of Huddersfield's efforts to introduce new audiences to contemporary art and design, as encouraged by successive Arts Council policies for enhancing public engagement. As well as raising awareness, inspiring curiosity and providing cultural enrichment, it has initiated changes to local authority policies on providing cost-effective, high-quality cultural services and has functioned as a vehicle for research into how the impact of such programmes can be captured. As such, it has served as a model partnership for local authority and university sectors in offering cultural leadership, generating and measuring engagement and delivering public services.
The case study outlined here is concerned with how human behaviour and social practices can be shaped and guided by applying education for sustainability. Outreach for this work influences both policy and practice through advisory roles with international curriculum reforms (Australia-ACARA), national training and development consultancy in high-impact organisations (World Bank, Liverpool FC and Burnley FC, Mott MacDonald, Business In The Community), and practical applications including setting up for the DfE the first School of Sustainability / high school as an academy in Burnley, Lancashire and establishing other sites in urban and rural settings in various locations of the Pop-Up-Foundation project across the world.