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This case study focuses on the impact of Professor Adrian Heathfield's research. Heathfield curated numerous multi-form research exchanges with his Performance Matters Co-Directors over a four-year period, expanding non-academic beneficiaries of performance research, influencing prevailing professional discourses as well as creative and curatorial practices across the arts sector. Workshops, collaborative dialogues, symposia, talks, films, screenings and performances were conceived, realised and hosted by major cultural sector partners, involving an international array of leading academics, artists, activists and curators. Direct impacts for the non-academic partner-organisation — Live Art Development Agency (LADA) — were the expansion of its educational, archival and media activities, and user community. Specific professional development effects were delivered for a culturally diverse group of participating established and early-career artists.
The Unit's research is at the centre of changing approaches to the relationship between contemporary art and religious institutions by helping a variety of faith communities to reflect on their practices and by influencing public attitudes. The work focuses on 3 areas: the relationship between nature and spirituality; the spiritual well-being of individuals; the role of performance and temporary works of art to increase understanding of religious communities and sacred spaces. Our findings have been used in policy documents published by the Church of England on commissioning art in churches, in the National Conference of the Pagan Federation, the Swedenborg Society and by the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. These impacts are particularly relevant in the context of a new UK legal framework placing religious belief among the protected characteristics of Equality and Diversity.
What's Welsh for Performance? (WsWfP)'s research into the history of performance art in Wales has achieved its most significant and sustained impact through informing the professional practices of Welsh arts practitioners. These fall into two groups: artists engaged in live art, past and present; and art curators and policy makers who have responsibility for the presentation, conservation and funding of contemporary art in Wales. In uncovering, documenting and making publicly accessible Wales's rich but underappreciated heritage of performance art, WsWfP has given the first generation of performance artists a renewed stake in its history; inspired younger artists in the creation of new work; and helped to raise the public profile of the artform to the extent that performance work is now routinely included in exhibitions, publications and media coverage devoted to Welsh contemporary art. Three partnerships with major organisations allow WsWfP to inform directly how performance art in Wales is funded, administered, exhibited and conserved.
Professor Lois Weaver joined QMUL Drama in 1997. Her research-led practice as artist, curator and activist has had substantial impact within two areas. First, within the cultural world of live art she has influenced the practice of both emerging and established artists, and the programming and curation of performance. She has facilitated, mentored and directed a range of artists; opened up new spaces for performance's production and presentation; and actively supported other curators in the expansion of live art programming, especially in London. Second, Weaver's research into forms of public dialogue — her `Public Address Systems' — has had impact in the wider social field, leading to events and projects around the world in which citizens of diverse perspectives and backgrounds, often excluded from public discourse on grounds of age, class, gender and sexuality, have been able to contribute meaningfully to discussions of urgent social issues, including human rights, sexuality, aging and new technologies.
The interdisciplinary study of Black and Latino visual cultures by Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier and Dr Stephanie Lewthwaite has led to the retrieval of lost and neglected art from the 19th and 20th centuries and to the display of this artwork for the first time. The research and recovery process has provided new information for curators and archivists who have begun to change their practice to reflect this expanded canon.
For this case study our impacts include high levels of community engagement, innovative pedagogy, engagement with large and broad audiences (in real life and via an array of broadcast and print media), prize winning activities and quality outputs and publications. Our approach is trans-disciplinary, progressive and experimental and impacts in a local, national and global context. This case study refers to the group of researchers at Leeds Metropolitan University whose work is practice-based, practice-led and often collaborative. This type of innovative and progressive research has characterised the subject at the University since the establishment of Leeds Polytechnic in 1970.
Since 2005, Dr Quick has created a series of practice-as-research projects and educational workshops to increase understanding of how new media-based performance is created and understood. Key beneficiaries have been young people, teachers, theatre practitioners, mixed media artists, and cultural organisations. Five new works have impacted through the introduction of innovative practice performance to new audiences, nationally and internationally (including central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Brazil and Taiwan); pioneering new uses of digital technology as creative practice, and sharing such innovation with both established and new theatres and groups.
This case study focuses on three areas in relation to the social impact of art, across the categories of `cultural life' and `public discourse'.
1) Artistic collaborations with non-artistic specialists in order to generate new interdisciplinary pathways
2) Artistic collaborations with non-artists within a given community or non-artistic institutional setting in order to create new forms of artist-audience participation
3) The sharing of knowledge/skills between either non-artistic specialists or a non-specialist audience and artists in the production of a shared task or project.
4) Performance-based practice inside and outside of the gallery
The outward facing nature of this research, then, addresses the way such work tests the prevailing competences, boundaries and identities of artist and audience alike. This means researchers are involved with both artistic and non-artistic funding-bodies and agencies as the basis for work on a range of critical issues affecting the borders between the art institution and non-artistic settings and contexts.
Performance Research is an independent journal/book series championing artistic-led research at the interface between the academy and the profession. Published by Routledge for ARC a division of the Centre for Performance Research (CPR)[1]. Founded as a cultural and publishing partnership (1995) with Dartington it has developed an identity and frame of intellectual/artistic reference distinct from CPR, forging many developments with partners outwith the academy. CPR's relocation to Falmouth enables both to extend this relationship. PR provides print and on-line platforms for practitioners, arts organisations and researchers. Interdisciplinary in vision, international in scope; it emphasises contemporary performance arts within changing cultures.
The impact of Professor Taylor's work in interpreting modern and contemporary art has taken place on two complementary levels: on the one hand the lucid and accessible exposition, for a wide international reading public, of some of the most difficult, intractable, or provocative works of recent and contemporary art; and on the other, more specialist readings, again for an international reading public, of key tendencies in the broader range of modern art, from Cubism to the present day. Wide readership across Asia, Europe, and the United States has secured increased public understanding of art, and has influenced both policy and art practice.