Log in
Since 1993, the Visual Culture Research Centre has established an international reputation for interdisciplinary research. Historical, theoretical and practice-based research is applied in collaborations and partnerships with outside public-facing organisations, events, markets and professionals in the creative arts. This case study articulates significant social and cultural impacts epitomised by the exhibitions Weapons of Mass Communication 2007-8 and Archiving Place and Time 2009-10 and accompanying publications. The case study demonstrates how the researchers from within the unit have effectively engaged with the public, participants, practitioners, interpreters, writers, and critics to promote understanding of how images of conflict work: that they are neither natural nor real, but sites of contestation.
Researchers at the Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) study the practice and products of photography in terms of both artistic importance and social relevance, recognising photography's many roles including its presence in: the art world; reportage; autobiographical practice; and in social and political education. This case study demonstrates PARC's impact on cultural life via the production of work and curatorial practice, bringing new insights, challenging assumptions, and raising awareness of the role of photographic practice in the public realm.
Buckley's research on the relationship between art and conflict has led to the establishment of the Artraker Fund. The Fund was established in 2012 and awards art that helps raise awareness, communicate, stimulate debate and transform our understanding of war, violent conflict and social upheaval. It is intended to show how art can play a central role in transforming our understanding and experience of war, violent conflict and social upheaval. Buckley's research on the role of art in the co-creation of `experiences of freedom' has helped to show why such a fund is necessary, and to distinguish it from other art prizes. It stresses the potential of art to co-create experiences of freedom when they are most needed and least accessible.
Research at the University of Bristol on the international contexts of British art has made a distinctive contribution to a renaissance of British art studies that began in the late 1980s. Over the past five years, scholars at Bristol have worked with museums in London, the regions and overseas to engage the widest possible audience in fresh thinking about British art. Exhibitions and catalogue essays informed by their research have raised awareness of individual artists and changed public and critical perceptions of British art as a whole. They have also brought many benefits to the museum partners, attracting visitors, generating income and enhancing the museums' understanding of their own collections. Some exhibitions have inspired additional collaborations which have fed back into research and further extended audiences for British art.
This body of research has generated impact in two distinct ways.
The practice-based research output nanoq: flat out and bluesome, a cultural life of polar bears has had impact on cultural life, civil society and on both artistic practitioners and museum/gallery professionals. These impacts have been created through the interdisciplinary nature of the work, and have challenged engrained approaches to the divide between art and museology, and to fixed perceptions of human interactions with the natural world.
Evidence for the cultural impacts and influence on civil society, through provoking consideration of environmental issues on the level of an emotive response to changing values and the consequences of societal norms, is primarily provided through reviews of the outcomes themselves, mainly through arts and science journals, book chapters and testimonials by scholars and practitioners in a variety of fields. Similarly, impact on the approach to professional practice in art curation and, particularly, in museology is similarly documented in the public domain.
The primary impact of the research in the exhibition and the catalogue entitled The Bruce Lacey Experience is the Tate's commitment to acquiring additional pieces of Lacey's work (the gallery presently owns two works) and to purchase Lacey's archive. The exhibition that David Mellor curated at the Camden Arts Centre (CAC) jointly with Jeremy Deller also directly affected contemporary art curators and the public by influencing outputs on Lacey in film: both the film of the artist made by Deller, and Lacey's own films, released as a DVD set through the British Film Institute (BFI) in conjunction with the exhibition.
An exhibition researched and co-curated by the University of Reading's Alun Rowlands — The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art — at Tate St Ives presented an accessible new approach to the display of the Cornish gallery's artworks. It widened public access to this important resource and enabled public understanding and appreciation of 20th-century British art by juxtaposing, and drawing connections between, famous historical artworks, contemporary pieces and examples from popular culture, literature, film, music and local folk ritual. This democratic approach was extended through the associated educational projects, performance events and publications. The model has subsequently influenced strategy at Tate museums across the UK, demonstrating that connections can be drawn across different categories of culture as a way of emphasising the contemporary relevance of previously underused and obscure public collections and as a way of promoting public interaction.
The impact comes from Ekserdjian's authentication and attribution of Renaissance paintings and the curatorship of international exhibitions, both of which have had substantial financial impact on institutions and individuals involved in the art market, in particular the auction house sector, galleries and museums. This also includes cultural impacts on the art-loving public by introducing them to newly-discovered and attributed artworks which might previously have never been exhibited publicly and by offering innovative ways of exhibiting and understanding masterpieces gathered from around the globe.
Through a partnership forged with the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh, Briony Fer developed international exhibitions building on research into the materials and processes underlying art's making and thinking. This reached both general and specialist publics, including artists and conservators in the UK and beyond. The exhibition Eva Hesse: Studiowork from 2009 travelled across Europe and North America over two years, attracting over 200,000 visitors. It provided cultural enrichment and raised public awareness about how art is made; deepened specialist knowledge of fragile materials crucial to the conservation of modern sculpture; brought previously unknown artworks into the public domain and contributed to the tourist and heritage industry as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival.