ixia

Public Art Professional Development Seminars

For 2009 and 2010, ixia has worked with Situations, Places Matter! and Arts Council England to develop and deliver two series of Seminars in order to disseminate its research and encourage networking and debate. The Seminars have been devised for artists, curators, public art consultants and representatives of public and private sector organisations that promote and commission public art. In addition to hearing from speakers, attendees will be encouraged to engage actively in discussions and to reflect upon their own work in relation to the issues discussed.

Each Seminar costs £60 per person, including refreshments and lunch.

For detailed information about the content and venues, and to book a place on a Seminar, please visit the Training section of our website.

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Envisioning Community: Space, Place and Translating the Past in 19th and 20th Century Britain

University of Warwick
Saturday 27th February 2010
Envisioning Community

Envisioning Community will be a one-day multidisciplinary conference exploring how approaches to the study of community can better inform our understanding of the historical past. Featuring renowned keynote speakers in the fields of historical and human geography, as well as in the field of visual media and its interpretation, the conference is open to delegates from all disciplines, engaging with the processes of space and place in community in nineteenth and twentieth century Britain.

Understanding location as a process has led to a reassessment of historical study. This has been informed by the new challenges of the global in which interrogation of the universal has led to questions regarding the local.  Methodologically, this has given rise to new developments. Scholars wishing to reconstruct and ‘pull apart’ the narratives of social space have recognized the benefits of adopting interdisciplinary methods and sources. This has led to reconsideration of the role of literary and visual representations in the construction and making of ‘imagined’ space, and in the dissection of the relationship between community and human action. Yet, while theory has begun to inform historical practice, the application of interdisciplinary tools and methodologies falls behind.

The object of the conference is to tackle these issues. It will interrogate spatially related communities: how the inhabitants of the same streets or towns constructed, responded to and used their physical locations to forge a shared sense of identity, or to bring about social and political change. It will also serve as a practical forum: promoting and debating the value of interdisciplinary practices, methodology and application in ‘envisioning community’ and reassessing history. The conference aims to build on the challenges wrought by the ’spatial turn’: exploring not only how the study of space and location enriches our telling of the past, but how the use of interdisciplinary methods and approaches to community can benefit our understanding of the ‘lived’ past.

The conference will appeal to scholars from many disciplines, history, art, film and television, translation and literature, sociology and politics.  With the underlying aim of exploring practice this will be a challenging workshop style conference which fully interrogates methodologies of translating communities from the nineteenth century to the present.

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During 2007-2009, ixia held a number of Training Seminars to deliver the findings of our research into Evaluation and public art and the planning system. Following the success of these Training Seminars, and in response to the demands of attendees, ixia is reviewing the ways in which we can deliver training and provide sustained and long-term support to individuals within the public art sector. Further information about these training opportunities will be available shortly - keep checking the Training section of the website and keep your eye on our e-mail updates to be the first to know!

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Information about conferences and other events will be available here shortly.