The Art of Engagement

How can social practice pedagogy be improved through partnership between cultural and higher education institutions and through the sharing of ideas and practice across national boundaries?

Globally, artists are drawing on their creativity and acting across disciplines to address significant issues of social and environmental justice (Kester, 2011). However, with relatively few opportunities for artists at different career stages to formally develop the knowledge and understanding needed for effective practice in this field, the teaching of social practice arts in higher education is now in urgent need of development. The nature of this learning, as socially-orientated, inherently questions whether it could be effectively achieved by drawing on a wider pool of experience than UK higher education institutions have to offer. Furthermore, in relation to decolonising arts education and museum provision, significant new learning blueprints could be achieved through collaboration and cross-border exchange supported by online learning strategies.

I will be reporting on the progress of a project that is exploring a new way of traversing pedagogical and national boundaries through bringing together arts institutions and universities in the UK and US, two countries that offer foundational and multivariant practices and perspectives on social practice arts and its education. Throughout 2022 Tate Exchange and Middlesex University (UK), in collaboration with Queens Museum and City University of New York (USA) will be facilitating discussion and the sharing of ideas through a series of online symposia and workshops involving emerging artists, students and alumni from UK and US locations to test possibilities for longer-term future programmes that could develop to involve other partners. Each workshop will be hosted by one of these four initial organisations. This conference presentation constitutes the first public presentation of the project findings.