Place making and other purposes
- Submitting institution
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Birmingham City University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32Z_OP_C0081
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
-
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- Book title
- The Physical University
- Publisher
- Routledge
- ISBN
- 9781138711099
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2014
- URL
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-
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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2
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This interdisciplinary research investigated the uses of public art by British universities at a time when official university public art strategies were multiplying in the context of a flurry of building and relocation to new campuses, widening participation and public engagement programmes. Increasingly campuses are adorned with historic and newly commissioned artworks; yet the intentions and messages behind these artworks have largely been overlooked. This research analysed the prevailing definitions and conceptualisations of both higher education sector and public art strategies. It questions whether universities are benefitting from contemporary public art critique in both reflecting on and developing multiple uses of public art and in rethinking higher education’s role with its multiple and diverse communities.
Collaborating with a cultural policy researcher (Hards) and educational sociologist (Williams), the researcher devised and directed the project, bringing in art history and contemporary public art theory expertise. Undertaken through seven case studies, the research combined: policy analysis; interviews with artists, commissioners and university representatives; site visits; analysis of the online presence of artworks and strategies (including marketing material and audience response); and literature reviews in the fields of public art, cultural policy, higher education and history of art.
The findings reveal how public art is predominantly seen by universities as a contribution to identity, and as a means of community creation. The research problematizes both of these readings. Despite the beginnings of the broadening of concepts of university space from the physical to encompass the temporary, performative and experiential from contemporary public art discourse, we critically identify a tension between community engagement and marketing the university, as well as the omission of pedagogical considerations.
The chapter was subject to peer review, and the research has been disseminated at symposia at the Institute of Education UCL (2014) and University of Leeds (2015).
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -