The Sculpture Question: Research Seminar 2
14.00- 18:00 Thursday 29 November 2012
Cragg Lecture Theatre, University for the Creative Arts, New Dover Road, Canterbury, Kent CT1 3AN
Speakers: Professor Declan McGonagle, Director, National College of Art and Design, Dublin
Professor Kerstin Mey, Director of Research and Enterprise, University for the Creative Arts
The Sculpture Question is a research project formed in 2011 within the School of Fine Art at the University
for the Creative Arts. The project brings together artists, curators and academics to investigate the
challenges that contemporary ‘sculpture’ presents to art education, asking what it means to think about
and teach sculpture in Higher Education today.
The pedagogy of sculpture has never been conducted solely within institutional / academic environments,
but it currently appears to be experiencing an unprecedented blurring of contexts, and a greatly intensified
weaving together of richly varied processes. This opens up a series of philosophical and pedagogical
challenges to art schools and studio practice models predicated on modernist hierarchies of values, which
favour individualism and meritocracy.
The Sculpture Question takes up these challenges, initially through a series of seminars that seek to map
out the key issues and then draw out core points for further critical debate in The Sculpture Question
Symposium, to be held in the summer of 2014. The first seminar and subsequent discussions have
indicated that this symposium may focus on a close examination of the interstices in which art school
practices, public pedagogy and ‘place’ intersect. It may consider for example,
•
To what degree and in what ways are we able to think about sculpture as a form of pedagogy?
And what are the implications of understanding works in this way?
•
What problems and opportunities do the pluralism of ‘spaces’ / ‘places’ for the pedagogy of
creativity present to institutionalised pedagogy?
•
What kinds of models might we need to imagine and what forms of hierarchies might we need to
address in the university context in order to engage with these dynamics?
•
Where does this expansion of models place the pedagogy of sculpture in relation to broader
discourses of social regeneration and perhaps more importantly – transformation?
To continue this process of drawing out core points Professors McGonagle and Mey will lead our second
seminar; focusing attention on ontology, the problems of definition, meaning and categories, and on ‘a
pedagogy of curiosity,’ an exploration of cross disciplinary research on sensory approaches to learning
and teaching.
The event is open to all, admission is free. Advance booking is not available and places will be allocated on a firstcome first-served basis on the day. However, for catering purposes please RSVP by Friday 23 November 2012
to the organizer, B+K, if you plan to attend: [email protected]