News

Values and (E)valuations of or as Cultural Practices? Entering a time of pragmatic experimentation.

SPACEX Training Event on Cultural Policy, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 21-22 September 2023

The research group “Artistic Knowing: Research in and on Art and Cultural Practices” of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture at the University of Amsterdam is pleased to welcome the SPACEX community for a two day discussion on the present and, above all, the future of one of the most controversial practices within contemporary cultural policies: Evaluation. In particular, we will try to envision how managerial evaluations of cultural practices, as the ones imposed by “New Public Management”-oriented reforms, can be replaced by artistic evaluations as cultural practices, as the ones that are organic in artistic work.

Talk to the Land: The practice of Commoning and Real Montage in the work of the Partisan Social Club. Wednesday 22nd March 2023, 5–6.30pm GMT

Andy Hewitt and Mel Jordan (Partisan Social Club) in conversation with art historian Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes to reflect upon their recent exhibition, entitled Talk to the Land at SIRIUS.

Talk to the Land explored three aspects of commoning: landlordism; how to practice a culture-led recommoning of cities; and utopian settlements in South-West Ireland. Partisan Social Club (PSC) examines alternative modes of community building arising from cooperative proposals and experiments advanced by the eighteenth-century Irish, Cork-based philosopher William Thompson. 

The event will include the launch and screening of the film, Collective Nouns II Reflections on Commoning (3mins). The film was produced in conjunction with SIRIUS and includes several contributions from friends, colleagues, and people the PSC met while at SIRIUS.

Talk to the Land is PSC’s first solo show in Ireland. It was developed through multiple residencies at SIRIUS across 2022, following dialogue initiated in 2020. Talk to the Land was curated by Miguel Amado, director of SIRIUS, and produced by SIRIUS.

Register with eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/partisan-social-club-talk-to-the-land-tickets-591281899077

SPACEX Training Event 3: Behavioural Economics and Commoning Practices; From Cultural Value to Social Wealth

The third SPACEX training event will take place in Dublin from 2-3 March 2023. The focus will be on behavioural economics and commoning. It is being delivered by SPACEX researchers from the National College of Art & Design (NCAD) in conjunction with the Geary Institute, School of Economics at University College Dublin (UCD) and Project Arts Centre, Dublin.

Travel to NCAD here: https://www.ncad.ie/about/visitor-info/
Please book your accommodation in Dublin early as it can get very expensive. The areas Dublin 1, Dublin 2, Dublin 7 and Dublin 8 are within walking distance to training event venues.


This is a draft schedule which may change slightly, but starting and finishing times will remain the same.

Day 1: Thursday 2nd March

Locations: From 10.00am: Estelle Solomons Room, Grace Gifford House, National College of Art and Design John St. West Campus. John St. West, off Thomas Street, Dublin 8. From 7.00pm: Project Arts Centre, 39 Essex St E, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, D02 RD45

10.00-10.30am: Registration and Coffee, Estelle Solomons Room, Grace Gifford House, National College of Art and Design John St. West Campus

10.30-11.45am: SESSION 1: Basics of Behavioural Economics, hosted by Kevin Denny (SPACEX Researcher, UCD), 

11.45am-1.00pm: SESSION 2: World of Work, Cooperative Board Game, designed and hosted by Michelle Browne (SPACEX Researcher, NCAD), 

1.00-2.00pm: Sustenance for Hungry Souls by Luncheonette, https://luncheonettedublin.com/ABOUT

2.00-3.30pm: SESSION 3: Participatory Practices and their Engagement with Urban and Digital Infrastructures and Systems. This discussion-based workshop will be led by Paul O’Neill (SPACEX Researcher, UCD)

3.30-3.45pm: Coffee Break

3.45-5.00pm: SESSION 4: Walking Tour of The Liberties led by Seoidín O’Sullivan (SPACEX Researcher, NCAD), http://www.seoidinosullivan.com/; and Anthony O’Brien of In Our Shoes Walking Tours, https://inourshoeswalkingtours.ie/

5.30-5.45: Jennie Moran introduces Luncheonette, a long term art project centred around hospitality and food, started by Jennie in 2013. It is a prolonged exploration into the complex alchemy of placemaking, centred around the provision of shared experiences using nourishment, shelter, comfort, warmth, light, and tone to treat places so that they feel easier for people to be in and more poetic, , https://luncheonettedublin.com/ABOUT

5.45-7.00pm: Sustenance for Hungry Souls by Luncheonette, https://luncheonettedublin.com/ABOUT 

7.00-7.30pm: Exhibition tour of Being Horizontal / Sínte at Project Arts Centre, https://projectartscentre.ie/. Led by Sara Greavu (SPACEX Researcher, Project Arts Centre)

7.45-8.30pm*: Performance of Manifest at Project Arts Centre, which forms part of What Does He Need?  – a long term collaborative project by Fiona Whelan (SPACEX Researcher, NCAD), Brokentalkers, Rialto Youth Project and a Dublin city network of individuals and organisations. www.whatdoesheneed.com & https://projectartscentre.ie/event/manifest/

*PLEASE RESERVE A TICKET BY EMAILING mahonye@staff.ncad.ie

9.00pm Move to a local pub for drinks and conversation

Day 2: Friday 3rd March

Locations: From 9.30am: Harry Clarke Lecture Theatre and NCAD Gallery, NCAD, 100 Thomas Street, Dublin 8, D08 K521

9.30-11.15am: SESSION 1: Theories of Commoning. Speakers Stavros Stavrides (SPACEX Researcher, LUC) and Gary Hall (SPACEX Researcher, CU). Chaired by Emma Mahony (SPACEX Researcher, NCAD)

11.15am-12.00pm: Elevenses for the “Hungry Months”. Hosted by Gareth Kennedy (SPACEX Researcher, NCAD) and NCAD FIELD students

12.00-1.00pm: Principles of Space Detection. Performance by Irina Gheorghe in NCAD Gallery. Hosted by Anne Kelly (SPACEX Researcher, NCAD)

1.00-2.00pm: Sustenance for Hungry Souls by Luncheonette.

2.00-3.00pm: SESSION 2: The 60 min Commoning Parkour: An embodied commoning experience with Susanne Bosch.

3.20-4.30pm: SESSION 3: Commoning as Care Practices in the Community Part 1: Organisations, Rosie Lynch, Callan Workhouse Union; Siobhan Geoghegan, Common Ground; Ellie Kisombe, Our Table; chaired by Tom O’Dea (SPACEX researcher).

4.30-4.45pm: Coffee Break

4.45-5.45: SESSION 3 Cont. Commoning as Care Practices in the Community Part 2: Artists, Fiona Whelan (SPACEX researcher); Evelyn Broderick, A People’s Shed; chaired by Michelle Browne (SPACEX researcher).

6.00-6.20: Our Table. Ellie Kisombe introduces Our Table a social enterprise which focuses on producing an inclusive community through food and campaigning to end direct provision in Ireland. 

6.30-8.30: CLOSING SESSION: Trad Around Our Table. Event in NCAD Gallery and Foyer with a live Trad music session led by Evelyn Broderick; and sustenance by Our Table.

9.00pm: Move to local pub for drinks and foot tapping conversation


SPACE-X RISE Visiting Researcher Talks, Wednesday 8 February 2023 @12pm

Please join us for two talks from the visiting SPACEX RISE Researchers – Andri Christofides & Georgia Perkins.

Andri Christofides is the director of Home for Cooperation (AHDR/H4C), based in Cyprus.

Georgia Perkins is a curator working with SIRIUS, Cork and a PhD candidate at Goldsmiths.

Both visitors are spending 31 days with the ArtSpaceCity research theme at the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University as part of the SPACEX RISE project.

The talk will take place at the Institute for Creative Cultures, Coventry University and online

Join Zoom Meeting: https://coventry-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/6979025653

SPACEX Training Event Artists / Writers Bursaries

We are delighted to announce three micro-bursaries for artists, writers and community activists to attend a SPACEX training event and public forum on arts and the urban commons in Coventry on June 30th and July 1st 2022. 

We have two bursaries of £150 to support creative practitioners to attend the two-day Spacex training event at Coventry University’s Centre for Postdigital Cultures. Day 1 introduces ethnographic research, field research and participant observation methods and brings researchers that have been working with publics through participation and creative practices to share their work. Day 2 is entitled the Arts and the Urban Commons Forum and is held at the LTB showrooms. Artists, curators and scholars share their work and ideas around the city and culture’s role in living together empathetically.  The bursaries are available for CV-postcode applicants who are invested in processes of commoning, community and public art in their practice, or who would like to learn about these themes. 

We are also offering a writer’s bursary of £300 for an artist to attend the Arts and the urban commons forum on Friday 1st July, and to write a 1,000 word review of the event. The bursary recipient will receive mentoring / support from Mel Jordan (SPACEX / Partisan Social Club). We are interested in supporting a creative practitioner who wants to develop their art writing and/or critical writing. The bursaries are available for a CV-postcode applicant who may have interests in arts–led regeneration, contemporary art, public and socially–engaged art.

We are keen to receive applications from Black and Global Majority artists, those who identify as living with a disability, and creative people from backgrounds which are currently underrepresented in the arts.

Please note the LTB Showrooms venue does not have wheelchair access.

How to apply

Please complete this short application form for bursaries to attend the 2-day SPACEX event, or this form to apply for the critical writing bursary by 5pm 6 June 2022.

Any queries please email mel.jordan@coventry.ac.uk

Read more about the SPACEX Training Event here

 

Badges for opinion formation, Freee Art Collective & Partisan Social Club, ongoing
Shopping, still from Phoenix City, Duncan Whitley 2021

SPACEX Training Event – June 30 & July 1, 2022

Day 1: Hosted by Centre for Postdigital Cultures @ ICE Building, Coventry University, UK. Starts: 10.45 registration, 11am – 6.00pm

Day 2: Hosted by Centre for Postdigital Cultures @ LTB Showrooms (upstairs at The Litten Tree Pub) Coventry, UK. Starts: 09.30 coffee / registration, 10 am – 6.00pm

SPACEX responds to the troubling rise of populist nationalism and conflict in European societies by engaging new publics and forging a culture that embraces diversity, difference, and discursive exchange within cities, towns and urban sites.

The lack of interdisciplinary knowledge by those working in the cultural sector has significantly affected the way in which the social benefit of cultural activities is understood, articulated and applied. SPACEX proposes that inventing new and inclusive ways of living together, requires the implementation of new transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral practices and methods, that connect spatial practice with cultural sociology, cultural policy, critical pedagogies and behavioural economics

The Coventry based SPACEX training event will consist of two days of talks and presentations addressing the contexts outlined in the SPACEX research action. The aim of the two-day event is to review research methods that draw on perspectives across the social sciences and humanities, in order that SPACEX researchers can devise an approach best suited to their contribution to the SPACEX action. The first day entitled, ‘An introduction to Cultural Sociology’, will cover traditional ethnographic research, field research and participant observation methods. It will introduce researchers to action research (with others), affective methodologies and creative and arts-based methods as well as feminist approaches to new societal challenges. While day one – concerns itself with methods and processes that help to explore the social and cultural contexts of working with others, day two engages with the institutions and practices of the city. For day two entitled ‘Arts and the urban commons: new visions for the phoenix city’ we move out of the university and into the city where we will discuss the issues arising from Coventry’s year as UK City of Culture. We will hear from artists, curators, researchers and local citizens, this will give an insight into some of the cultural activities that are played out in the city as well as the broader context of arts and culture as a UK government process of regeneration. We imagine questions of agency, function and the depoliticization of arts and culture will result from the talks and conversations planned for the day.

Confirmed speakers

(Day 1) Dr. Marcus Maloney, Dr. Akilah Maxwell, Dr. Saba Hussain, Dr Adrienne Evans, (Day 2) Duncan Whitley, Ryan Hughes, Diane Dever, Dan Thompson. Poster Provocations x 5: includes Melissandre Varin (B.o.o.K), Christine Eade.

Jasper Joseph-Lester & Simon King – The Walkative Project
Public participants creating a mosaic out of recycled archaeological finds at Kingston Museum with Recycle Archaeology

SPACEX KICK OFF meeting – exciting moments at the beginning of the project.

In 2020 we had to suspend the SPACEX project because of the COVID Pandemic and it was beginning to be hard to imagine it would ever start.  On 3rd February 2022, we hosted the SPACEX Kick off meeting. It was amazing to see so many researchers and organisations join the meeting. It enabled us all to get a sense of all the practitioners, curators, researchers, and activists that had committed to the project. This was the first time most people had met each other and this meeting enabled us to put faces to researchers who until now had just been abstract names aligned to institutions. The desire for a network around critical and spatial practices across the EU and beyond is a possibility and we have all started to make it happen.

Hold the Date! SPACEX ‘Work Package’ Seminar and Researcher Meetings.

Tuesdays 15, 22 & 29 March 2022 @ GMT 4.30 – 6pm CET 5.30- 7pm, EET+2 6.30 – 8pm

15 March 2022 PRACTICES
22 March 2022 URBAN SUBJECTS
29 March 2022 THE ARCHIVE    

We are hosting a series of three research ‘Work Package’ meetings.  The sessions will be an opportunity for SPACEX researchers to engage with the aims of the research action, framed around the Work Packages outlined in the SPACEX Grant Agreement. 

It will be an opportunity to meet other researchers from the network and for us all to discuss how our research, practice and cultural programming can fit with the SPACEX project. Meeting fellow researchers will also help in the planning of the Secondment Person Months over the period of the project. 

The seminars include contributions from leading researchers from the network who will offer insights on their own research activity. For the work package PRACTICES Barbara Holub and Paul Rajakovics will present their work, which sees over 2 decades of them working as transparadiso in the public realm with artistic practices, their most recent projects include the exhibition NORMAL direct urbanism x 4, 2021 at Forum Stadtpark Graz. The URBAN SUBJECTS session is led by Stavros Stavides, author of a number of books and articles on the commons, including ‘Common Space: the City as Commons’; THE ARCHIVE sees Christa Mia Lerm Hayes introducing her work and sharing her knowledge of practice research, author of numerous books most recently ‘W.G.Sebald’s Artistic Legacies: Memory, Word and Image’, 2022.

After hearing from the speakers there will be an opportunity for all researchers to contribute to a round table discussion in which all participants will be asked to introduce themselves and their research/ practice/ programming interests

All SPACEX researchers are welcome to all work package meetings (you don’t have to commit yet) and it will be great to see you at as many of these events as you can make so we get to know each other and gather some momentum as a community. 

Hold the Date!
SPACEX Seminar 1: PRACTICES
Tuesday 15 March 2022 @ GMT 4.30 – 6pm GMT +1 5.30- 7pm, GMT+2 6.30 – 8pm.
Speakers: Artists and SPACEX Researchers Barbara Holub & Paul Paul Rajakovics
Chaired by: Mel Jordan and Andrew Hewitt

SPACEX Projects starts 1st January 2022

Kick Off Meeting 3rd February 2022, hosted by Coventry University, convened by Andy Hewitt, Mel Jordan, Emma Mahony and Socrates Stratis. Supported by Kauser Husain and Cathryn Thompson-Goodwin

SPACEX Seminars (dates to be announced):

  1. Urban Subjects
  2. Archives
  3. Practices