Art and Politics: Uncertain Practices
Programme D
Three years ago the research project Tate Encounters set out a number of original research aims which explicitly bound together the spheres of politics and art. Indeed on many accounts, from within the recently established field of museum studies, the foundation and dynamic of the museum is essentially that of a politics of the public and as such the Tate Encounters research programme is fundamentally a study in cultural politics. Firstly it framed Tate's role in holding the National Collection of British Art at Tate Britain as a practice of the political representation of nation. Secondly, it framed government cultural diversity policy as a politics of civil society.
After two years of fieldwork Tate Encounters is in the process of elaborating a number of understandings about the ways in which Tate Britain produces and reproduces itself and its audience organisationally and how a group of voluntary participants with migrant backgrounds engaged with and made sense of Tate Britain as audience members. In this respect, Tate Britain has been understood as a cultural site and a potential 'contact zone' in negotiating transcultural, generational and class identities.
The project now aims to locate these emergent findings in the wider context of enumerating the recent history of the development of cultural diversity policy and to understand its politics and cultural outcomes. This programme aims to critically scrutinise the intellectual and political roots of cultural diversity policy through examining understandings of the politics of the policy process, and the ways in which museums responded to diversity policy. In addition, it wishes to look at the impact of a changing social demographic upon traditional cultural institutions in relationship to contemporary cultural forms of expression.
In more detail the programme. is interested in examining received thinking about multiculturalism, cultural pluralism and cultural diversity as a way of identifying both older limits and new possibilities for progressive cultural change. In doing this the project recognises the need to look at the ways in which such debates were informed by intellectual and practical thinking about race and ethnicity.
Monday 16 March
11.00-13.00
Theorising Race and Ethnicity - CANCELLED
15.00-17.00
Networks and Practices of the Museum: Part 1
- Paul Willis, Professor of Social.Cultural Ethnography, Keele University
- Andrew Dewdney, Professor of Media Education, London South Bank University
For tickets book this session online or call 020 7887 8888
Tuesday 17 March
11.00-13.00
Imagining Difference: Lure of the East Part 1 - CANCELLED
15.00-17.00
Curating Difference: Lure of the East Part 2
- Mark Miller, Curator, Young Peoples Programmes, Tate Britain Learning
- Jennifer Batchelor , Curator, Interpretation, Tate Britain Learning
- Indie Choudhury, Curator, Visual Dialogues, Tate Britain Learning
For tickets book this session online or call 020 7887 8888
Wednesday 18 March
11.00-13.00
Cultural Policy Shifts - CANCELLED
15.00-17.00
"Ambiguous Mainstreaming": The Artist's Perspective
- Faisal Abdul'Allah, artist
- Hew Locke, artist
- Raimi Gbadamosi, artist
For tickets book this session online or call 020 7887 8888
Thursday 19 March
15.00-17.00
The Changing Status of Difference: Cultural Policy 1970 to present
- Munira Mirza, Director of Policy, Arts, Culture and the Creative Industries, Greater London Authority
- Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery
- Lola Young, independent consultant, Cultural Brokers
For tickets book this session online or call 020 7887 8888
Friday 20 March
11.00-13.00
Sophie Orlando: A Critical Response to Tate Encounters as a Transdisciplinary Project
For tickets book this session online or call 020 7887 8888
15.00-17.00
Cultural Diversity Policy: Emergent Perspectives - CANCELLED
Free, booking required
