Category Archives: Conference

Public Pedagogies Conference 2019

Walking and Talking Public Pedagogies
November 28 – 29, 2019
Footscray, Melbourne

The annual Public Pedagogies Institute conference features a range of presentations, performances, forums and workshops across the diverse field of public pedagogies.

Registration includes attendance at all conference events over two days, November 28-29 with lunch and refreshments provided.

Registered guests are also invited to a pre-conference event on November 27 at the Botanical Gardens, Melbourne. details here

Conference program now available to view here

Abstracts now available to view here

Keynote Speakers:

Stephanie Springgay

Tony Birch

Further details here

PRE-CONFERENCE EVENT   

Wednesday 27th November  11 am – 12 pm,
Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

Whau Conversations: Hikoi – a walking workshop with artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.

If you would like to attend the pre-conference walk please email Mary.Dixon@Deakin.edu.au for a map and further details.

Conference registrations now open

Walking and Talking Public Pedagogies
November 28 – 29, 2019
Footscray, Melbourne

The annual Public Pedagogies Institute conference features a range of presentations, performances, forums and workshops across the diverse field of public pedagogies and is open to participants from many sectors.

The conference will take place over two days from November 28 – 29, at the Footscray Nicholson campus of Victoria University.

Keynote Speakers:

Stephanie Springgay

Stephanie Springgay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the University of Toronto. She is a leading scholar in research-creation methodologies with a focus on walking, affect, new materialisms and posthumanisms, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. Her most recent research-creation projects are documented at www.thepedagogicalimpulse.com, www.walkinglab.org and www.stephaniespringgay.com. She has published widely in academic journals and is the co-author of the book Walking Methodologies in More-than-Human World: Walkinglab Routledge (2018), with Sarah E. Truman; co-editor of M/othering a Bodied Curriculum: Emplacement, Desire, Affect, University of Toronto Press, with Debra Freedman; co-editor of Curriculum and the Cultural Body, Peter Lang with Debra Freedman; and author of Body Knowledge and Curriculum: Pedagogies of Touch in Youth and Visual Culture, Peter Lang.

Tony Birch

Tony Birch is a renowned academic, author, educator and researcher. In 2015, Dr Birch joined VU as the first recipient of the University’s Dr Bruce McGuinness Indigenous Research Fellowship. His research interests centre on climate change and indigenous knowledge systems. His highly acclaimed novels include Shadowboxing (2006),  Father’s Day (2009),  Blood (2011),  The Promise (2014), Ghost River (2015) and most recently, The White Girl (2019). In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for his contribution to contemporary Australian literature.

More details about the conference here.

PRE-CONFERENCE EVENT   

Wednesday 27th November  11 am – 12 pm,
Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

Whau Conversations: Hikoi – a walking workshop with artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.

Find out more about the pre-conference event here.

Whau Conversations: Hikoi

PRE-CONFERENCE EVENT   

Wednesday 27th November  11 am – 12 pm,
Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne

Whau Conversations: Hikoi – a walking workshop with artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne.

Whau Conversations: Hikoi will consist of a collective walk with artists from Aotearoa/New Zealand presenting to and exchanging insights and reflections with participants in relation to the surrounding site they encounter during that walk. The walking event will take place in the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (Melbourne), and focus on the New Zealand section of the gardens, where whau trees endemic to Aotearoa can be seen to grow almost like ‘weeds’ to some. The walk attempts to offer playful reflections alongside political and cultural responses to the artists’ and their participants’ current and former acts of collective walking. More than simply walking, the tactic of engaging in a hikoi will be explored. To hikoi in te reo Māori (the Māori language) is widely considered to walk with a purpose, from educational contexts, to social activities, to art practices, protest campaigns and other contexts. For all of us in this walk we also intend to metaphorically ‘walk backwards into the future’, which is a play on the common Māori proverb ‘ka mua, ka muri’ (walking backwards into the future). This is where while facing forwards in our hikoi, we walk with our tupuna (our ancestors) and our histories who are before us and in facing them and these things through our korero (discussions). We aim to develop new understandings and questions around them in relation to the site in which we are walking in.

Artists walking, presenting and sharing will include Carol Brown (VCA, The University of Melbourne), Christina Houghton (AUT), Alexandra Bonham, Saskia Schut (UTS), Kathy Waghorn (The University of Auckland), Mark Harvey (Mata Waka iwi, The University of Auckland) and guests. 

Hikoi conveners: Kathy Waghorn (The University of Auckland) and Mark Harvey (Mata Waka iwi, the University of Auckland)

This walk will also have a follow up paper session during the conference – details will be available in the conference program.

Please email Mary.Dixon@Deakin.edu.au for a map and further details of the walk.

This event is part of the Walking and Talking Public Pedagogies conference, taking place on November 28-29 at the Footscray Nicholson Street Campus of Victoria University. REGISTER FOR THE CONFERENCE HERE

Featured image: Drop Kick (collaboration with John Court and Mark Harvey) ANTI Contemporary Art Festival, Finland, 2018

Call for Papers

The Public Pedagogies Institute warmly invites proposals for papers/workshops around the conference theme Walking and Talking Public Pedagogies. The conference will take place on the 28th and 29th of November 2019 at Victoria University, Melbourne.

This conference is interested in how thinking is disrupted and re-imagined through the act of walking. What are the possibilities that open up when we are in the realm of streets, parks, river banks or transport hubs? As we walk through our suburbs or our towns do these spaces impact on our thinking in generative ways? Do they entail pedagogical moments and how might these be defined? Together with walking this conference is also about talking. This is the International Year of Indigenous Languages. What do languages enable? For the Public Pedagogies Institute, we ask what are the affordances and constraints of Indigenous languages in public places. How does the use of these languages effect an understanding of place and the public? 

We welcome and invite a range of submissions–informal presentations, academic papers, workshops, screenings–and encourage a diversity of sectors to participate in two days of ideas-sharing and networking on our theme.

Submissions of no more than 300 words will be accepted up until June 30, 2019.

All submissions should be accompanied by a 100 word biographical note. Please send to karen.charman@vu.edu.au

Keynote Speakers:

We are excited to announce our first keynote speaker

Stephanie Springgay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the University of Toronto. She is a leading scholar in research-creation methodologies with a focus on walking, affect, new materialism and posthumanism, queer theory, and contemporary art as pedagogy. Her most recent research-creation projects are documented at www.thepedagogicalimpulse.com, www.walkinglab.org and www.stephaniespringgay.com. She has published widely in academic journals and is the co-author of the book Walking Methodologies in More-than-Human World: Walkinglab Routledge (2018), with Sarah E. Truman; co-editor of M/othering a Bodied Curriculum: Emplacement, Desire, Affect, University of Toronto Press, with Debra Freedman; co-editor of Curriculum and the Cultural Body, Peter Lang with Debra Freedman; and author of Body Knowledge and Curriculum: Pedagogies of Touch in Youth and Visual Culture, Peter Lang.

We are pleased to announce our second keynote speaker for this year’s Public Pedagogies Conference—author Tony Birch.

In 2015, Dr Tony Birch joined VU as the first recipient of the University’s Dr Bruce McGuinness Indigenous Research Fellowship. Dr Birch is a renowned academic, author, educator and researcher. His research interests centre on climate change and indigenous knowledge systems. Dr Birch’s books includeShadowboxing (2006), Father’s Day (2009), Blood (2011), The Promise (2014) and Ghost River (2015). In 2017 he was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award for his contribution to contemporary Australian literature.

Intangible cultural heritage and intercultural dialogue

The role of public pedagogies in transmitting intangible cultural heritage and promoting intercultural dialogue

Charlotte Courtois

As American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax warned, “if we continue to allow the erosion of our cultural forms, soon there will be no place to visit and no place to truly call home”. In this talk, Charlotte Courtois will discuss the role of public pedagogies in transmitting intangible cultural heritage as well as in promoting intercultural dialogue. Charlotte has been experimenting for 8 years, crafting workshops for children all around the world in order to develop their curiosity both about other cultures and about their own heritage. She will share the tools she uses and explain how the work of her association Konstelacio manages to put children in a position where they realize that they too – and not only adults – have cultural knowledge to share.

This presentation will take place on:

Friday November 23, 2018, 10.00am, Room T226

This session is part of:

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

Register for the conference here

Exhibition and Activation

The Public and Touch
Victoria University, Nicholson Street Campus

Theatre Space, N222
November 22-23, 2018

Red Earth Dresses:
An exhibition around Touch, Place and Identity

Shelley Hannigan with associate dress creators 
Beatrix Rowe, Jane Bartier, Monica Moore,
Jo-Anne Britt, Amanda Rea and Karlee Blackburn

Knitting, twisting and knot-making with copper wire and thread, are some of the ways I have created this exhibition piece titled Red Earth Dresses. I create my art whilst entangled in a place I have co-constructed through experiences such as: being here, there, imagining, memory, creating, observing, listening, touching and feeling. In the process of creating Red Earth Dresses, I have handled materials, felt strains in my arms and hands from knitting six life size dresses and a range of miniature versions and twisted, knotted and woven copper wire into them. These images have emerged from a process of ‘free knitting’ where no pattern is used. I have responded to the emerging form, stretching the weave out to see and feel what is coming.

Dresses have emerged in my work for over forty years. In past works, dresses have represented my identity as a migrant moving over, in and through landscapes, embodying my past, but never laying claim to place. In Red Earth Dresses I share this experience and work around touch, place and identity as this work has come to represent my own and other women’s experiences and relationships with the earth/land of Australia. I have come to identify with these women as a regional Australian citizen for twenty years. It is my experience and in-sight that women of the past and of this land have adopted some of the colonial Victorian dress sensibility and aesthetics but also blended and connected with the earth through their place experiences. Their dresses were worn and torn and mended in parts. These traces of touch through wear, tear and mending are materials memories of place and bodily engagements on this land that I have captured and present in this work. (Shelley Hannigan)

Tread – Softly
Merinda Kelly and Soraya Mobayad
(Exhibition and activation)

Open to the possibilities of materiality, time, space and place, a series of objects and structures will be situated as provocations to prompt unfolding possibilities for playful encounter, social connection, experimental engagement or performative action. Experimental pedagogies will also be activated to catalyse individual and collaborative responses to the spatial intervention as it emerges over time.

Merinda Kelly’s current modes of practice are experimental, socially engaged and collaborative. Interventions, installations and experimental pedagogical encounters are positioned across specific sites, time frames and publics to entice public engagement, dialogue and collaboration. She has also worked extensively over the past six years with creative practitioners, researchers, and educators in the Geelong region to explore transitions and tensions emerging in response to staged processes of deindustrialisation.

Since undertaking a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Art, Soraya Mobayad’s artistic practice has extended to explore deindustrialisation, audio frequencies and the relationship of noise to information. Her work takes the form of drawings, public works, installations, bespoke electronic circuits and audio loops. Mobayad is currently undertaking a Masters of Teaching at Deakin University. She was previously Creative Program Coordinator at Courthouse Youth Arts, was selected for the Footscray Community Arts Centre Emerging Cultural Leaders Program in 2017, and currently works on arts projects involving the community and socially engaged practices.

This session is part of:

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

Register for the conference here

Communities, Creativity and Public Pedagogies

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
Footscray, Melbourne

Friday November 23, 1.30pm – 3.00pm

Priming and Vibing Everyday Life: Tracking the Public Pedagogies of Footpath Gardens
Jesse Hsu

Abstract:
The notion that everyday spaces enable informal learning is a central theme within public pedagogy scholarship. How learning actually occurs in various sites is either theorized from the perspective of an individual’s immersive and aesthetic encounter (Ellsworth, 2005) or simply left unsaid—with pedagogy effectively seen as a ‘deus ex machina’ or a ‘black box’ that inexplicably catalyzes learning (Watkins et al, 2015). This presentation articulates an approach to understanding the public pedagogy of spaces as an ongoing interplay between a given site’s representation and social practices. Through a blend of visual and ethnographic data, this approach is demonstrated to the case of a single verge garden in the neighborhood of Glebe in Sydney. This research draws attention to the link between a space’s design and its pedagogy. In the case of edible verge gardens, attentive design increases the degree of ‘pedagogic agency’ a site has in affecting social change at an everyday level.


PACT: Portable Art Connections Toolkit
Nina Lewis

Abstract:
This session introduces the Portable Art Connections Toolkit as an apparatus for supporting communities in making art together and having creative agency over how the stories, information and practices that matter to them are shared.

Portable Art Connections Toolkit – PACT – is a kitbag containing props and prompts for creating a collective experience of making stories and artwork. It equips communities/users to shape narratives about the things that matter to them and to situate those messages as part of the cultural landscape.

PACT is like an ikea of arts participation: functional, hackable, purposeful, accessible.

PACT comes with a user manual describing one method for activating the kit. Guided to exercise choice, adaptability and negotiation in how they share what matters to them, participants gain agency over their creativity while learning to collaborate with others.

PACT’s point of difference is to both strengthen and see beyond personal narrative, positioning individual creativity on a pathway to collective and community-led process.

This is valuable for individual and social wellbeing. Because participants are encouraged to care about shared context (not just personal stories), they perceive themselves as connected into wider environments. Recognising shared stories as a way of being strong in community helps negotiate trust and respect, promotes social inclusion, and motivates people to work with others to create and sustain shared cultural narratives.

Session attendees will learn more about the method and theory of change underpinning the PACT artkit and the group will test out some of the props and prompts together. Following the session, attendees can request free PACT toolkits to use within their own communities.


This session is part of:

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

Register for the conference here

Maker Spaces – Pedagogical Potential and Pitfalls

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
Footscray, Melbourne

Maker Spaces – Pedagogical Potential and Pitfalls
Friday, November 23, 1.30pm – 3.00pm

Maker Spaces are ripe with potential to redress pedagogical practices in the 21st Century within and outside of formal institutions. Researchers and educators share there thoughts, research and observations.

The presenters:

Greg Giannis, artist, researcher and educator.
Maker Spaces: Creativity, Civic Engagement and Critical Making

Garnet Hertz, Emily Carr University of Art and Design (remotely)
Critical Making

David Hyatt, School of Education, University of Sheffield.
The EU MaKEY project

Rebecca Wells, Leading Teacher,
Canterbury Primary School Maker Space

This session is part of:

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

Register for the conference here

Read the related article:

Art & Technology: a Maker Space Experiment for Children
by Greg Giannis

Conference Program and Abstracts

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

View and download the conference program
View and download the conference abstracts
What forms does learning and teaching take outside of formal institutions?

The annual conference of the Public Pedagogies Institute features presentations, performances and workshops across the diverse field of public pedagogies and is open to participants from many sectors.

What are Public Pedagogies?

We understand public pedagogies to incorporate the many sites in which teaching and learning occurs in the community or outside formal institutions. These may include museums, libraries, neighbourhood houses, community centres, public spaces, as well as through the arts, community engagement, media and beyond.

Topics of focus this year include: Maker Spaces, Activist Art, Creative Body Based Learning, The Public and Touch, Visual Thinking Strategies, Contemporary Social Movements, Community Art Practices and more.

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

Register for the conference here

Register for the conference dinner here

View and download the conference abstracts

 

Education – business as (un)usual?

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
Footscray, Melbourne

Thursday November 22, 3.30-5.00pm

This session will challenge the current but restricting mainstream understanding of why and how education should be provided.

Beginning with a presentation by Peter Alsen, Education – business as (un)usual? Teaching and Learning Beyond the Mainstream, this forum will address the current notion of educational objectives residing in a mindset of getting everyone ready to enter the workforce. Secondly, that education will improve and advance if there is a marketplace of options someone can choose from. It will put forward a case for education beyond an area of competition, with teaching and learning as an economic transaction.

This will be followed by the Pop Up School and Knowledge Project presentation and forum with Mary Dixon and Karen Charman, outlining the ongoing project to assert learning and knowledge as local, community-based, and grounded in a notion of place. This project also seeks to document and offer an alternative understanding of ‘curriculum’ specific to each locality.

This session is part of:

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference 2018
November 22-23
Footscray, Melbourne

Register for the conference here