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Events, News

Public Pedagogical Formations of History

An online seminar series presented by the
Public Pedagogies Institute

March 7 – April 4, 2025

Fridays 10.00am – 12.00pm (AEST)

To register go to: https://www.trybooking.com/CZGIV

Seminar Program Schedule

Seminar Week 1  Friday, March 7

Exploring the potential of street art to counter misrepresentations and invisibility of Indigenous women and girls in Canadian
mass media
Dr Anna Rodrigues

Walking and talking with/in place: Socially engaged public art
practices in Aoteara
Mikayla Journee

Seminar Week 2  Friday, March 14

An exploratory analysis of Malaysia’s hidden history in the
Public Sphere
Michelle Low-Shamir, Adam Mathews, Kevin Myers

African Diaspora: Preservation of Culture and Memories, and
Identity Projects in Australia
Charles Mphande, Magang Reech, Konker Malual

Seminar Week 3  Friday, March 21

Remembering the absent ones, remaking publicness
Timothy Martin

The Desirous Public: Public Pedagogy and the Gravity of History
Jake Burdick, Mahreen Mamoon, Ralph McCoy

Seminar Week 4  Friday, March 28

The Needle in The Ego Era: A History
Scott Welsh

Public pedagogies and the memory of the recent past: Experiences with theatre in Michoacán-Mexico

Yuri Páez, Inés Dussel

Seminar Week 5  Friday, April 4

Pragmatically prisming public pedagogies: how conscious reflæXion can lead to eco-psycho-social justice and enhanced
wellbeing (workshop)

Amir Tatai 

Click here to view seminar abstracts

Events, News

Call for papers: Public Pedagogical Formations of Histories

The Public Pedagogies Institute invites proposals for a forthcoming seminar series on the Public Pedagogical Formations of Histories.

The field of public pedagogy is still relatively new and emerging but has much to offer in how education is enacted. As a discipline public pedagogy looks to instances of learning and teaching outside of formal educational institutions. This includes but is not limited to spaces recognised as sites of informal learning. However, this does not indicate a binary, but rather porous moments where the contours of history are mitigated by public memorialisation, vigils, or other forms of representations. What are the pedagogical affordances and limitations of these respective representations of histories? Public pedagogy recognises the speaking subject in the instances of those who occupy the public realm and contribute to a public understanding of histories.

This seminar series draws on the field of public pedagogy and the educational affordances in the consideration of public memory and public history. It brings together presentations that examine both the relationship between sites of informal learning and the past, and that examine the histories of learning and teaching outside of formal education institutions.

  • How might history be informed by a public pedagogical framing?
  • What are the histories of learning and teaching outside of formal education institutions?
  • How might approaches to public pedagogies benefit from engagement with the history ofeducation?
  • How is the past remembered and in what ways is the past carried forward in the public realm?
  • What pedagogical responsibilities do we as communities have to bring a public into a relationship with the past and what might the public contours of this engagement look like?

This seminar series will be held via zoom and will run on a Friday Australian Eastern Standard time 10.00am—12.00pm beginning the 7th of March and concluding on the 4th of April 2025. If you would like to present as a part of this seminar series, please send a proposal no later than January 31, 2025, to Karen.Charman@vu.edu.au.

Seminar presenters will be invited to submit their paper to be published in a forthcoming edition of the Journal of Public Pedagogies.

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Recommended reading in the field of public pedagogy:

Biesta, G 2012, ‘Becoming Public: Public Pedagogy, Citizenship and the Public Sphere.’ Social and Cultural Geography, vol 13, no 7, pp. 683-697.

Burdick, J, Sandlin, J and O’Malley 2014, Problematizing Public Pedagogy, Routledge.

Charman, K and Dixon, M 2024, Theorising Public Pedagogy: The Educative Agent in the Public Realm. Routledge.

Charman, K and Dixon, M 2022, Theory and Methods for Public Pedagogy Research, Routledge.

Charman, K, Dixon, M, Bellingham, R Thomas, M and Cooper, J 2017, ‘Educational Consciousness: Breaking Open the Category of Knowledge in Footscray’, Journal of Public Pedagogies, vol 2, pp. 54-63.

Sandlin, JA, Schultz, B and Burdick, J 2010 The Handbook of Public Pedagogy: Education and Learning Beyond Schooling. Routledge.

News

Looking Forward

A message from Karen Charman, Public Pedagogies Institute:

I hope this message finds you well. As you may be aware, the Public Pedagogies Institute has been in a bit of a hiatus, however now is the time to move forward and I would like to share with you some of the ideas and developments we have in progress.

The importance of thinking and doing education in settings that are open to generative possibilities can’t be underestimated. 

Recently I have been inspired by an international group whose focus is on Human Education in the Third Millennium. To this end the group has written a Global Declaration where they set out what education should be concerned with into the future. If you are interested in learning about the Global Declaration here is the link: Educating Humanity for the Third Millennium

I am part of the steering committee for the work of this group. Next year there will be a conference held on February 13-15 2025 at Azim Premji University (Bangalore, India). Link to conference details

The focus of this conference is how to put this declaration to work. This is a truly international group and as part of this broader network I am involved with a sub section of people who live in the Oceanic region.

I think the Public Pedagogies Institute has a role to play in the work of this group, after all our remit is learning and teaching beyond formal education. The projects of the Institute have been about foregrounding knowledge in all its iterations and I believe we are uniquely placed to think about future possibilities for education. 

Having said that, remembering and learning from the past is also important. To this end the Public Pedagogies Institute will be running a weekly seminar series in 2025 framed around the following questions:

  • How might history be informed by a public pedagogical framing?   
  • What are the histories of learning and teaching outside of formal education institutions?
  • How might approaches to public pedagogies benefit from engagement with the history of education?
  • How is the past remembered and in what ways is the past carried forward in the public realm? 
  • What pedagogical responsibilities do we as communities have to bring a public into a relationship with the past and what might the public contours of this engagement look like?

An official call for presentations and dates for the seminar series will be announced soon. 

Lastly, in future directions for the Journal of Public Pedagogies, I am looking for people who would be interested in being a part of the editorial committee for the Journal. The intent is to publish an edition next year. So please reach out if you would like to know more: Karen.Charman@vu.edu.au

Thank you for your interest and support for the Institute and I look forward to the work that we as Institute will continue to do.

Dr Karen Charman
Founder, Public Pedagogies Institute

Journal, News

PPI Journal Launch 2023

Artist-led approaches to public pedagogy in the Asia Pacific region, a Special Edition of the Journal of Public Pedagogies
Date and time

Thursday, August 10, 2023 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM AEST

Click here to register for the event

Forms for Encounter & Exchange: Artist-led approaches to public pedagogy in the Asia Pacific region, a Special Edition of the Journal of Public Pedagogies 

This event is co-hosted by CAST and Public Pedagogies Insitute.

There is a burgeoning field of artist-led pedagogic practices in the Asia Pacific region that employ forms of shared knowledge production in the public realm as a core ethical responsibility of creative and scholarly practice. From community-led archives to public learning, collective studying to public art interventions, and collaborative approaches to art-making — the range of contexts from which these artist-led public pedagogies arise directly influence their form and the way they are encountered. These artist-led forms for encounter and exchange can engage publics by challenging hegemonies, critiquing power, and engaging communities in civil dialogue about urgent local concerns. While the relationship between socially engaged art and public pedagogy is typically positioned through Eurocentric traditions as an extension of avant-garde art movements, community arts, or popular education, we are interested in practices which emerge in culturally attuned ways in their respective geopolitical contexts and value collective approaches over the individualism often imposed by western art education. 

This special edition aims to stimulate a dialogue between artists, collectives, researchers and organisers engaged in these practices. Guest co-edited by Ferdiansyah Thajib, Marnie Badham, Gatari Surya Kusuma, Diwas Raja Kc and Kelly Hussey-Smith, the articles in this special edition consider the following questions:

• How and why do artists organise through collective forms of public learning?

• How do these practices activate and nurture solidarity?

• How do artists describe and frame these practices in relation to their contexts?

• How do these practices critique and challenge the institutions of art and education?

• How do these forms for encounter and exchange produce and circulate knowledge?

The journal includes contributions from Paola Balla, Jacina Leong, Jill J Tan, Ambika Joshi & Diwas Raja Kc (Computational Mama); Michelle Aung Thin, David Carlin, Francesca Rendle-Short, Melody Ellis, & Lily Trope; ANGA Art Collective, Khoiril Maqin; Anathapindika Dai & Liza Markus (Fugitive Bakery); Riksa Afiaty in conversation with Moelyono; Amelia Wallin, Joel Stern & Channon Goodwin (Disorganising); Jan Brueggemeier & Neal Haslem

Program

1. Journal introduction and welcome – Ferdi Thajib & Kelly Hussey Smith 

2. Dr Paola Balla – Disrupting Artistic Terra Nullius: a focus on the processes and places of repair. Hosted by Ferdi Thajib

3. Short introductions from authors – Jacina Leong; Jill Tan; Melody Ellis and more TBC. Hosted by Marnie Badham

4. Computational Mama workshop – Ambika Joshi hosted by Diwas Raja Kc

5. Short introductions from authors – Khoiril Maqin; Jan Brueggemeier & Neal Haslem and more TBC. Hosted by Marnie Badham

6. Fugitive Bakery performance – Anathapindika Dai & Liza Markus. Hosted by Gatari Surya Kusuma

7. Closing remarks: Karen Charman

(Featured Image: Coffee and the Makers: one of the tools at the School of Improper Education, 2019, KUNCI, image by Agen OH)

Link to register for the launch

Link to Journal

News

Intergenerational Maps Project

This project is based around drawing together older, longer term residents with younger, newer residents in a local area they share.

Prior to the COVID pandemic, Gallery Sunshine Everywhere acquired funding from Brimbank Council and implemented the project in Sunshine, a suburb in Melbourne’s west. A report is available in the Projects section of www.gallerysunshine.com.

In 2019, Gallery Sunshine Everywhere joined with the Public Pedagogies Institute in a successful grant application to Moonee Valley Council to run a similar program in Flemington. 

With the various lockdowns in Melbourne, demolition of the Flemington Community Hub, the proposed location for the project, relocation of the Hub’s activities to other community settings, continuing preferences for online rather than in person activities along with staffing changes and considerable changes to the original plan, the Intergenerational Maps Project faced several false starts. Finally, in late 2022, it was decided to embed the project in the afterschool program conducted at Debney Meadows Primary School by the Edmund Rice Foundation. 

Finally, we conducted three sessions with large numbers of children each afternoon, along with the Edmund Rice Foundation mentors who work each week with the children.

Dr Iffat Khatoon welcomed the children to each session and gave them an overview of the project.

On Tuesday afternoon, local historian, Sheila Byatt led a wonderful session, capturing the attention of the Grade 3-4 children with the horseshoes and eucalyptus leaves she brought with her and lots of stories about local birds and more. Visiting artist Rhiannon Thomas then took over with a lively artwork session with students drawing their favourite local buildings.

On Wednesday afternoon, former Flemington PS principal, Rotary member and local identity, Lesley McCarthy spoke with the Grade 5-6 children, outside in the sunshine (competing with the loud building noise adjacent to the school). Together they looked at photographs of buildings and important past local events Lesley showed and which were displayed along the school walls. These told stories of old buildings, early images of familiar roads and more. Subsequently, Rhiannon Thomas led the students in an art session and they produced work to be added to the work from the other two days to form a collage documenting the Intergenerational Maps Project.

On Thursday afternoon, I shared stories from “The Stopover that stayed” by Grant Aldous with the young children, had them guess what the handmade nails I showed them were, talked about  Ballarat’s Sovereign Hill and how those who had visited had travelled there. We compared their travel experience with that of the gold diggers, looked at replica shakedowns from those days created by artist Dr Flossie Peitsch in acknowledgement of the shelter sheds Caroline Chisholm built especially for women and children making their way to the goldfields. After I showed the group a photo of my favourite local building, Flemington Post Office, the children shared theirs and with Rhiannon’s guidance produced their contributions to the collage.

Maureen Ryan
Director, Gallery Sunshine Everywhere

Conference, News

Aseel Tayah

As part of the Public Pedagogies Institute 2022 conference Sometimes Connect, we are excited to announce an hour with Aseel Tayah, creator of Bukjeh.

Aseel Tayah is a Melbourne-based Palestinian artist, creative director, and cultural leader who uses her practice to advocate for artists of colour, mothers, children, and young people, changing the world, one project at a time. She has recently been described as “an unstoppable force in the Australian cultural landscape.”

Through the power of storytelling, Aseel’s artistic practice creates awareness and facilitates connection by humanising the experiences of people who have been displaced.
As such, her work is embedded in the community and is often highly responsive to current issues. 

During Refugee Week 2020, Aseel curated produced, and presented a series of live online discussion panels featuring national and international artists and cultural leaders. The series attracted more than 40,000 views and led to an invitation to participate in the inaugural TEDx Melbourne PluggedIn event where she was awarded Best Speaker.

As a creative director and installation artist, Aseel has a wide range of experience; international highlights include We Too Want To Play, the establishment of Palestine’s first network of toy libraries and Fingerprint of an Arab Girl, an annual event showcasing the talents and achievements of girls living under occupation.

In Australia, collaborations include unique intercultural experiences such as Lullabies under the Stars, an Arabic/First Nations work for children, and the participatory installation Bukjeh, exploring stories of home and being forced to leave it.

Aseel exemplifies the use of art and creativity to achieve social justice and is renowned for her kindness, optimism, and generosity. She also has an incredible singing voice which she uses to connect hearts and harvest hope.

This event will be a feature of Day Two of the conference.

Public Pedagogies Institute Conference
November 24 -25, 2022, Footscray, Melbourne

Register Here

Aseel Tayah
Conference, News

Conference Registrations Open

Registrations are now open for the Public Pedagogies Institute 2022 conference – Sometimes Connect.

ABOUT

The annual conference of the Public Pedagogies Institute. The theme of this year’s conference is Sometimes Connect which seeks to explore what constitutes connection, how can alliances be built, what are the affordances for social change and what are moments of discord? The conference will include presentations, panel discussions and workshops, with a range of opportunities for participation. 

The conference will take place over two days and attendees are welcome to attend on one or both days. The conference is free for current students and there is a reduced fee for low income earners.

DATE

Thursday 24 November – Friday 25 November 2022

LOCATION

Victoria University Polytechnic, Footscray Nicholson Campus
238A Nicholson Street, Footscray

Keynote Speaker

Marnie Badham, artist-researcher

With a 25-year history of art and justice practice in both Canada and Australia, Marnie’s research sits at the intersection of socially engaged art practice, participatory methodologies, and the politics of cultural measurement. Through aesthetic and dialogic forms of encounter and exchange, Marnie’s collaborative social practices bring together disparate groups of people (artists, communities, industry, local government) in dialogue to examine and affect local issues.

Her recent collaborations include a participatory public performance following extreme weather events in the Dandenong Ranges; public art commissioning development on Wurundjeri and Bunurong Country with Vicki Couzens; expanded curation projects on food-art-politics; and a series of creative cartographies registering emotion in public space in the Yarra Ranges (AUS), Kamloops (CAN), and Cape Breton Island (CAN). Her book The Social Life of Artist Residencies: connecting with people and place not your own is soon to be released.

Marnie is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: towards a sustainable visual arts sector and contributes to industry standards on public art commissioning, artist residencies, and arts funding. She is Senior Lecturer at the School of Art, RMIT University. www.marrniebadham.com

Marnie Badham
Projects

Ped Talks


Hello and welcome to Pedtalks,  

This is the first in a series of podcasts presented by the public pedagogies Institute.

Ped Talks aim to contribute to the growing field of public pedagogy and interview artists, community educators and academics who identify with learning and teaching outside of formal institutions.

Our first interview is with Deb Bain King an artist who works in the west of Melbourne. 

Conference, News

Keynote speaker announced

The Public Pedagogies Institute is excited to announce Dr Marnie Badham as one of our keynote speakers for our 2022 conference Sometimes Connect.

Marnie Badham, artist-researcher

With a 25-year history of art and justice practice in both Canada and Australia, Marnie’s research sits at the intersection of socially engaged art practice, participatory methodologies, and the politics of cultural measurement. Through aesthetic and dialogic forms of encounter and exchange, Marnie’s collaborative social practices bring together disparate groups of people (artists, communities, industry, local government) in dialogue to examine and affect local issues.

Her recent collaborations include a participatory public performance following extreme weather events in the Dandenong Ranges; public art commissioning development on Wurundjeri and Bunurong Country with Vicki Couzens; expanded curation projects on food-art-politics; and a series of creative cartographies registering emotion in public space in the Yarra Ranges (AUS), Kamloops (CAN), and Cape Breton Island (CAN). Her book The Social Life of Artist Residencies: connecting with people and place not your own is soon to be released.

Marnie is a Chief Investigator on the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Ambitious and Fair: towards a sustainable visual arts sector and contributes to industry standards on public art commissioning, artist residencies, and arts funding. She is Senior Lecturer at the School of Art, RMIT University. www.marrniebadham.com

Marnie Badham