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Call for Papers

Forms for Encounter & Exchange:
artist-led approaches to public pedagogy in the Asia Pacific region  

Call for Abstracts:
Special Edition of the Public Pedagogies Journal 202

Keywords: the commons, informality, community, ethics, publics, collectives, grassroots, art & activism, peer learning, public/private space, engagement, collaboration, radical pedagogy.

There is a burgeoning field of artist-led pedagogic practices in the Asia Pacific region that employs 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.  

As forms of public pedagogy, these practices tend to value collective approaches over the individualism imposed by western art education (KUNCI, 2020; Jurriens, 2020). 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 (Badham, 2019; Thompson, 2012), we extend this invitation to practices which emerge in culturally attuned ways in their respective geopolitical contexts. 

This special edition aims to stimulate a dialogue between artists, researchers and organisers who are engaged in these practices. We are particularly interested in practices of public pedagogy that: create sites for the emergence of new questions and the circulation and sharing of knowledge(s) in the public realm through artistic forms and relational pedagogical encounters (Charman & Dixon, 2021); are formed outside of institutional contexts, address social tensions, and build networks of solidarity; and are led by artists while privileging local aesthetics and community self-determination. 

We invite artists, researchers and organisers to submit critical, creative and/or experimental contributions to this special edition that explores the relationship between forms for encounter and exchange of artist-led public pedagogies and their contexts. We welcome scholarly articles (5000-8000 words), creative submissions (video, audio, or images), or a combination of creative and scholarly work.

We are particularly interested in submissions that intersect with the following questions:

  • How and why do artists organise 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 – conceptually, politically and/or aesthetically?
  • How do these practices critique and challenge the institutions of art and education? 
  • How do publics encounter these forms for encounter and exchange?
  • How do these artist-led forms for encounter and exchange produce and circulate knowledge?

The Journal of Public Pedagogies is a peer-reviewed academic journal that is published by the Public Pedagogies Institute. The journal publishes research and practice in learning and teaching that extends beyond the boundaries of traditional or formal educational institutions. These areas may include arts, community engagement, social pedagogy, public history, work in and research on public institutions such as museums, libraries, neighbourhood houses, community centers, as well as practice, research and evaluation in public pedagogies.  

For more information: Please contact any member of our editorial committee to discuss your submission:

How to submit an abstract: send the summary of your article (500 word abstract) or creative work (300 words + and one web link to related artworks or attach three sample images) by April 30th to karen.charman@vu.edu.au. Full contributions are due July 30th. 

References

Badham, M 2019, ‘Spectres of evaluation indeterminacy and the negotiation of value (s) in socially engaged art,’ Co Creation, No. 5, pp. 205-216.

Charman, K & Dixon, M 2021, Theory and methods for public pedagogy research, Routledge.

Hussey-Smith, K (2022 forthcoming) ‘Towards community praxis in community-oriented art education’ McQuilten, G. & Palmer D. (eds.) The world we want: Dystopian & utopian impulses in art making, Intellect: UK.

Jurriëns, E 2020, ‘Indonesian Artivism: Layers of performativity and connectivity’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, vol, 20 no.2, pp. 231-252.

Kc, Diwas Raja (ed.) 2018, Dalit: A quest for dignity. Nepal Picture Library.

KUNCI Study Forum & Collective 2020, ‘The school of improper education’, Critical Times, vol.3 no. 3, pp. 566-578.

Thompson, N (ed.) 2012, Living as form: Socially engaged art from 1991-2011. MIT Press.

Images:

1 One of the tools at the School of Improper Education, KUNCI (2019), Coffee and the Makers, illustration by Agen OH

2 Public Reading as Resistance (2019- ongoing) convened by Kelly Hussey Smith and Marnie Badham, RMIT University lawn, Melbourne, photo by Ceri Hann

3 & 4 An exhibition view of Nepal Picture Library’s The Public Life of Women from Photo Kathmandu 2018, photo by Chemi

Public Pedagogies of Location: seminars

We now have available video recordings of some of the online presentations from our 2020 seminar series:
Public Pedagogies of Location

Seminar 2 – October 8, 2020
Visual Considerations and Contemplations
Presented by BelindaMacGill 

……………..

Seminar 3 – October 15, 2020
Narrative Panoramas: surfacing tacit knowledge through material translation and co-analysis of lived experience
Presented by Kelly Anderson

………….

Seminar 4 – October 22, 2020
The Educative Agent and Authority in Public Pedagogy
Karen Charman and Mary Dixon

…….

Seminar 6 – November 5, 2020
Locations of Law or non Law
by Peter Alsen 

Publicness: Seminar Series

The Public Pedagogies Institute 2021 online seminar series will take place this year from October to November.

The theme for this year is Publicness.

Cost: A$120 full price, A$60 concession
(free for students and unwaged; pay-forward will also operate)

Format: Zoom meeting hosted by Karen Charman, Chairperson PPI

View full program

Registrations are now open, please follow link below to register:

Register now

Week 1

Friday October 8, 10.30 am-12.30 pm

Public Space, Spontaneous Memorials and ‘Everyday’ Cultures of Grief During Covid-19
Deborah Madden

An Exploration of the Politics of Public Statues –their Installation, Denigration and Destruction
Debbie Qadri

………………………………………………………………………

Week 2

Friday October 15, 10.30 am – 12.30 pm

Playspaces in public places: The ethical and social challenges of a pop up urban playspace in Melbourne, Australia
Mary-Rose McLaren and colleagues

Publicness and pages: co-publishing with children then and now
Victoria Ryle and Simon Spain

…………………………………………………………………………

Week 3

Friday October 22, 10.30 am -12.30 pm

Private Life is Public Business
Jaye Early

The Ephemeral Public
Karen Charman and Mary Dixon

…………………………………………………………………………

Week 4

Friday October 29, 10.30 am-12.30 pm

The Mid-Apocalypse of Mass Incarceration: Conceptualizing new Publics by Generating Pedagogies of Publicness
Janelle Grant

Local publics and community-determined action
Helen Rodd

……………………………………………………………………………

Week 5

Friday, November 5, 10:30am -12:30pm

Forms for Encounter and Exchange: towards a reparative approach to social aesthetics
Kelly Hussey–Smith and Marnie Badham, School of Art, RMIT University accompanied by students and community partners

…………………………………………………………………………

Week 6

Friday, November 12, 10:30am -12:30pm

Plenary session
Bronwyn Sutton and Debbie Qadri

Journal of Public Pedagogies—Launch
Guest Editors: Jennifer Sandlin and Jake Burdick

Global Learning Festival

Co-leads Wyndham City Council and Melton City Council are excited to invite communities and organisations to register events for the second Global Learning Festival, set to occur online from 8-11 November 2021.  Expressions of Interest are now open and events need to be free to the community, run between 8-11 November 2021 in any time zone globally, be held online and be linked to learning in some way.  

You can register your event here, open until September 2021:

https://www.globallearningfestival.com/

Call for seminar proposals: Publicness

Public Pedagogies Institute 2021 Seminar Series

Proposals are invited that address the theme of: Publicness

Last year PPI ran its first virtual seminar series. It was a resounding success! Each of the weekly 2 hour seminars provided an interactive session accompanied by readings and generated lively discussions. Our shared international experience of COVID has provoked the theme and context for our 2021 seminar series.

Our new COVID world brings new spaces of inquiry around theorizing ‘publicness’: who, where, and what “counts” as “public” or “publicness”? How might we consider publicness in the light of various forms of exposure, escape, invasion, intrusion, illumination, dissolution, and dissolving of the boundaries of public and private spheres? 

Program Seminar series: 

Times: 10.30am -12.30pm AEST

Dates:
Friday, October 8
Friday, October 15
Friday, October 22
Friday, October 29
Friday, November 5
Friday, November 12 (Plenary Session and Launch of PPI Journal)

Cost: A$120 full price, or A$60 concession
(free for students and unemployed; pay-forward will also operate)

Format: Zoom meeting hosted by Karen Charman Chairperson PPI

Proposal due date: June 30, 2021

Proposals are invited around the theme of ‘Publicness’. The abstract provides some threads which may be taken up in the series. The seminar topics are not, however, limited to these ideas around Publicness. Keeping in mind the series will be held via zoom, interactive presentations are particularly welcomed. It is requested that the proposal be limited to 800 words and accompanied by a brief synopsis of the proposed seminar agenda and at least 2 suggested pre-readings.

Please email proposals to Karen Charman: Karen.Charman@vu.edu.au

Full abstract

(Featured Image above: Hosier Lane, by Debbie Qadri)

Theory and Methods for Public Pedagogy Research

New Book Release:

Theory and Methods for Public Pedagogy Research
Karen Charman and Mary Dixon


Theory and Methods for Public Pedagogy Research introduces promising new methods of public pedagogy research centered around transforming rather than explaining knowledge. The new methods are premised on a new theorisation of public pedagogy which recognises the educative agent. The agency of the public to speak, to be heard, to know is manifest as the educative agent speaks their knowledge and the researcher must be attentive to that speaking. This book will be of interest to researchers and students in the field of public education and teaching in a variety of social science and arts disciplines, and education.

A 20% discount on book purchase is available – see link to flyer below for further details.

https://www.publicpedagogies.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Theory-and-Methods-for-Public-Pedagogy-Research-Flyer-2.pdf

Call for Papers: Apocalyptic Pedagogies

Call for Papers: Journal of Public Pedagogies special issue

Apocalyptic Pedagogies: Rethinking Publics and Publicness in the Time of Apocalypse

Guest Edited by Jake Burdick & Jennifer A. Sandlin

This issue centers on the public in an historical moment that is characterized by the metaphor of exposure. Under the aegis of COVID-19, we have fled public spaces out of fear of exposure to the virus, and simultaneously, the nature of the public itself has been subject to an exposure more akin to that of photography. COVID, as well as the overlapping sociocultural pandemics of racism, austerity, and fascism, has shone a light into, through, and across the institutions that we hail as public; created the desire for new spaces of public discourse and pedagogies; exposed disturbingly racist and violent movements for ‘freedom’ that had formerly been mostly hidden from sight; and potentially has been revealed as an ultimately illusory construct. The public has been lauded, even fetishized, across the history of Western thought, from its inception as a site of purportedly democratic discourse in antiquity to contemporary social thought that hails it as a space set apart from a world all-but-swallowed by the ravenousness of privatism and late capitalism.

Read full call for papers and submission details here


Final submissions can be:
● full length articles (5,000 to 6,000 exclusive of references) that theoretically and/or empirically attend to understanding apocalyptic pedagogies, publics, and/or publicness (these will be double blind peer reviewed)
● short texts (1000 to 1500 words) that explicate a particular public or pedagogy of publicness
● photo essays with short descriptions/theorizations

Deadlines (updated):
● January 8, 2020: Proposal/expression of interest (250 words plus 50-word bio)
● February 1, 2021 authors will be notified of acceptance of their proposal
● May 1, 2021 final submissions due for blind peer review

Learning about location in a climate of change

As part of our 2020 seminar program a session was conducted by the Climate Change Education Network (CCEN) titled Learning about Location in a Climate of Change.

The following are some samples of the group poetry and other reflections that were created during the session and more can be viewed on the CCEN website.

The seminar was created and presented by CCEN members Bronwyn Sutton, Gen Blades, Meg Upton and Peta White for the Public Pedagogies Institute Online Seminar Series Public Pedagogies of Location.

For more information about the seminar please contact CCEN.

Human spirit

Thirsty
Thirsty for new possibilities
New elders to guide our way

Surrender to unmanicured dynamics
Out of our control
Land(E)scaping
Becoming, reclamation, resilience

The Human spirit
The Cactus spirit
The Virus spirit
The Earth spirit

No borders
One spirit

I noticed the absence of aircraft in the sky
Thirsty for normalcy but for somethings that are new
Waters are calm but impending feeling of
something will happen
Precariousness
Notion of human control is drastically changed

“It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world” – Mary Oliver


A storyline

A courtyard tree
A bunch of lemons
A miniature pony
A camping ground
A roughened barked tree
Ducks and masks
Coping strategies
Dissonance between Fahrenheit and Celsius
Dissonance between human and natural and human world

The natural world is still doing its great big thing
The fact that we are more contained means we may have moved back to a different rhythm
Changing scale, changing sense of time
We notice it more

Movement and connecting to space
Quietness of tone,

Reflective, taking time to pause, look and appreciate,

The current capacity of nature to continually regenerate?


Collage of pictures to illustrate temporality with word phrases to help speak to the images and highlight our theme of noticing.

Because we are here…
connecting inside outside.
Connecting with life,
the cycle of life.

This place was once burnt by grassfires but now it’s grown back

This place was once burnt by grassfires
but now it’s grown back

Questions of life, death, sickness, & strength

Questions of life, death, sickness, & strength

The continuum of time - past, present and future.

The continuum of time – past, present and future.

Receding glaciers in Iceland - A constant and a change

Receding glaciers in Iceland – A constant and a change

Beauty that reminds me of home

Beauty that reminds me of home

This is a timeless desert in Namibia - out of time - ever changing yet never changing

This is a timeless desert in Namibia – out of time –
ever changing yet never changing

Bees collecting pollen and nectar in Spring like they do every year at this time

Bees collecting pollen and nectar in Spring
like they do every year at this time

the dead and the exchange of matter between stateds

The dead and the exchange of matter between states

More information about the session and examples of group work are available on the CCEN website.