IN-PERSON London. Section B
Abstract
The prolonged adoption of neo-liberal economic and political ideologies by recent UK governments has significantly reshaped public life. Embracing free-market capitalism while limiting government intervention, endorsing deregulation, privatization, and reducing public spending have notably eroded civil society and transformed urban landscapes. Amid these challenges, we pose the question: Can arts and culture catalyse a shift in focus, not through conventional design and planning initiatives, but by redefining the essence of the ‘social’ within the city? While art has found its place in city planning through public art and community cohesion efforts in regeneration and gentrification processes, our argument in this paper revolves around the role of art in disassembling and reassembling the very notion of the social. Drawing insights from Bruno Latour’s influential work, ‘Reassembling the Social’ (Latour, 2005), we explore his idea that the ‘social’ is an ever-evolving construct. Latour challenges traditional social science paradigms by disputing the presumption of an inherent social existence. This perspective emphasizes the active formation of the social, transcending fixed preconceptions. Additionally, through the presentation of our own artworks, we aim to explore art’s potential role in this formative process. This perspective, paralleled in Actor Network Theory (ANT), extends the relevance of artworks as active agents shaping the social fabric of the city. In conclusion, we posit that by reconceptualizing the social in this manner, art assumes a crucial role not only in rebuilding associational life but also as a contributor to the very production of the social world.
Mel Jordan is Professor of Art and the Public Sphere and is acting director of the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University. Until 2020, she was Head of Contemporary Art Practice at the Royal College of Art. In 2018, Jordan formed the Partisan Social Club (http://partisansocialclub.com), previously she worked as part of the Freee art collective. Her research is about the potential of art as a political tool through its role as a form of opinion formation in the public domain. As the Partisan Social Club, exhibitions include Coventry Biennial; Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall.
Andrew Hewitt is Professor of Art and the Public Sphere and co-lead for the Art and Design Research Centre at the University of Northampton. In 2018, Hewitt formed the Partisan Social Club (http://partisansocialclub.com). From 2005 to 2018, he was a member of the Freee art Collective. His research is concerned with the potential of art as a political tool through its role as a form of opinion formation in the public domain. He has exhibited at the Istanbul Biennial, the Liverpool Biennial, BAK, Utrecht; Wysing Arts, Cambridge; SMART Project Space, Amsterdam; the ICA London; and Centro Cultural, Montehermoso, Spain.
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Thursday 27th June, 2024