Module Information

Aims of the module:

(a) to develop skills in creative entrepreneurship, encouraging students to think expansively about themselves as their own project, and their work as a creative product;
(b) to identify and examine the impact of creative practices on public policy and public life, ensuring the development of relevant, responsive and engaged student work;
(c) to examine public funding and support for creative arts and exploring a changing landscape of debates about public participation and engagement;
(d) to enable dialogue with artists, audiences and funders, and the co-design and co-construction of creative research projects;
(e) to interrogate the political and aesthetic dynamics of engaging publics, in particular the practices of relational aesthetics and the discourse of participatory democracy;
(f) to facilitate and develop creative strategies for public engagement with research, providing a firm grounding in current debates about research impact and engagement.

The module will be organized through thematically focused blocks of study, inter-relating practical and theoretical topics and areas of inquiry:

Content:

1. Economies
1.1 Contexts of production and reception: from industrial to networked practices
1.2 Creative entrepreneurship

2. Ecologies
2.1 Creating sustainable practice: location, innovation and renewal
2.2 Site-specifics

3 Politics
3.1 Democratic participation and citizenship: aesthetic modes of engagement with the political
3. 2 Relational aesthetics

4. Institutions
4.1 Public funding and public service: instrumentality and effectiveness
4.2 Situated investigative enquiry and the logic of dissemination and impact

5. Audiences
5.1 Creative 'uses' of arts practices: creative labour and the aesthetic-politics of co-production
5.2 Reception, response and responsibility

The module will be taught through seminar-workshops with a focus on learning through action-research and critical exploration. Contents may be adjusted to capitalize on the expertise available, both of research staff and visiting lecturers.
A fortnightly 'Methods of Practice Seminar' will accompany the module, offering support for the precise requirements of the modular assessment assignments and examining the ways in which the issues and materials examined might open up questions of public engagement that can be made operational through specific strategies. This will support and help inform the final research project/dissertation as well as ensure adequate preparation for public engagement post-graduation.