This module examines the dynamics, roles and politics of culture, art and creative agency in the reproduction and transformation of society and 'the radical imagination'. It focuses on the ways socially engaged/radical art and artists speak to and trouble the discursive and institutional formations that render difference ‘problematic’ and that contribute to the material consequences of marginalisation, disenfranchisement and inequality.
As such, art/arts practices will be critically explored (1) as objects of research (ie., as forms of cultural production that provide insights into understandings of society); (2) as forms of inquiry – (how, like other forms of 'research', they involve processes of social engagement, analysis and critique); (3) as acts of political intervention; and (4) as an area of scholarship that complements and informs contemporary debates in social science research concerning ethics, reflexivity and knowledge politics in relation to voice, representation, participation and broader decolonial projects.
This is an empirically- and practice-focused module that interrogates the relationships and tensions across epistemology, aesthetics and pedagogy through examination of ground-breaking works across a range of political histories, pressing social justice issues and national contexts. Through the transdisciplinary exploration of scholarship and collective critique of field-based projects, students will have the opportunity to cultivate new forms of research methodologies and critical analysis arising in the confluences of arts and social science scholarship and practice.