Art and Social Practice
Social Practice investigates the role of human interaction and social discourse in art making, institutions and systems of power, by drawing attention to and engaging with complex issues aiming effect social change. Collaborating with artists, communities, and institutions, this stream of CAST’s practice-led research is driven by an ethos of creativity, inclusivity, consultation and public participation. A combination of aesthetics, ethics, pedagogy, activism, advocacy and/or antagonism strategies and processes underpin social art projects motivated to change conditions and shift conditions of power.
Research Projects
Research Theme Leaders
Dr Marnie Badham
With a twenty-five-year history of art and social justice practice Australia and Canada, Marnie's research sits at the intersection of socially engaged art, community-based methodologies and the politics of cultural measurement. Marnie is currently focused on a series of creative cartographies registering emotion in public space and expanded curation projects on the aesthetics and politics of food. Her collaboration with National Association of Visual Arts ‘Ambitious and Fair: strategies for a sustainable visual arts sector’ has recently been awarded an Australia Research Council Linkage Project Grant and her book project The Social Life of Artist Residencies: connecting with people and place not your own is soon to be published with University of Calgary Press. Marnie is Senior Research Fellow at the School of Art at RMIT University in Melbourne.
marnie.badham@rmit.edu.au
Dr Kelly Hussey-Smith
Dr Kelly Hussey-Smith is an artist, researcher, and educator with over ten years’ experience working with community and advocacy groups in Australia. Her research interests focus on photography as a social practice, the politics of representation, and photography and ethics. She practices at the intersection of art, documentary, and social practice and has developed several educational projects around these intersections. She currently leads The Photo Lab—an off-site project in Collingwood where students, artists, and academics develop projects with local community groups and initiatives. She is a co-developer of the Doing Visual Politics workshop, symposium, and network in collaboration with Pathshala South Asian Media Institute (Bangladesh) and Photo.Circle (Nepal) and is currently a Lecturer in Photography at the RMIT School of Art.
kelly.hussey-smith@rmit.edu.au
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cast@rmit.edu.au
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