Re-connecting: Value creation in artistic and design research

This session is part of the PhD seminar series “Re-worlding” art and design research.
MAD-Research (PXL-MAD and UHasselt) and ArcK (UHasselt)

This seminar dives into how findings in a particular and situated context can be connected to other actors in society: musea, art collectives, policy etc. It introduces us to how art and design researchers share their research with the world and enter into productive collaborations with the world and evaluate these collaborations.

Our initiatives for change require some feedback - to us - to know that what we are doing is achieving what we set out to - and to the world around us - be that funders or those we seek to engage in supporting or sponsoring our activities. When we reworld, we ask more of this process than many evaluation procedures can map to. There is some hint of ontological change and a journey to places beyond what we can know now. How is it possible to give confidence in the direction of travel when the issues are complex and intrinsically uncertain or indeterminable? The goal of this session is to look at reconnection as a process of valuing and making links between worlds, not only as ideas but as pathways that we seek to travel and to know we have travelled.

Program:

This seminar sets up a dialogue and exchange with MAU, Malmö University, K3 (Moderators: Anna Seravalli and Ann Light)

• 12.00-12.10 Welcome, short intro to the theme and program
• 12.10-12.25 Theoretical perspective about value creation and how to "measure" it by Joost Vervoort of Utrecht University, researcher in the CreaTures project (https://creatures-eu.org/)
  
  Joost Vervoort is Associate Professor of Foresight and Anticipatory Governance in the Environmental Governance Group at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development. He is also a Honorary Research Associate at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford and a Visiting Fellow at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto Japan. Joost is a Fellow of the Urban Futures Studio, a Fellow of the Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges, and a member of the Utrecht Young Academy, where he leads a project on the use of the future across UU. An ecologist by training, Joost holds a PhD from Wageningen University in stakeholder engagement through scenarios and other approaches to sense-making in and navigating through complex systems. (https://www.uu.nl/medewerkers/JMVervoort)
  
  
• 12.25-12.40 Case Malmö Tillsammans: a cross-sector project to support local development in Malmö. The presentation raises concrete challenges/questions about ongoing work with valuing and making links between worlds (https://malmotillsammans.se/, in Swedish)
  
  Priyanka Mellergård John presents Malmö Together (Malmö Tillsammans), a cross-sector project driven by Sensus (an organization that focus on non-formal and voluntary education), Malmö Ideella (an umbrella organization for civil society associations in Malmö), Nyföretagarcentrum Öresund (an organization that supports entrepreneurship in the Malmö region) and the city of Malmö. The goal of the project is to support citizens driven initiatives to address societal issues like segregation, inequality and unemployment in three areas of Malmö. In each area an incubator will be established. The incubators together work as an innovation platform for the whole city. Malmö Together aims at being a resource for associations, companies and citizens in Malmö to address issues that are important for them, find solutions and create a sustainable city for everybody.
  

• 12.40-13:30 discussion in small groups with one representative from Malmö Tillsammans in each group
  • Questions to be discussed:
    
    • How do we bring together different views, structures and practices across organizations?
    • How should we value the different contributions when we bring these things together?
    • Which principles do we choose to "measure" the actions we take together?
      
      
• 13:00-13:30 reporting from the groups and general discussion

Learning outcomes

During this seminar, participants will...

• learn to publish and present own research in ways close to art and design research,
• learn to discuss the values of this research in relation to academic and other criteria.

Competences

An important part of preparing for any further professional step is becoming (more) aware of the competences you have developed and/or want to develop. In this seminar, the following competences from the UHasselt competency overview are actively dealt with:

• academic research competences:
  • publication skills
• interpersonal competences:
  • presentation skills
• intellectual competences:
  • critical judgment
    
    

For whom?

• PhD students and other researchers from the Faculty of Architecture and Arts
• Researchers from other institutions who like to participate are always kindly asked to first contact the coordinators by email (bert.willems@pxl.be - liesbeth.huybrechts@uhasselt.be).

When and where?

• August 24, 2021 - 12:00-13:30
• This course will be organized digitally

Registration?

• Registration closed since August 15, 2021
• As places are limited, registering does not automatically imply that you will be able to participate. You will be notified by email in due time.
• Please cancel your registration at least one week in advance in case you cannot make it (cf. cancellation & no-show policy).

Acknowledged as?

• category 'advanced discipline-specific knowledge'