From Critical Studies to Public Programming: Public Knowledge at the Post-Democratic Impasse.

This one-day symposium charts the impetus for Critical Studies programmes in Art Schools in the UK and Europe since the 1970s, to the proliferation of discursive events in the neoliberal art world today.

The term 'public programming’, in use at least since the 1990s, has arisen as a framework to speak about pedagogical initiatives across various public cultural institutions. It continues legacies from gallery education, new institutionalism, and independent pedagogic projects, which have contributed to the formation of art audiences.

This symposium aims to explore the trajectory of Critical and Complementary Studies courses in post-Coldstream art schools, often feminist and Marxist in orientation, to the phenomena of public programming. What does it mean today when art institutions host art school’s Critical Studies courses (see eg, ICA) and when universities brand and advertise their evening lectures series as Public Programmes? What is the relationship between the discursive spaces of the gallery and the art school? How do we move from the relentless production of critical thematics, and move toward new forms of public pedagogy?

This is the third research event in the Public Programming series, which explores how the democratic and critical premises that were the basis of a publicly produced culture and debate are now becoming undone, caught in the paradoxes of post-democratic institutions and under the pervasive push of event economies.

The first study day in the series, held at Middlesex University in June 2016 sketched out the field, its genealogies and problematics. The second workshop, held at Nottingham Contemporary in 2017, explored how museum public programmes have worked with social movements in Spain, Greece, Italy, Croatia and elsewhere, and the use of public programming in social centres and autonomous spaces.

Full programme and guest contributors will be announced soon.