Materialising Methods

Based at Durham University, we are the UK's first Institute for Medical Humanities. Our research explores human experiences of health and ill-health using an interdisciplinary arts and humanities approach.

Institute for Medical Humanities

Un-black-boxing practice-based research at the interface of art and biomedical science.

W010 • Department of Geography • Durham University

A one-day symposium hosted by the <a href="https://medhumsplatform.org/" title="https://medhumsplatform.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities</a> at Durham University, in collaboration with <a href="https://cnos.ac.uk/" title="https://cnos.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Cultural Negotiation of Science research group</a> (Northumbria University) and <a href="http://hannahstarrogers.com/" title="https://medhumsplatform.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Hannah Star Rogers </a>(Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen).What can practice-based research tell us about working with disciplinary cultures that are not our own? With a focus on how contemporary art practices engage with expert cultures in health and biomedicine, this symposium foregrounds questions of method, practice and process in relation to interdisciplinary enquiry. Critical art practices are knowledge-producing practices that shape interdisciplinary research agendas. Yet within academic institutions, arts-based research has often been reduced to an instrumental or illustrative device. With the aim of sharing new narratives about what ‘counts’ as research in an interdisciplinary environment, and moving beyond a focus on public-facing ‘outputs’, this symposium asks how artists, curators and other scholars might ‘un-black-box’ or make manifest the questions, processes, inter-relations and power dynamics that inform practice-based research at the interface of art and science.Hybrid keynote: Art, Science, and the Politics of Methods<a href="http://hannahstarrogers.com/" title="http://hannahstarrogers.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Rogers </a>explores how the tools of Science and Technology Studies (STS) can provide critical insights into art and science projects, highlighting the practices of these knowledge-making communities as discussed in her book <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262543682/art-science-and-the-politics-of-knowledge/" title="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262543682/art-science-and-the-politics-of-knowledge/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Art, Science, and the Politics of Knowledge </a>(MIT Press, 2022). Rogers challenges the conventional boundaries between art and science, suggesting that these fields may be understood as knowledge communities constructing, maintaining, and manipulating their own boundaries. By demonstrating how STS methodologies are being applied by STS scholars to artistic practices and, conversely, how art can inform STS inquiry, Rogers highlights the emergence of a new subdiscipline—Art, Science, and Technology Studies (ASTS). This framework reimagines the categories of art and science and shows their changing states, with significant implications for understanding their roles in shaping social worlds.Find out more about the <a href="https://medhumsplatform.org/" title="https://medhumsplatform.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities</a>, <a href="https://cnos.ac.uk/" title="https://cnos.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">The Cultural Negotiation of Science Research Group</a>, and the speakers on the <a href="https://medhumsplatform.org/materializing-methods/" title="https://medhumsplatform.org/materializing-methods/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">dedicated webpage here</a>.This event is free to attend.Zoom details for the hybrid keynote will be circulated closer to the date.

Agenda

Registration and Coffee

Fiona Johnstone, Visual and Material Lab, Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities, Durham University

Welcome

Hannah Star Rogers, Copenhagen Medical Museion

Keynote: Art, Science, and the Politics of Methods

Lunch

Fiona Crisp and Laura Harrington, The Cultural Negotiation of Science research group, Northumbria University.

An introduction to the afternoon programme

Jackie Donachie, Grace Denton, Daksha Patel

Artists' Presentations and Discussion

Break

Helen Knowles, Alis Oldfield, Louise Mackenzie

Final Remarks and Shared Reflections

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