Programme for Launch, Tuesday 12th February

Part 1 ‘research challenges and solutions’ (1hr 10mins)

What complexities or biases have you encountered with regards to your research material and/or methodology? What compromises or adaptations did these challenges birth? How can we reconstruct the irretrievable within scholarship? In other words, when primary material yields only cursory, second-hand accounts of a cultural product or event, should research still strive for objectivity by referring to the work’s surrounding cultural context or is one licensed, even obliged, to integrate subjectivity into any reading?

Please send the image or text for your slide by midday on Monday, 11th February, to lucy.byford@ed.ac.uk

Part 2 ‘display and reconstruction’ (30 mins)

What tensions are encapsulated by particular exhibitions, performances or other projects, past or present, that evidence engagement with poorly-documented, overlooked, or uncategorisable media? How have recent exhibitions or projects successfully or unsuccessfully navigated problems of reconstruction, facsimile or revival and what do technological advances hold for the future for these points of public engagement?

What elements of monetary and social value are at play in contexts of exhibition and recreation?

[Optional to send in content for a slide]

Part 3 ‘between theory and praxis’ (35 mins)

How, if at all, may a practitioner’s engagement with a medium or art form affect our understanding of a discipline? What tensions remain between scholarship and praxis, and what are the corresponding arguments for their separation or interaction? Are scholars in the humanities unnecessarily redirecting emphasis from materiality and methods of making, or do evolving areas of study in material culture and of materiality signal a shift towards a greater acknowledgement of the importance of process in assessing cultural outputs?

[Optional to send in content for a slide]

Part 4: Tying up and moving ahead (30 mins)

Based on issues highlighted in the discussion, what form of collaborative project with an art's organisation would be most beneficial to the cohort?

We will show a short list of potential speakers to invite for event no. 2, asking members to state their preference or pitch any alternatives.

Approximate running times

14:15 Pre workshop teas and coffees (15mins)

14:30 Part 1 (1hr 10mins)

15:40 Part 2 (30 mins)

16:10 Break with refreshments (15 mins)

16:25 Part 3 (35 mins)

17:00 Part 4 (30 mins)

17:30 End