Sixteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

This paper considers ways in which art practices can re-contour the physical and cultural landscape of North Wales and serve as a catalyst for social resilience. The paper contextualizes iterations of art practices focusing particularly on varying aspects of gesture as a spatial practice. Citing projects which reimagine sites in order to rediscover a cultural identity and artistic potential through imaginative transformations, the paper discusses aspects of art and gesture, together with the various means of encounter and speculative enquiry that artists adopt to relate or bring art to everyday encounters. The paper outlines the notion of artistic activity as a more socially engaged practice and how this seeks to occupy the field of distribution. The paper seeks to establish how such projects are part of a broader tendency highlighting the potential of creative indeterminacy to push away from ‘art’ and to restore an embodied relationship to the world. The paper examines ways in which ‘art’s gesture’ within a public space can help to disclose potential breaches in the cultural infrastructure and engage the public with selected issues within society.

Presenters

Alec Shepley
Professor of Art & Society / Associate Dean for Research, Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology, Wrexham University, Wrexham [Wrecsam GB-WRC], United Kingdom

Susan Liggett
Associate Dean for Research, Reader in Fine Art, Faculty of Art Science and Technology, Glyndwr University, United Kingdom