Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

In recent years there is an expanding field of various forms of activities at the intersection between art and education that explicitly elide the regulated frameworks and, in exchange, practice experimental formats through more horizontal processes of dialogue and inter-relation with the public and the surroundings (Bishop 2012). These art mediation activities make use of alternative pedagogic methods and analyze the conditions of knowledge production with artistic means and interact with a variety of participants and audiences (Mörsch 2014). In this light art mediation is seen as a public practice (Sternfeld et al. 2013). Art mediation as a public practice is inspired by public pedagogy (Biesta 2012), seen as an enactment of a concern for “publicness”, which we can interpret as a concern for the public quality of human togetherness, or the possibility of actors and events to become public. The tension between democratization of culture and cultural democracy is central in these practices (Bonet and Négrier 2018). In our presentation we will explore the social role of the art practice Bodies Of Knowledge (BOK, Belgium) in the way they develop a public practice, fuelled with art mediation strategies. BOK is a nomadic class-room in public space and shared amongst co-learners. BOK researches the public space as a forum for the exchange of repressed or underexposed knowledge which connect with the multilayered and plural urban fabric. In this paper we discuss BOK as a public practice going beyond the tension between democratization of culture and cultural democracy.