Last Monday I went to a symposium at FACT, Liverpool called “Socially Engaged Arts Practice and New Model Visual Arts Organisations”. At the core of this was research led by Lynn Froggett of UCLAN, funded by Arts Council, Northern Rock Foundation and the Gulbenkian Foundation, focused on four key case studies of organisations – FACT, Grizedale Arts, ArtAngel and Centre of Contemporary Art, Glasgow.
What follows is some notes about the research that was presented, with thoughts particularly relating to folly's newly launched BUGs research taskforce, which aims to examine the impact of socially engaged digital arts practice on the digitally excluded. These notes certainly aren't exhaustive, but overall there was a lot of really interesting, relevant and thought-provoking presentations and debate at the event, and I'm looking forward to reading the full research report. (I've divided my notes into 4 main headings/themes, and it's a bit lengthy, so apologies in advance...)
