On March 10th 2023 I took part in the final planning sessions for the exhibition ‘Economics the Blockbuster – It’s not Business as Usual‘ scheduled to open at The Whitworth Art Gallery on 30th June 2023.

In February 2022 a joint article ‘Hacking education: Arte Útil as an educational methodology to foster change in curriculum planning’, written between myself and my long term colleague and collaborator Alessandra Saviotti. At the time of writing, I was also acting as Lead Supervisor for Alessandra’s PhD by Practice. The article was published online as part of the ‘Art & the Public Sphere’ Journal (Volume 11 Number 1). There is a pdf version of this article on the Writing Tab of this website).

ABSTRACT

Artworks operating at the intersection of art and education often attempt to chal-lenge dominant education systems in suggesting alternative pedagogical models that could function outside the official academic realm, proposing radical changes to the latter. However, the lack of continuity of alternative education models imple-mented by artists and curators within universities’ art and design departments fails to provide a longer-term change. This article stems from our research on the usological turn, a recent shift from spectatorship to usership according to which artists and curators tend to create art projects which situate themselves as part of a broader usership. Using an autoethnographic approach, we will analyse how the principles of the art group Arte Útil intersects with the undercommons. Hence, we explore how they apply an alternative method, through participatory curriculum planning, as a tool for change within the institution of education.

On the 27^th January 2023 the exhibition ‘Horizon Garden’ opened at Ty Pawb in Wrexham, North Wales

According to Jo March, Creative Director of Ty Pawb, “the intention of ‘Horizon Garden’ was to provide a working and constituent example of how exhibitions don’t need to be ‘end points’ – resolved presentations where we share what we, the institution, have concluded”. Instead, for Marsh, “the exhibition can be one moment for dialogue, sharing, dreaming, planning and reflecting, within a long trajectory….in this instance around community growing as a response to shared urgencies of climate emergency, social isolation, loneliness and food poverty.”