ROTO? Review

The ROTO? partnership between Huddersfield Art Gallery and the University of Huddersfield was established in 2011. ROTO? I and II was a programme of eight exhibitions and accompanying events that commenced in 2012 and was completed in 2013. ROTO? continues into 2014 and the programme for 2015 and 2016 is already firmly underway. In brief, the aim of ROTO? is to improve the cultural vitality of Kirklees, expand audiences, and provide new ways for people to engage with and understand academic research in contemporary art and design. Why ROTO? , Why Now? As Vice Chancellors position their institutions? identities and future trajectories in context to national and international league tables, Professor John Goddard1 proposes the notion of the ?civic? university as a ?place embedded? institution; one that is committed to ?place making? and which recognises its responsibility to engaging with the public. The civic university has deep institutional connections to different social, cultural and economic spheres within its locality and beyond. A fundamental question for both the university sector and cultural organisations alike, including local authority, is how the many different articulations of public engagement and cultural leadership which exist can be brought together to form one coherent, common language. It is critical that we reach out and engage the community so we can participate in local issues, impact upon society, help to forge well-being and maintain a robust cultural economy. Within the lexicon of public centered objectives sits the Arts Council England?s strategic goals, and those of the Arts and Humanities Research Council ? in particular its current Cultural Value initiative. What these developments reveal is that art and design education and professional practice, its projected oeuvre as well as its relationship to cultural life and public funding, is now challenged with having to comprehensively audit its usefulness in financially austere times. It was in the wake of these concerns coming to light, and of the 2010 Government Spending Review that ROTO? was conceived. These issues and the discussions surrounding them are not completely new. Research into the social benefits of the arts, for both the individual and the community, was championed by the Community Arts Movement in the 1960s. During the 1980s and ?90s, John Myerscough and Janet Wolff, amongst others, provided significant debate on the role and value of the arts in the public domain.

שפה

English

הוצאה

University of Huddersfield Press

מהדורות

1

עמודים

24

ISBN

9781862181199

מקור הנתונים: Wikidata