This is to warmly invite you to the launching event of Warwick’s School of Creative Arts Performances and Visual Cultures seminar series.

Caring the future: arts as social poiesis in an age of crisis 

This seminar is concerned with the reconfiguration of artistic practices as they emerge at the crossroad between the political, social and economic realms. Discussing the work of Maddalena Fragnito, Emanuele Braga and Andy Abbott, we explore art as radical thought and action that intervene in the social fabric of the city. We will consider specific artistic practices currently challenging existing notion of care, exploring forms of financial, social and environmental sustainability. In conversation with Alberto Cossu, Heidi Ashton and Jonathan Cane, we investigate the potentialities and implications of artistic forms of care, how they can challenge existing technologies and institutions while creating new ones.

Wednesday 9^th February 2022 – 17:00 18:30 Online. Register here

Maddalena Fragnito is a feminist artist and activist. Currently, Doctoral Student at Coventry University’s Centre for Postdigital Cultures. Co-autor of Rebelling with Care (2019) and Ecologie della cura. Prospettive transfemministe (2022).

Andy Abbott is an artist, musician, writer, and arts organiser who lives in Halifax, West Yorkshire, UK. He has exhibited and performed internationally as an individual artist and in various collaborations including the art collective Black Dogs. He is Visiting Research Curator of the UNIDEE Residency Programmes for Cittadellarte Fondazione-Pistoletto in Biella, Italy 2020 – 2022 where he is delivering hybrid programmes of remote and situated learning for international artists exploring facets of ‘embedded arts practice’. In 2020 he co-founded UBI Lab Arts: a group for artists and artworkers who are interested in using creative methods to deepen and broaden the conversation about Universal Basic Income. http://www.cittadellarte.it/unidee/people.html 

Emanuele Braga is an artist, researcher and activist, operating in various contexts on the relationship between art, economy, labour and new technologies. He's co-founder of Balletto Civile dance company, MACAO, new centre for art and culture in Milan, Landscape Choreography and IRI — Institute of Radical Imagination. He's a lecturer in Big Data and Digital Methods at the Milan State University.

Alberto Cossu is a sociologist and media scholar. His research investigates artistic and creative work, collaborative work and the digital economy. His monograph Autonomous Art Institutions is being published by Rowman and Littlefield International. He has published on Social Media + Society, European Journal of Cultural Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Sociologia del Lavoro and Studi Culturali. He currently works at the University of Leicester, where he directs the MA in Digital Media & Society.

Heidi Ashton is a researcher and lecturer at the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies and a choreographer / movement director in film, television and theatre. Her research centres around work in the cultural and creative sector and in particular freelance working. This includes an interest in the social and economic policies and structures that shape and impact upon creative work and labour markets.

Jonathan Cane is based in History of Art at the University of Warwick. He holds a PhD in Art History from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and is the author Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld (2019), a queer and postcolonial study of gardening.

Curated and chaired by Carolina Bandinelli, Associate Professor in Media and Creative Industries at the University of Warwick.