Research Theme: Social Art Inclusion Lab (SAIL)
Researching and encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion in social arts practice, policymaking and access to culture — where art and people meet.
Research summary
About our research
The Social Art Inclusion Lab (SAIL) draws together artists, scholars, social art participants, social activists and policymakers from within and beyond Manchester Metropolitan University to interrogate social art practice at both a local and global level. The research aims to better understand how artists, activists, policymakers and scholars can work with the public in diverse geo-political contexts to co-create art, culture and policy with genuine relevance and impact.
We are interested in the places and experiences where art and people meet. As artists, art historians, anthropologists, performers and activists we offer expert knowledge in the expansive field of social art. Our focus is on research and practice in the in-between realms, where participation and inclusion in creation and performance take centre stage—and are critically interrogated and evaluated.
In acting as a stimulus for research and practice around socially-engaged arts, SAIL offers an expanded notion of research, to include participants’ accounts of their lived experience, artists’ social artworks, industry-facing reports, monographs and scholarly texts.
We organise symposia, such as Setting SAIL an inaugural meeting of participants, social artists and scholars, and Asia Triennial, a two-week festival of art, poetry, film, immersive installation and performance that celebrates Asian cultures.
Our activities include:
- contemporary art practices in health and social care settings
- value and impact of social art practices
- histories of social art practices
- equality diversity and inclusion in arts and culture
- trans-locality and multi- or trans-cultural identities and communities
In the SAIL research cluster, we teach a range of MA and MFA courses. We offer practice-focused approaches to our research students and welcome research proposals from potential PhD candidates that are informed by and generated through creative practice and experience.
Our work is supported by a wide range of partners in the northwest of England, nationally and internationally, including the voluntary sector.
Our research areas
- art history and visual cultures
- social and participatory art and performance with self-identifying excluded and marginalised communities
- public health at a personal and societal level
- contemporary visual art on the theme of Asia
Publications
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Key publications
- Child, D, Gray, K, Weeks, H and Wright, J (2021) Why Digital Isn’t Enough Arts Professional
- Child, D (2019) Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism in Radical Aesthetics Radical Art, Bloomsbury
- Jurack, B, Carrasco, F, Chan, S, Cross, G, Dunn, A, Hill, R, Jeck, P, Prestidge, M and Raisin, J (2018-2022)Where the Arts Belong Bluecoat and Belong, exhibition, residencies and toolkits
- Jurack, B (2016 and 2019) Translating the street International micro residencies, exhibitions and catalogues
- Jurack, B (2020-2021) Between Oaks and Ashes Essay and artefacts for 32°70′ 57.60″N and -97°36′ 21.60″Wat TCU Gallery, Texas
- Ravetz, A and Wright, J (2020) From network to meshwork: validation for social practice art and artists
- Roy A, Ravetz, A and Prest, M (2020) Unsettling Narrative(s): Film Making as an Anthropological Lens on an Artist-Led Project Exploring LGBT Recovery from Substance Use in Anthropological Notebooks, 26
- Ravetz, A. (2019) On Reverie, Collaboration, and Recovery Collaborative Anthropologies 10(1), pp. 45-66
- Tan, KS (2021) The Artful, Agile and Atypical Octopussy: An embodied interdisciplinary mode of knowledge exchange and creation for atypical times Performance Research, 26
Social Art Inclusion Lab inauguration
Contact us
Contact us
For more information about this project you can contact Dr Danielle Child.