Tate Encounters: Research in Process

Friday 20 February – Friday 20 March 2009

What does the Britain in Tate Britain mean to you? What is your encounter with Tate Britain and how would you describe it? Whose and what history and culture is represented by the National Collection of British Art? How do you relate to discussions around national culture and identity?

Tate Encounters: Britishness and Visual Culture, a three-year major research project, has been investigating these issues with students from London South Bank University for the last eighteen months.

The project now invites members of the public along with artists, academics, curators, policy makers and Tate staff to discuss these and other questions from their own personal and professional perspectives. In addition to these live research encounters, there will also be programmed screenings of films and interviews made during the course of the project.

The overall aim of the programme is to extend the range of people contributing to the research project and to establish the beginnings of a public dialogue and debate about the research questions and emergent findings. The programme will also mark the conclusion of the project’s fieldwork period.

The objectives of this month long research programme are framed by four related areas of interest:  education practice within the museum; the status of digital media in museum practice and culture; the racialisation of cultural policy and the role of museums in social regeneration; and narratives of British visual culture through curatorship.

Programme A: Education Practice at Tate 1970-present
23-27 February
Chair: Dr Victoria Walsh
Observer: Dr Malcolm Quinn

Programme B: Resolutely Analogue?: Art Museums in Digital Culture
2-6 March
Co-chairs: Professor Andrew Dewdney / Peter Ride

Programme C: Visual Culture, Transmigration and Spectatorship
9-13 March
Chair: Dr David Dibosa
Observer:Dr Raimi Gbadamosi

Programme D: Art and Politics: Uncertain Practices 
16-20 March
Co-chairs: Dr Mike Phillips / Dr Victoria Walsh

  Talks & Discussions