Seminar - This is Essential Work: Art, Social Theory and Activism

Methods that employ creative practices as a primary mode of inquiry in the social sciences, humanities, and philosophy have been gaining in popularity. These methods go beyond traditional text-based research to explore complex, embodied, and emotional aspects of human experience and social phenomena.  As well as enriching social enquiry, arts-based methods can be a catalyst for social and political change, which involves nurturing imagination, empowering marginalized voices, and fostering collective action. 

In this round table, social theorists, activists and artists from the second edition of the This Is Essential Work online exhibition will discuss what can be learned from different practices and methods and explore how creative practices can shape future possibilities and disrupt conventional thinking 

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Rebecca Carson is a theorist working in Marxism and philosophy based at the Royal College of Art. She is author of Immanent Externalities: The Reproduction of Life in Capital. 

This Is Essential Work is an online open-access feminist exhibition co-curated by visual artist Yuko Edwards and academics Michal Nahman (Anthropologist, UWE) and Susan Newman (Political Economist, OU) who sought explore a visual dialogue between artists worldwide and their academic research into the commodification of breastmilk and social reproduction under capitalism more generally. 

Artists from the second edition of the Exhibition will be joining the discussion (TBC)