Beyond Glorious: the radical in engaged practices
Thursday 30 May to Sunday 2 June 2013, Birkbeck College and Artsadmin, London
What is the place of art in acts of social re-imagination and repair?
What languages can be found to articulate such practices?
Is it possible to break new ground within the realm of engaged artistic practices?
Beyond Glorious: the radical in engaged practices was a symposium that marked the end of Rajni Shah Projects' Glorious. It brought together people from different spheres of life to discuss and experience the meanings, methods and effects of art in relation to engaged and radical practices. Using Glorious as a starting point, events explored the potential of engaged artistic practices, not in terms of a reductive understanding of the ‘efficacy’ of art in the world, but as a complicating, delicate, nuanced, uneasy journey towards new ways of thinking.
Film
Watch some of the films that were shown during the symposium and read about them on the Contemporary Theatre Review website here.
Writings
Diana Damian, Exeunt magazine:
Glorious might have touched or at least interfered with people’s lives and communities; Beyond Glorious sought to extract something equally valuable by moving outside of the project, and attempting to think collectively- it is a gently radical event. There is something very candid about a symposium that in its structure and ambition, might be able to communicate symbolically. If it emerges as anything, Beyond Glorious seems to be a form of occupation... [more]
Mark Trezona, Performance Marks:
I remember the repeated joy of surprise encounters. Sometimes these came from extended conversations with the people I was working alongside to make the backroom support. Sometimes this was a stranger asking me to join them for lunch and drawing me lightly into their conversation. Sometimes it was the joyful ‘aha’ of hearing the wisdom of another’s experience or the sharp brightness of their questioning inside the sessions. What made these encounters so exceptional was their unusualness – I seldom have this same experience at other events – and their frequency... [more]
Theron Schmidt (+ collected responses), Contemporary Theatre Review:
The experiences and reflections of the artists, participants, and observers gathered in the company’s publication, Dear Stranger, I love you (2013), make it clear that this place in-between conceptual frameworks was a difficult place to be, but also a rewarding one. The symposium Beyond Glorious was conceived as a way of continuing to inhabit this in-between place, seeking to bring together perspectives from related but often disconnected disciplines – artists working in social practice, participatory film, and ensemble music; scholars tracing histories of radical movements,engaging with political philosophy, or pursuing an emancipatory pedagogy; and the many of us who move in-between roles, sometimes producing arts projects and other times working as carers, or teachers, or bartenders. [more]
You can download a PDF of the full Beyond Glorious schedule and list of participants at the bottom of this page.
If you would like to order a copy of the publication Dear Stranger, I love you, which was launched at Beyond Glorious, please click here.
Credits
Symposium organisers: Elizabeth Lynch, Louise Owen, Mary Paterson and Rajni Shah
With support from: Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, University of East London, Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council England (for Glorious)
The symposium was free of charge including all lunches