Public Art/Socially Engaged Art Practice Symposium

Today I went to the 3rd year symposium on public art, socially engaged art practice (SEAP) and the discussion of the works/writing of David Harding and it has been very informative and interesting on many levels. Some of the issues that were raised include:

• The difficulties of evaluating SEAP as art
• The lack of critics in Britain that are writing and critiquing SEAP 
• Apart from Praktika - Deveron, there is a general lack of opportunity for mature artists engaged in SEAP to get together to critically analyse work in order to progress and development this field of art
• There are less opportunity for artists to be involved in large-scale public artworks than there was in the 60s e.g. The Apollo Pavilion by Victor Pasmore, with architectural organisations taking on public commissions e.g. Phoenix Flowers  
• Artists are often an afterthought or come in at a very late stage in large-scale urban projects 
• The relevance and importance of context in public art for community engagement with the work
• Debate on the professionalisation of artist
• Changing nature of public artworks from permanent works to increasing number of temporary works and the difficulty of permanent works to remain critical 
• The authorial role of the artist vs the community in SEAP

Overall, the symposium has widened my perception of public art and what SEAP might be. Moreover, it has also made me consider a few key areas that I need to reflect on more in my current project, namely site and context. So far I have spent much of my time researching and understanding what the work is about and how it will look, but I need to consider the work in the context of the site. Although I did briefly consider the gallery as a possible site for the work, I realised that the work would be best sited in the public domain as I hope this is where the non-gallery going public might 'bump' into the work and engage with it. Although it might be later moved to a gallery or a different site.

So I have started my research on the site, focusing on George Square, probably the most public of public places in Glasgow and the significance of town squares.  I did some preliminary online research on the site but I think it would make sense to go and walk around and maybe even speak to a few people!