Description

Undergraduate

Module Content

Today, over half the world’s population lives in cities. By 2050, this is expected to be two-thirds. The metropolis dominates our contemporary existence.

Yet whilst the city is often seen as a neutral space that evolves almost organically over time, it is, in fact, a location that is continually designed, structured, and restructured from both a state and street level. It is a site that not only reflects our wider social and political ideals but that comes to directly shape them, a living space in a state of constant flux. As such, the city must be understood as the place from which contemporary citizenship is taught and resisted, where norms are enforced and opposed.

 

Public art, in particular, has played a crucial role within this nexus of city and citizenship. As a form of visual and architectural order that has, since the Ancient Greeks and beyond, been habitually related to the construction of a wider social order, it has been used by both the powerful and powerless to speak, act, and demonstrate in material form. From classical statuary to contemporary graffiti, from monumental memorials to ephemeral performances, public art affects how we communicate and participate, remember and forget. We encounter it each time we step into the world, yet we rarely question how it functions or came to be.

 

Critically examining these questions through exploring the past, present, and future of art in public space, this course will encourage us to look at our surroundings in a new way, seeing public art as a mechanism to understand the ways we relate both to the city and each other. In an age of ever-increasing change – from political radicalism to climate emergency, from privatization to surveillance – exploring public art will provide us with a way of uncovering the realities of contemporary citizenship, as well as revealing the future possibilities and perils that we and our cities face today.

Learning Outcomes

To enable students to explore anthropology in an urban environment
	To enable students to explore the key premises of anthropology of art through both institutional and non- institutional artworks.
	To enable students to explore the relationship between the anthropology of art, anthropology of landscape, and the anthropology of the built environment.
	To enable students to critically understand current developments in both contemporary art and the contemporary urban environment.
	To enable students to take an interdisciplinary approach whilst being grounded within an anthropological, granular framework.
	To enable a critical perspective on the reflexive relationship between material culture and citizenship, on both a national and local level.
Delivery Method:

One 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour tutorial per week.

Additional Information

Students are expected to participate in and make informed contributions to the discussions of the assigned readings for each seminar.

Postgraduate

Module Content

Today, over half the world’s population lives in cities. By 2050, this is expected to be two-thirds. The metropolis dominates our contemporary existence.

Yet whilst the city is often seen as a neutral space that evolves almost organically over time, it is, in fact, a location that is continually designed, structured, and restructured from both a state and street level. It is a site that not only reflects our wider social and political ideals but that comes to directly shape them, a living space in a state of constant flux. As such, the city must be understood as the place from which contemporary citizenship is taught and resisted, where norms are enforced and opposed.

Public art, in particular, has played a crucial role within this nexus of city and citizenship. As a form of visual and architectural order that has, since the Ancient Greeks and beyond, been habitually related to the construction of a wider social order, it has been used by both the powerful and powerless to speak, act, and demonstrate in material form. From classical statuary to contemporary graffiti, from monumental memorials to ephemeral performances, public art affects how we communicate and participate, remember and forget. We encounter it each time we step into the world, yet we rarely question how it functions or came to be.

 

Critically examining these questions through exploring the past, present, and future of art in public space, this course will encourage us to look at our surroundings in a new way, seeing public art as a mechanism to understand the ways we relate both to the city and each other. In an age of ever-increasing change – from political radicalism to climate emergency, from privatization to surveillance – exploring public art will provide us with a way of uncovering the realities of contemporary citizenship, as well as revealing the future possibilities and perils that we and our cities face today.

 

Learning Outcomes

To enable students to explore anthropology in an urban environment and acquire a systematic understanding and critical awareness of prevalent issues related to race, class, gender, and ethnicity within these spaces.
	To enable students to explore the key premises of anthropology of art through both institutional and non- institutional artworks, questioning hierarchies of value present within the art world.
	To enable students to explore the relationship between the anthropology of art, anthropology of landscape, and the anthropology of the built environment.
	To enable students to critically understand current developments in both contemporary art and the contemporary urban environment in a reflexive and critical manner.
	To enable students to take an interdisciplinary approach whilst being grounded within an anthropological, granular framework.
	To enable a critical perspective and practical understanding of the relationship between material culture and citizenship, on both a national and local level
Delivery Method:

One 2-hour lecture and one 2-hour seminar per week.

Additional Information

Students are expected to participate in and make informed contributions to the discussions of the assigned readings for each seminar.