Centre for Public Culture and Ideas
The Centre for Public Culture and Ideas is an interdisciplinary research centre. With members across humanities, creative arts and life sciences its central brief is to encourage greater collaboration between these areas, while articulating with contemporary debates in public culture and ideas.
Featured event
'Creative Communities: Sustainable Solutions for Social Inclusion' conference
15th-17th April 2009
This international conference was hosted by the Centre for Public Culture and Ideas with support from the Innovative Universities European Union Centre. The program is affiliated with Griffith University’s Strategic Research Program ‘Social Change and Well-Being’.
Given the premise that socio-economic and cultural dislocation are salient features of contemporary societies – due to a number of factors such as the disappearance of traditional patterns of employment, the multiculturalisation of societies, longer life expectancy, and greater expectations of lifestyle and leisure opportunities – the conference aimed to provide a forum for the sharing of ideas and knowledge about the value of creativity as a means of engendering social inclusion. A very successful event, it was attended by around 90 people over the course of three days at its venue on the Gold Coast. Keynote Speakers were Professor Helen Thomas (London College of Fashion) and François Matarasso (freelance writer and researcher, UK), whose inspiring talks helped to shape the direction of the conference. Also featured were contributions from academic researchers and practitioners from the Asia-Pacific region, the European Union, and North America.
Professor Thomas spoke on “Embodied Discourses and Social Inclusion”, focusing on two recent research projects in South East England which set out to evaluate dance and social inclusion projects targeting “hard to reach” young people. François Matarasso continued the discourse in his presentation “A Place in the City: Recognising Creative Inclusion”, which looked at the rapid urbanisation of population, and the recognition that coherent policy for social inclusion is essential for any strategy dealing with urban renewal and development, and more so in the current economic climate.
A panel presentation on “Smaller Cities as Creative Communities” was well attended and initiated thoughtful debate on the nature of cultural regeneration outside major urban centres. Other topics examined during the conference included: Festivals and carnivals as spaces for multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism; Rural communities, creativity and social inclusion; Youth culture, cosmopolitanism, citizenship and political engagement; Creative projects as a tool for social inclusion among indigenous cultures; The internet and communities of creative interest; Ageing, leisure and social inclusion; Urban regeneration, city spaces and cultural participation.
The experience generated a number of exciting projects and ideas and the centre is considering the possibility of a follow-up event and/or series of smaller, themed seminars, as well as the establishment of a Creative Communities website for access to papers and continuing discussion on the topic.
About the centre
Our purpose is to conduct integrated and cross-disciplinary research into major contentious issues of our time and the new publics forming around these issues.
We value collaborations with universities and industry partners across sectors and welcome contacts from international and national research centres, academic institutions and others interested in public culture and ideas.
We promote cross-disciplinary research that addresses the question: 'How can cultural representations, practices and institutions promote public deliberation about questions of the common good in a pluralist society?' Such research is intended to explore:
- How value is assigned to the strange multiplicity (Jame Tully, 1995) represented by the term 'culture' in a globalising world;
- The ways culture is deployed in public spaces for civic, commercial and other purposes;
- The extent to which public disagreement is a creative force, capable of producing new forms of democratic association;
- The local and particular rationalities used to settle questions about justice and cultural recognition;
- The tensions inherent in the formation of communities of belonging and communicative publics;
- The ways "history" is invoked in public arenas.
We encourage partnerships with cultural institutions, public agencies and local government and community and corporate organisations. Through a program of publication, exhibitions and symposia, we aim to make the processes and outcomes of that research available to public audiences as well as scholarly communities.
If you would like to be informed about up-and-coming centre events such as seminars, book launches and public lectures, please visit our news and events page or join our mailing list.
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