Unit 2 – Intervention notes

Intervention notes

In the first year of MA Performance: Society, no two students lived in the same country; only one was based in the UK. It soon became clear that centering the teaching on UK-oriented literature on socially engaged practice, which is my own area of expertise, would not serve this community well. Although the course does not specify a focus on Western socially engaged practice, the term ‘socially engaged’ itself denotes a Western understanding of art that serves a community, being distinct from art that is seen in a gallery, for example.

Language brings intersectional issues to the fore, privileging certain knowledges over others. Robert Deguzman, one of the first students to graduate from the course, wrote that ‘western vocabularies [relating to social practice] do not have any purchase in my local intellection and are not part of our way of doing and seeing’ (Deguzman 2024). He went on to develop a thesis where he used two Filipino words/concepts to articulate his relationship, as a member of the Filipino diaspora, to socially engaged practice. The words Pakikipagkapwa and Bayanihan offer a) a definition of self that is tied to a recognition of one’s place with others and b) the capacity of great things to be done by working together. When Robert explored this work with the group, it facilitated an important dialogue with individualist notions of western subjectivity that run through separations of artist and community, artist and art within some models of socially engaged art practice.

Our own words (need a better title)

I plan to build on Robert’s work by facilitating the development of a shared course dictionary that brings in ways of knowing that can re/define socially engaged art from a decolonial and inclusive perspective.  I want to use it as a way of holding some of the different understandings of what social practice can be and is for people on the course.

I am influenced here by the In Other Words project (editor Cornelia Ilie)

This project promotes critical and co-produced collections of words  ‘which reproduce and disseminate discriminatory discourses’. It has entries in multiple languages in order to promote ‘cross-cultural analysis of meanings, conceptualizations and attributions.’

(https://www.iowdictionary.org/project 26/05/25)

Logistics/Feasibility

Given the fact that the course ends at the end of August, this project needs to start small so as to not give students additional work at this late stage.

We could start with one session deciding which words/terms/concepts have been important to them over the course eg radical care, social practice, community arts, invitation, participation etc. Their final unit work involves a critical reflection on their work during the course, so this activity will also serve this work.

I would then

Invite them to identify where these terms come from (which authors use them, which lineages they draw on, where did they encounter them).

Invite people to talk about similar words/understandings in their dominant language.

Choose an image from their country/ies, life or practice to go with it.

We could then expand the task and invite students to explore their own understandings of these terms thinking about their intersectional positionality e.g

• How do these terms sit within their religion
• How do these terms resonate with their socio-cultural lived experience?
• How do these terms operate within their practice?

A changeable living resource

The dictionary needs to be situated, allowing definitions to be added to and changed over time.

” (…) it is no longer excusable to embalm the dictionary by autopsying its texts, mummifying its functions, and eulogizing its authors; we must, instead, seek a living dictionary, one that circulates in less familiar haunts, among less familiar speakers, to accomplish less familiar purposes”(Lindsay Rose Russell)

Even if we only do this with one word, in the time available, it would still be useful, I think.

Form

This needs to be simple so a padlet would work well. Additional understandings could be added as comments or linked posts and you can use the search function to find particular words.

Future

Our own words could be developed in the future with my teaching in MA Performance: Screen, which starts next year.

What are the words people use for socially engaged practice in the context of filmmaking and documentary?

I normally start each unit by unpacking what is meant by the assignment description and learning outcomes, exploring the assumptions that inform the brief. This task could build on this – by asking the group to pull out key terms/frames of reference being employed

We could build in the writing of one entry as part of an assignment.

References

Deguzman, Robert (2024) Performing Migration and Memories of the Ocean

Ilie, Cornelia In Other Words project. (https://www.iowdictionary.org/project 26/05/25)