The Sculpture x Policy Lab: Artists, Policy and the Environment
The Sculpture x Policy Lab: The role for artists in bringing long-term thinking and the environment into policymaking
How can artists bring long-term thinking and environmental awareness into policymaking? Long-term thinking and the environment were key concerns for many members of the Artist Placement Group. Today, artists in the MANIFEST programme continue this legacy, working within the Government Office for Science, the Department for the Environment, and other policy spaces. What can we learn from these experiences?
This conversation, convened by Stephen RG Bennett and Gareth Bell-Jones, features contributions from MANIFEST artists Ruth Levene, Amy Hill, and Victoria Robinson.
The Upper 2 Gallery
1 – 3pm
No booking necessary
This is the fourth in a series of live conversations activating The Sculpture (1971), a key work from the Artist Placement Group, as part of Barbara Steveni: I Find Myself. These discussions are programmed in collaboration with Policy Lab, Incidental Unit and the London Residency Network.
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Policy Lab is a part of the UK government which brings many of the ideas and ethos of the Artist Placement Group into contemporary policymaking. This includes bringing together a highly diverse and interdisciplinary group of practitioners to bridge between internal and outside perspectives and directly engage artists in the policymaking process.
The Artist Placement Group (APG) was initiated by Barbara Steveni in 1965. The group devised the concept of the ‘Placement’ as a strategy to position artists within industrial corporations and government departments in order to explore the role of art in the decision-making processes of society. In her role as primary strategist and spokesperson she came to see her critical administrative role negotiating behind the scenes as representative of women’s invisible labour more widely, in later years understanding this as her own art practice. Barbara Steveni: I Find Myself includes the important Artist Placement Group work, The Sculpture from APG’s 1971 Hayward Gallery and Dusseldorf exhibitions. The Sculpture comprised a boardroom table with chairs in the gallery space where the APG artist members led discussions with industrialists and government officials as the main focus of the exhibition. Steveni was integral to these negotiations, so it’s in the spirit of highlighting her discursive approach to art-making that we’re re-staging this live artwork in collaboration with Policy Lab, Incidental Unit and the London Residency Network.