Making Meaning - Performance Art As a Social Impact
We are pleased to announce that our Centre for Carers Research, in collaboration with the Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation, has been awarded a Social Impact Practice Grant. These grants, from the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion have been established as a means of supporting the UTS community towards enhanced social impact. This project has much resonance with the values and mission of the UTS Social Impact Framework.
The project: Making meaning - performance art as social impact, is a collaboration between Tania Teague (Carer-in-Residence) and Researcher Paula Gleeson of the Centre for Carers Research, IPPG and UTS Artists-Scholars, Danica Knecevic and Barbara Doran (FTDI) to stage an iterative performance art piece about caregiving. The objective of the artwork is to illuminate attention to the intimate, mundane, often invisible roles that carers do, upon which our society depend.
Given the impact of Covid-19, this project has been designed to work across social media platforms and a cross-section of communication ecologies to build a community of conversation and awareness that generates meaning and agency over time. A final artwork in Carers Week 2020 will bring together internal and external networks fostered over time and via online engagement to participate in a real-time performance and exploration of meaning-making.
The project benefits from and deepens partnerships in the carer and art sectors. Key partners (among others) include Carers NSW, Arts and Health Network NSW and ACT and the NSW Dept of Communities and Justice.
The art project spans the period from July to December 2020 and includes four milestones:
Milestone 1: Artworks responding to experiences of caring and care created by Knezevic made available on an online platform and shared across social media with a focus on the UTS community.
Milestone 2: Video of Artist and Carer-in-Residence in discussion exploring shared experiences in the relationship between carer and care receiver.
Milestone 3: Private filming of the carer artwork at UTS. This will be viewed by invited participants. After the screening, there will be a moderated discussion and interactive exercises using the map of meaning.
Milestone 4: A live performance at UTS by Knezevic: Caregiving, Performance at UTS in celebration of Carers Week. Witnesses of the performance will be asked to engage with a participative map of meaning.
