Stanley Picker Galery, 20 January 2018

Symposium: A New Ethics?  The evolving responsibilities of creative practices in a changing world

A New Ethics? is a day-long symposium seeking to examine notions of ethics and responsibility within contemporary creative practices.

The events of 2016 and 2017 highlighted a noticeable increase in authoritarianism, racism, sexism, environmental disasters and widespread economic hardship at local and global levels, as well as significant changes in the art market and art education. How are these factors influencing artists’ work? Are artists and cultural institutions now expected to respond to them by assuming new and evolving responsibilities within their communities?

Questions asked during the day will include:

How does a sense of responsibility figure in the way artists, designers, curators and institutions are responding to past, present and future issues, including local and global politics, human rights, economic injustice and cultural history?

What might constitute an ethical curatorial or artistic practice today? How important is such a goal to creative practitioners?

The question of ethics often comes up in relation to practices that are considered unethical or lacking ethics. In contrast to this: How are creative practitioners developing a positive sense of ethics through their work?

The symposium will be structured around three panel discussions focusing on examples, each followed by Q&A. It will conclude with a final session for group discussion open to members of the audience.