Networking international and transnational approaches to contemporary art in heritage practice.

The principal aim of this project is to initiate a new International Contemporary Art in Heritage Network that will bring together UK and overseas academics, curators, artists, heritage and historic landscape organisations, and museum sites to exchange and explore international and transnational approaches to contemporary art in heritage practice. Our Network will extend the interdisciplinary study of contemporary art in heritage practice, initiating the first international mapping and global overview of this field. The project will be delivered in partnership with four (UK and international) heritage sector partners: Arts&Heritage; National Trust; International Coalition of Sites of Conscience; and the Artists' Studio Museum Network. Building on learning from the cultural sector's pivot to digital during the Covid-19 Pandemic, and to maximise opportunities for international input, all our planned programme activity will take place online.

Since the 1990s contemporary artists have been commissioned to create temporary, site-specific responses to a wide range of heritage places across the UK - from grand palaces and country houses to historic designed landscapes, industrial waterways, and cathedrals. While the UK may arguably be regarded as a leading proponent of such practice, pilot international mapping research undertaken through our AHRC-funded 'Mapping Contemporary Art in the Heritage Experience' (MCAHE) project (2017-2020), indicated that contemporary art in heritage is more than just a UK phenomenon. Reflecting expanded global agendas within the wider museum and heritage sector, much of this work is concerned with articulations of difficult heritage, including a key focus on artistic engagement with colonial and postcolonial narratives. Despite this engagement with global concerns, and strong arguments made for diversifying the presentation of heritage, existing academic literature on contemporary art in heritage in the UK has primarily focused on the national scene, with little exploration of a broader transnational context. It is this gap in international knowledge that our Network specifically seeks to address.

Key Outputs of this networking activity include:

- A series of 5 online Meet Ups co-hosted with UK and international partners and involving an interdisciplinary community of academics, researchers, curators, artists, and heritage professionals.
- A newly created, publicly accessible online Google Map of international contemporary art in heritage practice that captures and links to current and recent activity in this field.
- 4 pilot virtual transnational commissions/artists residencies hosted by UK and international network partners (heritage sites, museums, and historic landscapes).
- 3 new Podcasts featuring UK and international curators, heritage sites and commissioned artists in conversation, co-produced with Arts&Heritage and made freely available via its existing Apple Podcasts and Soundcloud channels.
- A closing online international symposium open to all interested academics, artists, curators, and other professionals working in, or with an interest in, this field.

This project will benefit a broad and international constituency of academics, practice-based researchers, curators, artists, museum, and heritage professionals. This will be achieved through multiple and complementary dissemination routes, including public presentation of the virtual commissions/residencies on the Arts&Heritage website and through presentations at future academic and sector-based conferences (UK and international).