A Vision for Europe: Academic Responsibility and Action in Times of Crises

The network examines the key question of academic responsibility and action in times of crises, focusing its enquiry particularly on the scholarly use of image-led practices to comment and shape political reality. Central to this enquiry is a unique engagement with the little-explored material archive of British Art and the Mediterranean (BAM), a photographic exhibition curated by Fritz Saxl and Rudolf Wittkower in England in 1941, which asserted Britain's cultural connections with Europe. The network brings together artists, historians, media theorists, curators, journalists, photographers and activists to reactivate this unique archival resource and to make it accessible following the methodology of the digital humanities.

BAM was organised by the Warburg Institute and leveraged a European history of art through new media, namely photographic reproductions of historical artworks. It expressed ideas of cultural continuities between Britain and Europe at a critical time of conflict. Consisting of 500 photographs, the exhibition was representative of the new art-historical approach imported from Germany via the Warburg Institute, namely an image-driven enquiry about cultural transmission. The exhibition was shown in London and in 20 other cities around Britain, taking its educatory ideas to as wide an audience as possible. Thus, foreign academic expertise converted into a highly successful enterprise with no compromise in its standards, due to the support of British institutions (CEMA) and key public figures, including the art historian, museum director and broadcaster, Kenneth Clark.

Re-evaluation of BAM as a paradigm of scholarly engagement is critical in today's European political climate. The curators took action on the basis of their research in a time of crisis, widespread nationalism and populism. That BAM's curators were refugee scholars in Britain is all the more relevant today, opening an exploration of the migration of knowledge which will be investigated in two ways: as an object of historical study and as a barometer of how politics have impacted on the movement of scholars, particularly in the 20th century. What examination of this rich archive offers the network is the opportunity for concrete analysis of an historical example of scholars engaging with the crisis of their time, which opens up space to discuss and challenge narratives of national histories and questions of academic action and responsibility.

Using the untapped BAM archive (photographs, glass slides, floor guides, correspondence) the network has four key objectives:
1. To address themes of academic responsibility and action, migration of knowledge and intellectual history, technologies of reproduction and dissemination, image-led practices and academic impact, and archives of conflict.
2. To reactivate and document a historical source using digital interfaces: website, social media, video-streams
3. To enable critical engagement with the future of academic action and responsibility in a conference, focusing on interactions between scholars and a general public, and so facilitate a two-way knowledge exchange that engages with the archive material.
4. To present three public-facing events in London (WI), Munich (ZI) and Rome (BSR) in the form of partial displays (exhibitions), workshop, study day and a conference.

The network will capitalise on the combined expertise and experience of PI, Co-I and Project Partner networks, which target different disciplines, interests and audiences. To address its objectives, it will network significant academics and professionals from the Arts and Humanities as well as a wider public through its public-facing activities and meetings. The mutual work enabled by the network and its activities during its lifetime will feed into a long-term objective: scoping funding towards a touring exhibition in the UK and Europe, and wider media engagement, involving further research applications.

Who might benefit:
The activities of the network will crystallise a sustainable organisation of academics (art historians, historians, media theorists), artists and activists as well as practitioners and professionals (journalists, curators, photographers), concerned with questions of image-led practices, academic responsibility and cultural transmission, including-
- UK and European scholars working on academic impact in times of crises in historical terms and as current practice
- Practice-based professionals, such as artists, photographers, curators as well as journalists and other media practitioners
- Educational professionals invested in the development pedagogical strategies that assess images, exhibitions and archives
- Cultural and political institutions, such as the Arts Council England and Council for at Risk Academics (CARA) whose origins are bound up with the Warburg Institute, its émigré scholars and war-time activities, and whose activities today support the sharing of academic expertise and its dissemination into the public domain
- Non-specialists interested in the role of culture and the humanities in public discourse
- A broad public who will be interested in the confluences between BAM and the current political climate enabled by the activities of the network in Munich, Rome and London, social media and mainstream media output.

How they might benefit:
- The network of institutions, academics, artists and other key participants will play a significant role in disseminating the network's ideas, discussions and activities to a wide range of audiences in London, Rome and Munich based around the three principal bodies (University of the Arts London, Warburg Institute and Bilderfahrzeuge).
- Through the interdisciplinary dialogue enabled by the network and made accessible through the network website, public-facing events, filmed panel discussions, video essays and social media postings
- By holding events in London, as well as Munich and Rome the network reaches out to wide and varying audiences and academic communities enabling intellectual and cultural exchange
- Through the visibility and accessibility of the BAM archive by the display (physical and online) of key materials chosen during the lifespan of the network. Also in their display in London, Rome and Munich, all of which will be accompanied by accessible published outputs.
- Through the peer-reviewed publications of the network, including a catalogue and conference proceedings
- By engaging with critical discourses that mediate academic expertise in mainstream media affecting society in its entirety: Brexit, nationalism, the history of migration and its current crisis, the question of the role of the humanities, how images operate in society.