12:15 pm – 1:15 pm Movement and Immobility: Catalan Political Prisoners

Georgina Blakeley, The Open University and Joan Soler-Adillon, Royal Holloway University in conversation with Clara Ponsatí, Saint Andrews University

This panel reflects on the situation of Catalan political prisoners, through Joan Soler-Adillon artwork ‘In Pieces VR’, an experimental documentary on the effects of political imprisonment and exile, based on case of the current Catalan political prisoners in Spain and in conversation with Clara Ponsatí who was the Minister of Education in the Catalan Government during the 2017 referendum. She exiled to Belgium and then moved back to Scotland.

 1.30 pm – 2:30 pm Desire Lines

Robert Herian, The Open University and Lucy Atherton

Interweaving poetics of longing and bureaucracy, artist Lucy Atherton and legal scholar Robert Herian explore the phenomenon of desire lines within a landscape of post-industrial regeneration. Through film, photography, maps, and writing, Atherton and Herian describe how desire lines exist as more than direct or efficient ways around planned space, but as psycho-political imprimaturs, functions of recognition, and means of escape.

2.45 pm – 3.15 pm Tales of Precarity

Tim Butcher, The Open University

Precarious workers are defined by the International Labor Rights Forum as those who fill permanent job needs but are denied permanent employee rights. As labour markets transform, precarious work increases. To be seen to be independent and successful is becoming a necessity for many, but

significantly affects worker wellbeing. Such precarity is something that artists have long experienced. Yet this does not necessarily mean that precarity is any easier for artists to live with or discuss. In this session Tim will present visual stories of seven socially engaged artists generated from discussions about their artistic practices in the context of their sense of precarity. During the presentation, Tim will discuss with two of the artists their experiences of the project, what they contributed to and gained from the research process,  what might be learned from this study about how to pursue important work in increasingly precarious labour markets, and how and why we might seek to better understand precarious work.

3.15 pm-4pm Talking Transformations: Home on the Move

Manuela Perteghella, The Open University, Ricarda Vidal (KCL & Translation

Games), contributing artist Kate McMillan

A talk and pop-up exhibition exploring the changing notions of ‘home’ through poetry, translation and film art. How do we conceive of ‘home’? And what happens to this definition when people migrate? How does ‘home’ travel? And how does it ‘arrive’? And how is movement received by those who ‘stay put’? Manuela Perteghella and Ricarda Vidal will present the project and walk through the exhibition, followed by a conversation with contributing artist Kate McMillan, whose work incorporates a range of media including sculpture, film, sound, installation and photography (www.katemcmillan.net),for full information: http://www.talkingtransformations.eu/ Artists, poets, translators: Teodor Ajder, Elise Aru, Heather Connelly in collaboration with Belén Cerezo, Noèlia Díaz Vicedo, Marta Dziurozs, Rafał Gawin, Anna Hyde, Zuzanna Janin, Jozefina Komporaly, Benoît Laffiché, Domingo Martínez, Timothy Mathews, Kate McMillan, Ghenadie Popescu, Deryn Rees-Jones, Silvia Terrón, Sally Waterman. With thanks to Arts Council England, King’s College London, the Polish Cultural Institute, Institut français du Royame-Uni.