NVAEC 2019 Day 2 – Artist Panel: Socially Engaged Art (Keg De Souza, Gavin Rogers & Lucy Irvine)

This panel will explore how these artists have through their practice opened social spaces for learning- inviting dialogue, inquiry, collaborative making and knowledge sharing. Gavin Rogers has taken his work into the public realm to invite conversations about issues pertinent to those communities. Keg De Souza’s practice has involved the creation of sites for dialogue and knowledge-exchange. Lucy Irvine has worked with students and the public to engage with a process of thinking through making.

Keg de Souza is an Australian artist working between the disciplines of architecture, food, film, mapping and dialogical projects to explore the politics of space, influenced by her formal training in architecture and experiences of radical spaces through squatting and organising. She often creates site and situation specific projects with people, emphasising knowledge-exchange. Recent exhibitions include Common Knowledge and Learning Curves, Art Space, Sydney, 2018; The National, AGNSW, 2017; and the 20th Biennale of Sydney and the Setouchi Triennale, Japan, in 2016. She has undertaken numerous residencies in Australia and overseas.

Gavin Rogers is a socially engaged artist and educator currently living and working in the UK. His practice is situated from performance to sculpture, but his main media is people. He works with schools, communities, universities and local arts organisations to bring challenging subjects and conversation to life, subjects such as migration, gender politics and alcoholism. He does this by creating opportunities, projects, spaces and environments that allow people to explore art making alongside their politics. He believes in storytelling—not just telling, but also the listening.

Lucy Irvine is an artist and educator. Commencing a practice-led PhD at the Australian National University in 2016, she is developing spatially, temporally and materially emergent strategies that can engage and participate across art, design, architecture and geography discourses. Lucy has presented workshops at the National Gallery of Victoria, Heide Museum of Modern Art and ANU. Her work has been included in exhibitions at the NGV and Melbourne Museum, and was selected to represent Australia at the the 15th International Triennial of Tapestry, Central Museum of Textiles in Lodz, Poland. You can find further information about the National Visual Art Education Conference held at the National Gallery of Australia from 21–23 January 2019 here.