Faculty of Arts, Business & Social Sciences
George Wallis Building at night
photo by University of Wolverhampton
The network covers four Beneficiaries (University of Wolverhampton, UK – Project Coordinator; University of Edinburgh, UK; Zeppelin University, Germany; University of Iceland, Iceland) and seven Partner Organisations (Tensta Konsthall, Sweden; BAK, Netherlands; State of Concept, Greece; Vessel, Italy; Tranzit.ro, Romania; Biennale Warsaw, Poland; and Iceland University of the Arts, Iceland).
This is the first EU funded network to provide a wide-ranging academic and non-academic training programme for the development and production of social engaged art in Europe. The training programme is currently engaged in the co-ordination of the extensive critical analysis and gathering of data about the contemporary role, impact, and networks of distribution of socially engaged art. As such, it represents a major opportunity for new research into the support and dissemination of socially engaged art, with important implications for the future public funding of the independent arts sector. The project, therefore, represents an invaluable contribution to the continuing debate on art, democracy, and the public sphere, beyond the museum’s traditional functions.
Follow the link to the European Commission Horizon 2020 project fact sheet: FEINART Fact Sheet
Socially engaged art aims to create social and political change through forms of interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange between artists, individuals, communities, and institutions, the emphasis being on learning-through-participation and collective research.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Prof John Roberts
Project Manager
Professor of Art & Aesthetics in the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences, and leader of the Research Cluster ‘Art Philosophy and Social Practice’. His research has covered three main areas since the early 1990s: art’s critical autonomy, the possibility of realism in art (as a claim on ‘truth’ as opposed to realist ‘aesthetics’ or ‘resemblance’) and emancipatory technique.
Email Contact: jcr3@wlv.ac.uk
Dr Francesco Paradiso
Research and Impact Development Manager
Dr Francesco Paradiso works as Research and Impact Development Manager in the Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Science of the University of Wolverhampton. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of New South Wales, Australia. He is part of the Knowledge Transfer Team of the Faculty. He also teaches philosophy and deconstruction in the School of Humanities.
Email Contact: F.Paradiso@wlv.ac.uk
Marita Pappa
Project Coordinator
Marita Pappa is an artist and aspiring researcher based in London. She holds a BA(Hons) in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art. In 2020 she was awarded the Leverhulme Trust Arts Scholarship for her studies at the Royal College of Art where she graduated in 2022 with an MA in Sculpture. Her research is focused on the critical role of artistic practices in times of crisis.
Email Contact: m.pappa@wlv.ac.uk
Fabian Erwig
Project Coordinator (2020-2022)
From 2005 until 2009 he studied European Studies at Maastricht University and graduated as Master of Arts & Science. Since then he worked in several interdisciplinary fields in the private and NGO sector, ranging from Sales to Human Rights. Most recently he was engaged as Human Resource Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in projects in the Middle East and Africa.
ACADEMIC TRAINING PROGRAMME TEAM
Karen van den Berg
lead of training programme
Professor of Art Theory & Curating and head of the university’s arts programme. Van den Berg has published and lectured widely on socially engaged art, activism, theory and history of curating, museum architecture, and artistic epistemology. She has co-edited the volumes “The Art of Direct Action“ and “Art Production beyond the Art Market?”. Currently she is supervising four PhD students in the fields of art and politics, artistic epistemology, and the social effects of architecture.
Email Contact: karen.vandenberg@zu.de
Rahel Spöhrer
Academic assistant (to October 2022)
Rahel Spöhrer (born 1986) is academic employee at the Horizon 2020 project „FEINART”, Chair for Art Theory & Curating at Zeppelin University.
She studied law, philosophy and cultural studies in Dresden and Witten/Herdecke. She works as a dramaturg and project manager in the fields of theater and performance art and is founding member of the performance collective THE AGENCY. Beyond that she is involved in several teaching activities: amongst other things, she worked as a mentor at the Universität der Künste Berlin and has been teaching at the Athens School of Fine Arts.
Ricarda Hommann
student assistant (from September 2022)
Ricarda Hommann is a bachelor student at Zeppelin University, studying communication, culture and management. Her main interests lie in transcultural exchange and museum management, which she has pursued in the form of internships at the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, Germany and the Goethe Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka. She has been working for the FEINART Program since September 2022.
Email Contact: r.hommann@zeppelin-university.net
PROJECT TIMELINE
2020
- March: Launch of the Project
- October: Recruitment of the Early-Stage Researchers
2021
- January – March: Launch of the research and training activities and start of the doctoral programmes
- March: Kick-Off event (online)
- September: Start of Secondment
2022
- March: Network Workshop in Iceland
- July: End of Secondments
- September: Summer School in Germany
2023
- March: Network Workshop, Berlin
- Research Outputs
2024
Completion of doctoral dissertations and Final Conference
Project Logo
The FEINART logo is the result of a competition launched in December 2019 and open to all MA students enrolled in art and design programmes across the four beneficiaries of the FEINART network (University of Wolverhampton, University of Edinburgh, University of Iceland and Zeppelin University). The winner is the logo proposed by Moritz Kathe, MA Student in Pioneering in Arts, Media and The Creative Industries at Zeppelin University.
As Moritz explains, the concept behind the logo relies on the interdisciplinary research across the four subject areas of the FEINART programme and the connection between the European countries involved in the programme. The result is a lively conglomerate that represents interdisciplinarity and diversity. Embedded in this conglomerate are two open boxes with four ends, which add sophistication and symbolise the generation of new knowledge around socially engaged art.
Information about Moritz Kathe and his work can be found at moritzkathe.com