Art of Management and Organization Conference 2020: Art as Activism

The Art of Management and Organization exists to bring together anyone who is interested in understanding management and organization from perspectives drawn from the humanities and arts. Deadline for contributions to AoMO 2020 Liverpool (20th August - 23rd August) is December 2nd 2019.

Topics

1. Across the UniverseAcross the Universe: Exploring how art can support the search for more contemporary and fit ways of promoting the activism of the reflective citizens though the social engagement of social sciences

Juliet Scott, Tavistock Institute of Human Relations J.Scott@tavinstitute.org

This stream showcases and explores the emergence of the arts as an ‘active’ or ‘activating’ discipline amongst the trans-disciplinary applied social science of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations (TIHR)1. The rationale guiding our interest in introducing the arts as an ‘activating’ discipline. The organisers would like to bring their experience for deeper exploration among fellow practitioners looking at what art has activated within a social science Institute and amongst its community; and the associated challenges. The stream aims at exploring how art can support the search for more contemporary and fit ways of promoting the activism of the reflective citizens though the social engagement of social sciences. The stream intends to contribute in formulating questions like "How do we describe the world we live in now?”, "What are the implications for practice informed by the social engagement of social science?”; "How can engaging with history and art can bring innovations to light and what will we take into the future?”

2. ALL you need is Art? Art-Led Learning (ALL) put to the test

Philippe Mairesse pmairesse@audencia.com

Tatiana Chemi tc@learning.aau.dk

Allan Owens a.owens@chester.ac.uk

Adult management and business higher education is reputed critical for the training and fostering of innovative teams and individuals aimed at reaching sustainable development goals. Environmental and sociocultural issues are not now out on the fringe of serious business, but are at the core of sustainable, farsighted markets. Novel instances of sharing, connecting and doing are challenging how we train and learn to innovate in collaborative, co-creative and democratic ways. Even entrepreneurship education is conceived of as serving a similar purpose as liberal arts - it teaches students to develop a comfort with ambiguity, think critically, and be subversive. This well-disseminated and dominant discourse mirrors in the promotion of arts-based methods for teaching, supposedly fostering two-eyed perspectives for "seeing more and seeing differently”, in a holistic and creative approach to stimulating the learners' creativity. However, higher education still thinks about education in traditional ways. The idea of art-for-art-sake opposes the idea of the full instrumentalisation of the arts for other purposes than the artistic ones. They are both twisted clichés on the complexity and relevance of the arts. In this track, the organisers want to critically investigate the perspectives that look at the arts as inspiration for innovative HE pedagogy. How to evaluate the effects of such a pedagogy on the business managers and leaders’ skills and competencies development? If we aim for the relational, collective and improvisational element of creativity, from individual genius to collective processes of creation and innovation, how can we design, build and facilitate environments that allow as much exchange as possible? What are the competencies that are related to innovation and that arts-based methods can be beneficial for? What kind of learning benefits can be observed in learners when arts-based methods are used in non-arts contexts? Does art-based learning really make a difference at the work place? Who measures the improvements for the organization, with which criteria? What or who legitimates the "professionalism” of artists engaged in such art-based learning methods? What are the political stances behind such claims?

The organisers welcome interventions, performances, theorizations, epistemological or philosophical framing, and any kind of arts-based or artist-led research on these issues.

3. Courageous Activism: Arts-Based Methods and Decolonizing Approaches

Anu Mitra Anu.Mitra.10@gmail.com Anu.Mitra@myunion.edu

Fredricka Joyner Fredricka.joyner@gmail.com

Tatiana Chemi tc@learning.aau.dk

This stream aims at investigating decolonized approaches to arts-based methods as a way of articulating what constitutes courageous art. Our underlying premise is that art history, interpretations, and practices are most often recognized and adjudicated from the viewpoint of Western canons of art making. The purpose is to explore the multiplicity of decolonized approaches by presenting perspectives, not solely from the viewpoint of formal institutions but also non-formal ones. A pluralistic view on the arts - indeed, arts as a plural—is embraced by including artistic expressions from all genres and artistic encounters at all levels. The organisers encourage contributions from all over the world in order to challenge the well-established Western-centred understanding of creativity and the arts. This stream will strongly support global perspectives, cross-cultural studies, critical theories, creative dissemination and a broader re-framing of the role of the arts for learning and for society. The arts can and must provide a springboard to transform discourses about society and education. Activist artists reach out to their worldwide audiences. They engage, provoke, incite, agitate, and in the end, they build jobs in communities, invoke respect among diverse groups of people, and nurture harmony in the natural order of things. Their ability to perform, enact, engage, lead, create, and catalyse speak to their role as entrepreneur/ activist/ artist/ leader-roles into which they fit uncannily and naturally. For them, art-making is synonymous with creating a better world in measurable ways, involving all of us together. The arts erode boundary lines between the artist and audience through measured and interrogated interaction.

In the name of art that speaks of a larger purpose, whose actions bring "theory into being”, the organisers invite contributions that are multi-disciplinary, cutting edge, and infused with the idea that ‘anything is possible.’ The dialogues can potentially produce a proposal to the book series at Brill/Sense: The arts, creativities, and learning environments in global perspectives.

4. Mersey Soundss: Poetry (Poetics) and Protest

Per Darmer, Rhythmic Music Conservatoire, Denmark per.darmer@outlook.dk

Andrew Armitage, Anglia Ruskin University, UK andrew.armitage@anglia.ac.uk

Protest, in general and the darker sides of management and organizations in particular, is very

much about given voice to the oppressed, less fortunate, or those otherwise unable to speak for

themselves and verbalise their discomfort and misfortune. Poetry, poetics, and other art forms can be the weapon of choice to protest, be heard and do something about it. The stream encourages to play with poetry of all varieties, to interpret poetics broadly as different kinds of poetic writing, to explore the whole range of forms that protest comes in, and to be creative in exploring the relationships between the three P’s of Poetry, Poetics and Protest. The stream welcomes the whole range of papers, poems, presentations, and performances that play with and express both the explicit and the implicit protest in poetry and poetics, which plays with often intangible interrelations between poetry (poetics) and protest. It is the purpose of the stream to explore what poetry, poetics, and protest is - and might become. All types and genres of topics are welcome.

5. Norwegian Wood? Disrupting Design Thinking

Dr. Beatriz Acevedo beatrixace@yahoo.com

In the last few decades, Design Thinking has been heralded as the new silver bullet for problem solving and product/service design. It has become the "it" course for hipsters, start-ups and CEOs to attend, that can be seen as another attempt by management and business to adopt/adapt/cannibalise the long-standing tradition of creative practice linked to art and design. However, the real revolutionary power of this approach is most in the "method" approach of following different paths and techniques, and in many cases practitioners and experts are not really familiar with the studio-based practices of artists and designers that actually inspire this new wave. Because art and design are rather loose and failure embracing practices, that can spark new ways of thinking about old problems, as well as rethinking our own identities, and somehow a loose approach to design thinking may disrupt established ways of thinking.

In this stream the organisers will welcome presentations, workshops, installations, performances, etc, addressing different aspects of design thinking.

6. Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. Using and Making Films in Research, Teaching and Practice

Main convenor: Stephen Linstead, University of York stephen.linstead@york.ac.uk

Liverpool is a city of film, as well as a city of music and art. The title of this stream is the title of a recent major release based in the city, of which the most recent is Danny Boyle’s 2019 summer blockbuster Yesterday. Film is now widely recognised as an important teaching resource in management and organization, but is still not acknowledged for its research potential, as a research output. Nor is filmmaking acknowledged as a research activity. Yet the ability to make film has never been more affordable and accessible. How can or should this change our research practice? How can it help to involve participants in research? How can it stimulate critique and creativity? How much does quality matter? How can it be assessed? How can it be rewarded? What skills might everyone need to develop in the future?

The organisers invite papers, films, presentations, performances addressing what film can offer us in terms of teaching, research and practice whether conceptual, critical analysis, practical guidance or film as an empirical artwork itself. They will accept a film as an input, depending on length and if they get enough submissions they will offer a Best Film prize. Works in progress are acceptable. Test screenings are welcome. Experiments embraced.

7. Within You but Not Without You: Open Stream

Through the open stream the organisers are particularly interested in inviting contributions that explore theatre as spaces of action, alternative organisations and the use of music in movements of resistance.

To submit a paper or artistic contribution to a stream please send abstracts of no more than 500 words, in word.doc format, as an email attachment by 2nd December 2019 to aomo2020liverpool@gmail.com and to the stream conveners. All decisions will be made on the basis of the abstracts submitted. The conference organisers are also keen to consider exhibitions, installations, workshops or performances.

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