My social sculpture work involves creating new language for what I am attempting to do; for the questions I am exploring and researching in my practice. But language is also the means of uncovering and bringing the questions into form, of giving voice and space to the questions. And so the questions become interventions. Interventions in my habitual thought; interventions in the world.

phrases and questions as instruments of consciousness

questions as a practice 

This process and struggle to articulate, to find language takes me into new territory where thinking and doing coincide, territory where I attempt to take others.

Thinking informing practice and vice versa, one could say. Interestingly though, much of this new language evolves through the practice of dialogue, which is a thinking-practice. Practice and thinking are inseparable.

And yet there is another kind of knowing: knowing beyond language, beyond linear thought. Perceptions and emergent understandings which I struggle to shape into words. In this perpetual sculptural process there is a special place for writing; for trying to catch hold of thoughts and refine them...so that they can reach others, so they can become instruments for others; word tools, written and spoken, tools in the continual sculptural process of rethinking and reshaping our lives.

Bringing thoughts into form > making language < following thoughts through is a process where inner and outer work coincide... a process integral to social sculpture. 

Here you can find reference to some of my writings, lectures and seminars in the field of social sculpture and connective practices.

1. Contribution to symposium alongside exhibition ‘In Action: Commemorating the 20 Anniversary of Joseph Beuys’ Death; Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf. Curated by Dr. Stephan von Wiese. Symposium title: Beuys aktuell. Ein Symposion über die Wirkung seiner Lehre und die Weiterführung seiner gesellschaftspolitischen Theorien. March 2006.

Other speakers Dr. Walther Kugler (Curator Steiner Archive), Nierth ‘Mehr Demokratie’, and Beuys author, Dr.Wolfgang Zumdick. 

2. Contributor to ‘Unity in Diversity’: A Symposium to Mark the 20th Anniversary of Joseph Beuys' Death, Jan 2006. With Goethe-Institute. Convened by Dr. Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, University of Ulster. Speakers included: Art/Not Art (Cork Caucus);Prof. Antje von Graevenitz (U of Cologne); Prof. Alastair MacLennan (UU); Sean Rainbird (Tate Modern, London/Stuttgart);Dr. Gene Ray (Berlin).

3. Social Sculpture and Memory Work: contribution for 3 day conference: The Unmastered Past in Contemporary Art, Bauhaus, Weimar, Jan. 2004. Philosphers and artists on commemoration and memory work in contemporary art.
Other contributors: Esther Shalev-Gerz (Paris); Renate Stih and Frieder Schnock (Berlin). Prof. Gerhard Schweppenhauser (Philosophy, Kassel ), Prof. Axel Wieder (Art Historian, Berlin).

4. Water and Thought one of six invited contributions for conference 60% Water
Centre for History of Medicine, Univeristy of Warwick and Pump Rooms, Leamington Spa. Jan 2005.  Speakers: Prof. Anthea Cullen, Jem Finer, and historians of water and medicine.

Invited speaker and/or performer at events, conferences and other programmes including:

1. Civil Arts Enquiry, Dublin, February 2003. Landing Strip for Souls – Lecture/Performance. Curated by Declan McGonagle. Plus contribution on social sculpture to 3-day international symposium. Other presenters: Prof.Anthony Greyling.   

2. David Goldblatt exhibition, Modern Art Oxford, February 2003;   

3. Interdisciplinary Practices research programme at the Bartlett, UCL, March 2003; 

4. Opening keynote lecture for exhibition: Visible Thought: Rudolf Steiner’s Blackboard Drawings 1919 –1924. Cambridge Music Conference: Music and the Word, July 2003. Other speakers Dr. Walter Kugler, Chief Archivist, Steiner Archive, Switzerland; Prof. Nigel Osborne, Composer/Dean of Music, University of Edinburgh. My lecture published as a booklet by the Cambridge Music Conference. 

5. Art IG, Hannover- Guest Artist Programme - led one week symposium on Social Sculpture in collaboration with Kulturamt, City of Hannover. July 2003. Entry in Art IG catalogue on relationship between my work, pedagogy and social sculpture methodologies.   

6.  Cittadellarte – Fondazione Michelangelo Pistoletto, Milan, guest artist - presented my social sculpture work, Oct. 2004.  

7.  Lecture / performance –Social Sculpture and New Organs of Perception ACC Galerie, Weimar in collaboration with the Rudolf Steiner Archive, Dornach, Switzerland, March 2005.   

8.  Contribution to UN World Environment Week Panel: Artists as Visionaries toward a Sustainable Future. Organised by Greenmuseum, the Exploratorium and WEAD, San Francisco. Other speakers: Ecoart curator - Tricia Watts, Prof.Peter Richards, Dr. Susan Schwartzenberg, Sam Bower (Greenmuseum), Susan Leibovitz Steinman, Jo Hanson. June 2005 

9. Social Sculpture lecture/performance on University of the Trees for City of Darmstadt Conference ‘Stetig Wachsen’, July 20

10. Social Sculpture Research Seminars – Tate Modern.  April-May 2005. To coincide with Joseph Beuys show.  Planned and led this series of seminars. Other presenters included SSRU Associates - Dr. Volker Harlan, Wallace Heim and James Marriot (Platform). 

11. My work profiled as one of 14 international artists/artist groups on ‘greenmuseum.org’ curated Wallace Heim (‘Slow Activism’ in Nature Performed. Environment, culture and performance (2003. Oxford: Blackwell). Artists include: Critical Art Ensemble, John Lyall, Fern Shaffer.  

12. Collaboration with Dr. Hildegard Kurt (Cultural Scientist, Berlin) August 2004 and 2009 in Weimar, on research programme on ‘Aesthetic Strategies of the Modern World and the Art of Sustainability’ organised by European Youth Education Programme, Weimar; Institute for Philosophy and Cultural History, Weimar; and the Foundation Weimar Classics and Art Collection. This is the beginning of an ongoing research project linking the SSRU’s work into ‘an expanded conception of art’ with Schiller and Goethe, through the Bauhaus, Kandinsky and Klee to Joseph Beuys. We will apply for a fellowship for Dr. Kurt to develop this joint research project that will lead to a co-authored book on my social sculpture work and the Expanded Conception of Art.  

13. Introduction to and co-translation (from German to English) of ‘What is Art?: A Conversation with Joseph Beuys and related essays by Volker Harlan’. Approx. 120 pages. This book has been reprinted in German six times and translated into French, Dutch, Hungarian and Rumanian. Published Clairview Books, Nov. 2004. Over 1000 copies sold at Tate Modern. DIA Foundation say this is their best selling Beuys book!

Texts, dialogues, seminar contributions and lectures of mine - are on different sections of this site. Some of them are listed on the right. All willbe available in the document store.