Social Engagement and Public Art: Discourses and Praxis

Dear Colleagues,

The Special Issue, “Social Engagement and Public Art: Discourses and Praxis”, aims to present recent trends, debates and practices around social engagement, and public art. In the context of recent global realities, this Special Issue will highlight various forms of activism and artivism presented by artists, scholars, and community members to combat the ongoing social injustices across the world. Specifically, we are interested in investigating intergenerational and intercultural public art projects and initiatives across different geographies. In addition to investigating the aesthetics components, we want to consider the socio-political implications of the projects. We imagine public art more broadly as art created for the general public (public good), accessible in public spaces (including virtual spaces), and often commissioned or funded publicly with the goal of promoting dialogues, awareness, resistance, and other forms collective intention. We are open to various artistic forms of expression. Some of the questions that the Special Issue seeks to explore include the following: What can we learn from the resistance and resurgence happening through artistic expression, such as public art? How are we shaping public discourse around solidarity, collective resistance, and imagination? What is the future of public art and social engagement within the narrative of disobedience? What are the narratives and counternarratives around social engagement and public art? How do public art and socially engaged arts challenge, reshape, and transform existing discourses, structures, and practices in arts production and dissemination? What new forms of collective meanings, collaborations, alliances, and strategies emerge in the process? We hope to critically explore these questions by inviting traditional articles, practitioners’ dialogue, artists’ talk, and other forms of creative and scholarly investigation into these questions.

Thus, we invite submissions that engage with, but are not limited to the following themes: 

• Disobedience and dissonance; 
• Resistance, protest and resurgence;
• Ethics and the politics of representation;
• Artivism and artistic responses;
• Narratives and counternarratives;
• Public art and public good;
• Politics of public engagement;
• The ecology of public art;
• The politics of economy within public art and exhibition;
• Archive and memory.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors taiwo.afolabi@uregina.ca and deniz.unsal@royalroads.ca or to the Arts editorial office (arts@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Dr. Taiwo Afolabi
Dr. Deniz Ünsal
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• socially engaged arts
• public art
• artivism
• public engagement
• ethics