Dr Liz Stirling

Jump and Draw: An Interdisciplinary Project Using Art and Sport to Create a Third Space of Learning in Primary School Education

2009 ‘From PhD to Post Doc’. Postgraduate Student Conference, Leeds Metropolitan University.

2009 ‘A place of constraint, a promise of happiness’. Interrogations Conference on research-based art practice at Loughborough University

2009 ‘The Den Project.’ Leeds Design Activism Week conference. Leeds Metropolitan University

2010 ‘42 The Briggate’. Residency as part of Art in Unusual Places, Leeds Council.

2012 Participatory Installation and Schools Workshop. Light Night. Park Square, Leeds and Spring Bank School and Chapel Allerton Primary School

2012 ‘Groundsheet.’ Film. Nine – to – Five – to - Nine. Work Together Play Together’. Curated Film event. Park Square East, Leeds

2012 Den-making workshops in Harehills School and at Project Space Leeds. Commissioned by PSL.

2012 ‘Jump and Draw’. One week project combining sport and art. Chapel Allerton Primary School. Leeds

2012 ‘Action paper’. Children, Creativity and Space Conference. Interdisciplinary.net, Mansfield College, Oxford.

2012 ‘The Den Project,’ Action paper. Children, Memory and Play Conference. Centre for Childhood and Youth, University of Sheffield

August 2012 ‘Occupy the Wood’. Community installation building a wood from secondhand and waste materials. Chapel Allerton Arts Festival. Leeds

May 2013 ‘Group action/workshop’. Symposium of Sorts by Lydia Catterall. Leeds Metropolitan University

June 2013 ‘Playing Out.’ Action paper at Play across the Lifespan Conference at Leeds Metropolitan University

July 2013 ‘Day 1’ of Call & Response, Meschac Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art; Tate Modern Summer School

August 2013 ‘Magic and Illusion’. Participatory installation using film and light and puppets. Chapel Allerton Arts Festival. Leeds

September 2013 ‘Protest’. Participatory residence in The King’s Arms Beer Garden, Salford Festival.

October 2013 ‘Digitess’. Performance and film for staff research exhibition at LMU.

October 2013 ‘Resilience’ Love Arts Leeds Festival. Participatory process-led exhibition with Graphic Arts and Design students. A Building Gallery, LMU

Speak up, F= Participatory event at Culture Capitalism Media, Conferences at University of Leeds

F= - ProjectRadio, Live broadcast at &model Gallery, Leeds. F= respond to Rachel Mclean’s film Feed Me from British Artshow 8. http://www.projectradio.uk/f-introduce-women-visibility-and-playful-acts/ http://www.andmodel.com/archive.htm

After Nature 15, European Exchange Academy, Artists and Educators Programme. Participant alongside thirteen European artist/educators from Rietveld Academy Amsterdam, Minerva Art Academy Groningen, Anadolu University Turkey, Bergen Academy of Fine Art & Design Norway, Goldsmiths University, Dale, Sonnjefjord Norway. http://www.eeacademy.eu/eea/

May 2013 ‘Under the beach the pavement’. Co-produced action paper by Graphic Arts and design staff at Storyville: Exploring narratives of learning and teaching. 2nd Annual HEA Arts and Humanities Conference.

2008 ‘Research-based teaching practice’. 4th International Cltad Conference on Enhancing Curricula. New York & Publication

Women Visibility and Playful Acts. Using Play to Empower, Educate and Act in Public Spaces. Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation. Vol.3,No.1, 2016, ISSN 2246-3755. International blind peer reviewed journal on cultural participation. http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com Women Visibility and Playful Acts Using play to empower, educate and act in public spaces. Conjunctions. Transdisciplinary Journal ‘Playful Participation’. http://www.conjunctions-tjcp.com

Art Doctors. British Art Show 8 and Leeds Arts and Minds. Commissioned Public Performance with Alison McIntyre (Broken Arts Collective). Norwich Castle and Museum & Norwich School of Art.

Robinson Stirling: Commission for Tate Modern, London. Design and production of an educational resource for 0-5 year olds and their families to be used in the permanent collection gallery.

September 26th, 2015 ‘Dogs’. Performance and collaborative paper by Robinson Stirling, Jo Hasaall, Ben Hall. Symplasium, The Tetley. Leeds

Robinson Stirling , Jo Hassall, Ben Hall Performance & paper Symplasium, The Tetley: http://thetetley.org/symplaysium/

F= Participatory event at Culture Capitalism Media, Conferences at University of Leeds

Co-production of Dance Hall Daze, a participatory event at Chapel Allerton Arts Festival with 100 school children in dance performances and workshops, 200 participant dancers at festival.

Story Goddess: Co-production with Alison Mcintyre of a participatory event at Chapel Allerton Arts Festival with 200 plus participants at festival, 120 participants in school workshops– making costumes, stories and drawings and a public parade through festival. Total weekend visitors, 10,000.

Robinson Stirling Photographic pieces from performances for The Cultural Sisters in the The Workshops Exhibition. Pigdog and Monkeyfestos, Airspace Gallery. Stoke-on-Trent

‘Burn the Bra’. Walk and Burning Bra Public Event. Co-founder, co-organiser . Public walk to celebrate International Women’s Day through the centre of Leeds.

Art Doctors (Leeds City Art Gallery). Training Live Guides in Methods of Public Interaction for The Relaunch of Leeds City Art Gallery.

Women Visibility and Playful Acts. Annual Walk and Burning Ritual celebrating International Women’s Day in Leeds, UK. Paper at with Jo Hassall at Architecture, Festival and the City, 14th AHRA Conference, Birmingham. International Peer Reviewed Conference.

Revolting Women & Disobedient Design Paper with Jo Hassall at the Graphic Design Educators Network Conference, Sheffield Hallam University

Robinson Stirling ‘Drag’ Performance at Tate Britain, Families Festival Weekend. Four two-hour public performances in the History Galleries, audience attendance over the weekend 15,000. Link: http://kids1.tate.org.uk/blog/mission-completed-well-done-art-explorers/

'This is me’. Action production at ‘Women, Visibility and Playful Acts’ Unconference, The Gallery, Munro House, Leeds.

F= - Live broadcast at ProjectRadio at &model Gallery, Leeds.

September 7th/ 8th. Participatory intervention. Capitalism, Culture and the Media Conference. University of Leeds.

January 2016 Art Doctors (Dr Liz Stirling & Alison McIntyre). Presentation at Participation Matters. BAS8

Public event, Unconference, with audience participation, speakers and attendees.

Recognition of the art practice and its significance in arts educational practice for Early Years development.

Chapel Allerton Arts festival. Changes in the philosophy of the programme of arts activity since running participatory events acknowledged and commented on by festival organisers from 2012 to date. The event has a visitor number of 10,000 a year and specific public participatory parade was seen by approximately 2000 in 2014 and direct participation and audience approx.

Performance at Festival of the Body by Robinson Stirling; a month long programme of public events organised by F=. Leeds Central Room 700 Link: http://www.fequals.co.uk

105 Women, Residency and exhibition event at Union 105, East Street Arts gallery in Chapeltown, in collaboration with women from Rainbow Hearts Women Asylum Seekers Group funded by East Street Arts September. Link: http://105women.blogspot.co.uk

Broken Arts Collective Joshua Tetley’s Birthday. Participatory event with performance at The Tetley: http://thetetley.org/summer-play/

Robinson Stirling ‘Academic ID’ Public Performance for F= event Women, Visibility and Playful Acts Unconference. Leeds Central Library Artspace

Co-founder and co-organiser of Freedom Bin Walk for International Womens Day and co-curator of exhibition for Leeds Central Artspace. Women Visibility and Playful Acts. Walk - Participators 90 plus public, Unconference 50 http://www.fequals.co.uk

Hassall, Jo and Stirling, Liz. Dr. ‘Burn The Bra. Collaborative teaching for a public event.’ Collaborative teaching in Arts Education. ijade Conference for NSEAD. Tate Liverpool.

A Big Tri-ump, South Square Gallery. Thornton. Performance at Party like its 2069 exhibition.

Art Doctors. British Art Show 8 and Leeds Arts and Minds. Commissioned Public Performance with Alison McIntyre (Broken Arts Collective). Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh

Leeds Cultural Conversations. F= Public talk at the Town Hall

Art Doctors (Love Arts Festival) at Leeds City Art Gallery Day Performance.

Art Doctors. British Art Show 8 and Leeds Arts and Minds. Commissioned Public Performance with Alison McIntyre (Broken Arts Collective) at Leeds Art Gallery.

Permission to Play. Paper with Jo Hassall and Ben Hall at Playful [Learning Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University].

We are F= Film screening at Speak, Body: Art, the reproduction of Capital and the Reproduction of Life. Conference at University of Leeds

We are F= Film Screening with Q & A session. Won I Women in the City Symposium, Hosted by Women & the Built Environment research.

105 Women. In search of a safe, free space for a diverse group of women to meet, make, play, share, learn and exchange skills in. Paper at Architecture and Feminisms. Economies, Ecologies and Technologies. 13th AHRA conference. Stockholm. International peer reviewed conference.

The Art Doctors regular monthly slot with Gayle Lofthouse live on air prescribing everyday creativity

Designing a Super Gut. Public Engagement activities for families and young people on Mental Health and Wellbeing and the Museum collection

The PhD research explored the identities of ‘Stranger’ (Schutz, 1944), ‘Stranger-artist’ and ‘Stranger-Mongolian’ through adopting a semi-autobiographical approach in which I use a variety of practice-based research methodologies in order to produce original art projects and artworks. I used ‘experiential perspective’ (Stevens, 1996) as the main paradigm in inquiring the negotiation process of a necessary adjustment to a different culture, language and society in conjunction with the popular debate of ‘loosing and searching for identity’ (Trinh, 1988).  In particular, the research is concerned with the previously untouched subject of a modern Mongolian national identity, its artistic representation and re-identification in the UK, through practice-based contemporary art methodologies. Drawing on examples from the recent political history of Mongolia and mainstream media, combined with first-hand personal experiences of the realities of national, racial, cultural stereotyping, the research has contested the existing stereotype of Mongolness. Important to this has been the inclusion and intertwining of familial and personal narratives in defining ‘Stranger-Mongolian’ identity, and how these experiences have become continually manifested while undertaking four research trips back and forth to Mongolia. I probed the terms Nicolas Bourriaud’s terms ‘cultural nomad’ and ‘reification’ in relation to Non-Western artists’ practices. As part of this I have also reflected upon the not widely known and studied art medium of Mongolian traditional painting or Mongol Zurag and the impact it had on my art practice.  The research employed various combinations of methodologies including photography, performances, documentations, installations, videos, interviews and personal narratives, two of which I termed as ‘auto-photo-performance’ and 'photo-performance'. The site-specific and spatial qualities of the research were the prepositions to all of the art projects and artworks produced.  The final PhD submission consists of 3 parts: Part 1, Contextual Document; Part 2, Art Projects & Artworks and Part 3, DVD.

This practice-based research is about architecture Live Projects. Through an architecture Live Project programme managed by Project Office, Live Project pedagogy, unique to Leeds Beckett University has been established. The invention of the ‘school-based practice’ Project Office acts as a bridging entity, prototyping a new mechanism for facilitating the process and production of Live Projects, one which intersects architects/lecturers, students/agents and clients/public. Using 23 case studies, this PhD demonstrates that Project Office is indispensable as a means of enabling and enriching the architecture Live Project programme and student experience. The research also focusses on myself as a Live Project educator, by introducing the term situated learning agility to theorise and reflect upon this key role.

Current UK Government economic and social policy is adversely affecting young people's rights, access to space and provision of, and within space, such as the closure of adventure playgrounds, and the erosion of play policy.  This thesis examines young people’s access to public space in the UK. Is it restricted, and if so why? The thesis uses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ‘right to the city’ theory as well as youth needs established through a literature review as a broad theoretical framework. The thesis considers the cultural, socio-economic, environmental and policy factors affecting young people’s access to and provision within public space. It explores ideas for transforming space to better suit young people’s needs. These include concepts produced by the Situationist International, Amsterdam’s municipal Public Works Department in the postwar period, and approaches such as, the playful city and tactical urbanism. Case study method is used to focus on participatory practices and on conceptual and policy insights that may prove beneficial in improving UK practice. Projects include Superkilen and Super Street, Denmark; Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam; Cathedral Gardens, Manchester; the Wrexham Play Sufficiency Assessments; and an analysis of Kyttä’s use of affordances applied to SoftGIS mapping.  The case studies illustrate that sites exist that are context-driven, playful, allow for freedom of expression, and that recognise young people’s needs and provide space for them in central urban areas. Progressive leadership and visionary practitioners sympathetic to young people’s rights and needs have made these spaces a reality. Yet the ability to participate in the production of, and adapt public space remains constrained. UK national and local governments should promote and encourage participatory practice and adopt a more inclusive and less negative attitude towards young people in planning policy. A diverse range of networked spaces is required, including adaptable and informal spaces that provide places to play and socialise for young people. Designs that promote intergenerational sharing of space are critical as urban populations increase.