A Sense of Belonging
The Sense of Belonging blog has been designed to provide an insight into the research project, documenting its outputs, so that the project can be engaged and shared with a wide audience, nationally and internationally
‘Sense of Belonging’ is an interdisciplinary research project led by academics in the Lincoln School of Design, Heather Connelly, Dave Eccles, Nick Wilson and Jo Mansfield. It has been designed to investigate how Art and Design can help to foster ‘a sense of belonging’ and to see what common themes emerge and how are they being portrayed/communicated. Additionally, it aims to explore the potential of collaborative practice-research across design, curation, art, and pedagogy – it is the start of something!
The impetus for this project was a conference call on the theme of Belonging from the Foundation Year Network and our desire to present and engage the delegates in what we ‘do’ on Art & Design Foundation courses: prioritising the physical and experiential nature of art and design over a mediated paper presentation.
Consequently, we created an open call for art work from staff and students from the University of Lincoln and our partner North West University, South Africa, inviting them to contribute new or existing work on the theme of ‘Sense of Belonging’.
The research project is, however, much broader than the exhibition, and will be conducted in different stages and comprises of a number of strands, questions and outputs, including a cross institutional zine workshop, catalogue and seminar, it is practice-based, emergent and generative.
