ROTOЯ Transdisciplinary Dialogue and Debate: A Public Engagement Case Study

“Art and culture can connect with, and create connections between, individuals, groups and communities in uniquely personal and highly engaging ways. It can provide inspiration, understanding, solace and entertainment. It enriches our lives in deeply personal ways. It provides the context for the richest of social interactions. It creates space for intellectual engagement and enlightenment.”
- Di Lees (Director General of the Imperial War Museum).
In 2011 the University of Huddersfield commenced a partnership with Huddersfield Art Gallery, to offer a public engagement exhibitions programme, entitled “ROTOЯ”. Featuring the art and design work of University staff, this series of exhibitions, public events and talks acts as a platform for disseminating and communicating practice-based-research, showcasing a community of artists, designers and curators whose ideas and connective practices migrate and span art and design production. For ROTOЯ, interpretation acts as a pivot between academic research, interpretation and public engagement, where points of intersection are considered and debated from multiple perspectives. Central to ROTOЯ’s ethos is an enquiry into art and design’s impact upon its locale, and into how we might better understand its value both locally and more generally. In 2013 we hosted a symposium at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London which questioned how we measure the role and effects of public engagement in art and design. This paper presents the ROTOЯ public engagement exhibitions programme as a case study for public engagement in light of these questions.