Imaginaries of Value: Articulating, dis-articulating and re-articulating Site and Mobility in globalised art and design practices through their creative and administrative uses of paper

This research environment investigates imaginaries of value in relation to the "globalisation-from-above" of art and design.

Building on Taylor’s (2007) work on social imaginaries, we explore how value is imagined, performed and given material form in the globalised world of art and design work, by focusing on paper as a creative and administrative material interface used to produce and circulate value norms, ideas and practices.

This will be done through two themes titled Site and Mobility to reflect the two sides of globalised art and design, focused on both locally producing communal spaces, Living Labs, and the like and circulating globally such local and site-specific art and design work.

Relying on a mixed-method approach, the international team of senior researchers and artists will focus on four cases of art and design projects.

Each case will be ethnographically explored with a detailed attention on how paper is used to produce aesthetic, organizational and institutional value and their imaginaries of value will be re-articulated through the artistic production of microhistories throughout the whole research process.

The research environment will engage in international symposia, in scholarly publications and a final exhibition is planned to be staged in two cultural institutions in the UK and in Sweden.