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Artist Fitore Berisha Alísdóttir is an Albanian woman from Kosova who now divides her time between Kosova and Iceland. Her work exposes and condemns human-rights violations. Here, Eralda L. Lameborshi [...]

In this Stories piece, Sarah J. McAnulty, the executive director of Skype a Scientist and an assistant research professor at the University of Connecticut, discusses the importance of scientists connecting with their local communities to promote trust in and engagement with science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that critical epistemology should aim at centering the voices and perspectives of those who have been excluded and silenced, proposing a way of doing that by combining Black feminist standpoint theory and Latina feminist theory as they converge in María del Rosario Acosta López’s philosophy of radical listening. The article also argues for the crucial significance of aesthetic interventions for creating epistemic friction that can transform our sensibilities so that we can start to listen to silences. The author offers an analysis of the subversive potential in Doris Salcedo’s public art as an illustration of how aesthetic resistance can be used in practices of epistemic activism that resist insensitivity and promote new ways of listening to silenced voices and liminal sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a remarkable confidence in Irish culture right now. In the decade to 2024, Ireland successfully emerged from a devastating recession while overseeing significant investment by the State in the arts. A new generation of artists are shaping Irish identity, forged in the heat of a rapidly growing multicultural population, to construct a new national narrative of Ireland. This paper examines the instrumentalisation of artists in Ireland’s nation brand. Based on interviews with renowned Irish artists, the author applies an autoethnographic approach to capture specific insights from these elite expert informants. The study establishes that artists are complicit in their use of the arts as a tool of soft power. It confirms their unique role in building a nation’s reputation, and engaging international publics with the multiplicity of narratives, within an evolving Irish identity. It calls for a conceptual repositioning of artists as critical co-authors in effective nation branding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mosaic ceramics are not limited to use solely as building materials, they also possess artistic value. Artists can create images by arranging and combining mosaic ceramics, resulting in a perfect fusion of large-scale public art for external walls and ceramic materials. However, the current approach for artists to create mosaic ceramic exterior wall art images involves manual laying and assembling of individual mosaic ceramics. This manual process suffers from issues such as low efficiency, eye fatigue, selection errors, and the risk of high-altitude operations. These challenges significantly impact the quality and efficiency of creating mosaic ceramic exterior wall art image images. To address these problems, this paper proposes an automatic mosaic ceramic art image stitching method based on subpixel edge fitting positioning and collaborative operation of multiple robotic arms. Additionally, a new U + I type conveying method is designed for efficient and space-saving transportation of mosaic ceramics. Experimental results demonstrate a high success rate of recognition, absorption, and placement of multi-color mosaic ceramics using this method reaching 95.45%, with a positioning error within 0.5 mm. The method can also adapt to varying levels of light intensity or noise interference. This approach effectively enhances the quality and efficiency of creating mosaic ceramic exterior wall art images and promotes the development of mosaic ceramic exterior wall public art creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the last three decades of school improvement policies have progressively limited the places and arguments created for arts education in public schools. The result has been a steady marginalization of the arts in the work of school improvement, an exacerbation of opportunity gaps related to access to arts education, and a small window of opportunity to push back against what has become a cycle of narrowing and layering demands on literacy and mathematics to the exclusion of all other areas. As the standards, accountability, and competition movements have led toward increasing privatization and turn toward private industry to solve the problems of public schooling, arts education continues to be marginalized by seeming to require outside intervention rather than intensive internal solutions. I conclude with a discussion of the policy strategies that might reposition arts education within current trends in education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sarkis Zabunyan, one of the prominent figures in Turkish contemporary art, was selected to represent the Turkish pavilion in the Venice Biennale in 2015. Since 2015 was the centennial of the Armenian Genocide, a genocide that has not been recognized by the Turkish Republic for more than a hundred years, and Sarkis being an Istanbul Armenian born and raised in Turkey, the selection caused quite a stir and sparked a public discussion on art and collective healing when it was announced. As a result, the catalog of Sarkis's work Respiro was subjected to censorship. Through this censorship case, this article scrutinizes various reconciliation discourses developed in Turkey in the early 2000s regarding the Armenian Genocide and how contemporary art could possibly engage/disengage with those discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural participation is an individual activity with relevant social dimensions. Democratic societies are concerned about the representation of social groups in cultural audiences and promote policies to increase participation focusing on planning aspects, such as in creative placemaking, or educational policies and social interventions targeted at some underrepresented social groups. Using the data derived from the 2017 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts from the United States, we estimate generalized entropy indexes to explore the more relevant dimensions to explain divides in cultural participation across the U.S. adult population, considering geographical and sociodemographic variables. Cultural engagement is characterized by the participation by highbrow, lowbrow, passive, active, live, and digital activities. Overall, we find that spatial and racial characteristics are not the most relevant, while education appears to be the most important source to explain access inequality. The pattern of digital participation is remarkably similar to the pattern of physical participation, thus showing some evidence that the divide and stratification of cultural practices in the real world translates to digital practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the multiple roles of public art in urban renewal and sustainable development goals, combining qualitative and quantitative methods, with an emphasis on community engagement and the application of theoretical frameworks. Through a detailed analysis of public art projects in Teruel, Spain, and Chengdu, China, this study shows how public art plays an important role in enhancing cultural values, promoting social inclusion, and driving economic growth. Qualitative methods such as interviews and content analysis were used to gain in-depth insights into the views and experiences of artists, urban planners, policymakers, and community members. At the same time, quantitative methods such as questionnaires and spatial analysis were used to assess the specific impacts of public art on urban beautification, social inclusion, and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon Édouard Glissant's notion of the 'archipel' and Gene Youngblood's concept of the 'expanded cinema,' this study examines recent examples of screen-based public art showcased in densely populated Chinese metropolises. Focusing on the artworks' potential to reconfigure the spaces they inhabit and engage the spectators within the context of urban landscapes, screens in these artworks are portrayed as integral components of an archipelago, elucidating the mobility of cultural communication. We introduce a methodological framework, termed 'World-Archipelago' and 'Archipelago-World.' The former scenario involves artworks that remain central and interact with their surroundings as extensions, merging virtual experiences with reality, while the latter blurs the boundaries between the artwork and its context, harmonizing with local culture and seamlessly integrating into the urban fabric. Thus, this study posits that applying archipelagic thinking provides a substantial and analytical understanding of screens as an artistic medium within public art, involving a rhizomatic interplay that transcends the conventional centre–periphery paradigm and demands an exploration of the evolving relationships between screen-based public art and spatial critical awareness within metropolitan contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) enables Artificial Intelligence (AI) to explain its decisions. This holds the promise of making AI more understandable to users, improving interaction, and establishing an adequate level of trust. We tested this claim in the high-risk task of AI-assisted mushroom hunting, where people had to decide whether a mushroom was edible or poisonous. In a between-subjects experiment, 328 visitors of an Austrian media art festival played a tablet-based mushroom hunting game while walking through a highly immersive artificial indoor forest. As part of the game, an artificially intelligent app analyzed photos of the mushrooms they found and recommended classifications. One group saw the AI's decisions only, while a second group additionally received attribution-based and example-based visual explanations of the AI's recommendation. The results show that participants with visual explanations outperformed participants without explanations in correct edibility assessments and pick-up decisions. This exhibition-based experiment thus replicated the decision-making results of a previous online study. However, unlike in the previous study, the visual explanations did not significantly affect levels of trust or acceptance measures. In a direct comparison, we consequently discuss the findings in terms of generalizability. Besides the scientific contribution, we discuss the direct impact of conducting XAI experiments in immersive art- and game-based environments in exhibition contexts on visitors and local communities by triggering reflection and awareness for psychological issues of human–AI interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Controversies about public monuments or even iconoclastic interventions inflame passions and divide the minds: What for some is a long overdue purging of democratic public space of unworthy "heroes" or oppressive symbols, others condemn as vandalism and an attack on the cultural/political foundations of the polity. Such controversies, as they have arisen in recent years, especially in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, invite us to reflect on fundamental questions about democratic politics and democratic ways of life. If, in democracies, negotiations about who and what is to be publicly remembered (in veneration) are ultimately interminable because the demos is constantly in flux and with each generation novel ways of looking at history emerge, in what ways should these negotiations be conducted? From a philosophical point of view, it is less a matter of answering these questions unambiguously than of drawing inspiration from them for democratic self-understandings and a democratic culture of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rift is a self-initiated public artwork commemorating victims of death shootings in Sweden. On each of the sites of a shooting, there is placed a paving slab with a rift filled with an inlay of bronze. The slabs contain no information about the events they commemorate, no names or dates. The project began in 2020 in Malmö, and most recently, in April 2024, two slabs were placed in Stockholm. This interview with the artists behind the work, Loke Berg, Erik Vestman, and Viggo Wichmann, focuses on the role of memory in the public space, what this work means to the artists, and how one can imagine a collective mourning. At the core of the interview is a discussion of memory activism, repair, and who is publicly grievable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a point of departure in the creation of an unsanctioned street installation made in Granada, Spain, in 2005, this essay considers some of the central characteristics of street art. It further discusses some of the conditions under which urban environs may become places for autonomous interventions, experiences and reflections rather than spaces people merely pass through. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article first suggests that there has been a "Walking Turn" in contemporary socially engaged public art and then considers critically how these practices might be best framed and understood in the context of Aotearoa. There has been a multitude of walking-based artworks in Aotearoa since the second half of the 2010s to the present. In the wake of the global pandemic and natural flooding and cyclone disasters in Aotearoa that soon followed, "going out for a walk" has been repeatedly problematized and reframed for most citizens. This article seeks to establish a theoretical framework that is responsive to Indigenous as well as posthumanist discourse, through which we might best consider walking art practices in Aotearoa. To do this, the concept of walking "with/in" place is employed as an entry point. Drawing on research interviews, a number of culturally informed concepts related to walking are examined alongside notions of countermapping and countermonument. The artwork analysis considers the decolonial, counterneoliberal, and regenerative principles underlining these practices. The artworks discussed engage in histories and contemporary politics of place and can be characterized by quietude, humility, and hyperlocality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how the contemporary artists describe the Matsu Islands through their artworks. Topics mentioned include the focus of contemporary artists on the shore and the intertidal zone, the boundaries between activism and tourism and biophysical and metaphysical, and the fluid link between the Pacific Ocean and the island nation of Taiwan.

The article analyses public art within the framework of the cultural approach – as a form of visualization of the city’s cultural code. The author examines the variants of public art comprehension existing in the Russian academic discourse and identifies the two most common approaches to the interpretation of art in the public space. According to the first approach, public art is interpreted as “commissioned” art, which is an instrument of the state’s ideological policy, and is therefore evaluated negatively. According to the second approach, public art is understood in a less evaluative and more meaningful way, emphasizing the variability of artistic practices existing within it, their focus on communication with society, participation of residents, and reflection of locally significant meanings. The article emphasizes the commemorative functions of public art and comprehends its role in the actualization of the city’s cultural memory and representation of urban identity. The author explores what historical, cultural, and mythological narratives are depicted on the murals in Veliky Novgorod, created within the framework of the All-Russian Street Art Festival “Pages of History” (2019–2023). The article proposes to categorize Novgorod murals into the following thematic groups: 1) genius loci; 2) historical subjects; 3) myths and legends; 4) cultural heritage; 5) natural objects; 6) modern heroes. Art in Veliky Novgorod’s public spaces, especially located in typical Soviet districts, serves to individualize the urban environment and create new points of attraction for the city dwellers. Murals have become part of new excursion routes that run both through the symbolic city center and the city outskirts. The author argues that the subjects represented on the murals are authentic for Veliky Novgorod, contribute to the formation of local identity, enhance the imagery of the urban environment, and emphasize the uniqueness of the Novgorod cultural landscape.

In the ever-evolving landscape of higher education, the visual and practical elements of university grounds are pivotal in molding the complete student journey. This study explores the transformative power of public art in enhancing environmental design on college campuses. Employing a questionnaire survey as the primary data collection method, the research gathered demographic information and investigated participants' perceptions and experiences related to public art's role in shaping the campus environment. The data for this study were collected through structured questionnaires from a sample of 250 students across five universities in China, with a mean age of 21.4 years and a standard deviation of 2 years. Utilizing SPSS software for data analysis, the study identified several key findings. The study establishes a favorable link between the existence of public art on college campuses and students' sense of place and identity. The research demonstrates a positive correlation between public art on college campuses and heightened community engagement and social interaction among students. The study reveals a constructive correlation between the availability of public art on campuses and increased inclusivity and accessibility for students of diverse backgrounds and abilities. The novelty of the study lies in its comprehensive examination of the multifaceted impacts of public art on college campuses, encompassing its influence on identity formation, community dynamics, environmental consciousness, inclusivity, and academic outcomes. The research suggests that exposure to art can have positive effects on cognitive function, creativity, and overall well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public art is increasingly recognised for its pedagogical value, especially in higher education, where it enhances institutions’ educational outcomes and expands students’ learning experiences. However, its potential in basic education remains under‐exploited. This study aims to bridge the gap by investigating how public art is effectively integrated into school curriculums and the educational benefits it offers students in their learning journey. Researchers, therefore, designed a student‐centred public art intervention project, Dreams and Hopes, at a Chinese nonprofit primary school incorporating the school's educational goals. The project recruited 5th and 6th graders to create a giant mosaic mural for the campus’ public space during the school's club and regular curriculum. To determine the educational benefits of the public art practice, researchers collected qualitative data using ethnographic methods in the project. The results showed that students at different stages (design, making, exhibition) gained competencies in three key themes: creativity (divergence, convergence, expression), practical ability (operation, innovation, collaboration), and self‐identity (satisfaction, achievement, confidence). These competencies align with the school's educational goals and enhance students’ learning experience. Problem‐based guidance, a relaxed and enjoyable atmosphere, effective communication and a connection to reality are essential to these critical competencies. The study reveals that public art may support educational goals and benefit students. It also enhances the practical experience of public art in basic education and provides a model of intervention to educators. The study recommends that schools actively collaborate with external resources, emphasise the art practice's educational value, and provide platforms for student arts participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work investigates the physicochemical stability of spray paints when irradiated with artificial solar light (at spectral range 300–800 nm). This research highlights the importance of understanding the materials used in street art and public murals, recognising them as a significant component of contemporary cultural heritage. By examining the stability and degradation of spray paints toward solar light exposure, the study aims to contribute to the preservation of contemporary murals, which reflect current social and cultural narratives. A physicochemical approach was employed for the study of spray paints' physical and thermal properties, as well as the effect of specific photochemical ageing reactions/processes. The photochemical ageing results were compared with reference (unaged) samples. Specifically, a multi-technique approach was applied using stereo microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle measurement, colorimetry, glossimetry, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), UV-Vis spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), and pyrolysis-GC/MS (Py-GC/MS). The photodegradation of the spray paints occurred from the first 144 h of solar light irradiation, resulting in changes in morphology, colour, gloss, roughness, and wettability. Regarding photochemical stability, ageing seems to affect the binders more than the synthetic organic pigments and the inorganic fillers. In particular, acrylic binders showed small chemical changes, whereas the alkyd, nitrocellulose, and styrene binders underwent severe chemical modification. The results suggest that simulated daylight irradiation prompts the migration of additives toward the surface of the spray paint films. In addition, the results of the analyses on the white spray paints in comparison with the coloured paints (from the same manufacturer) showed that there seems to be an active distinct photoageing mechanism involving titanium dioxide, but the whole issue needs further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In what way might public statues wrong people? In recent years, philosophers have drawn on speech act theory to answer this question by arguing that statues constitute harmful or disrespectful forms of speech. My aim in this paper will be add a different theoretical perspective to this discussion. I will argue that while the speech act approach provides a useful starting point for thinking about what is wrong with public statues, we can get a fuller understanding of these wrongs by drawing on resources from recent work in situated affectivity. I will argue that public statues can be understood as affective artifacts and that this can both help us understand both the deep affective wrongs caused by public statues and offer a possible explanation as to why some people are so strongly opposed to their removal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Academics often comment that their teaching affects their research, but how this manifests is often implicit. In this essay, I explicitly explore the artistic, scholarly, and curatorial research instantiated by an undergraduate class titled "Transgender Studies meets Art History," which I taught during the fall of 2022. Alongside personal anecdotes—both personal and connected to the class—and a critical reflection on my pedagogy, I discuss the artwork and public programming connected to a curatorial project, "Forever Becoming: Decolonization, Materiality, and Trans* Subjectivity, I organized at UrbanGlass, New York City in 2023. The first part of the article I examine how "trans" can be applied to thinking about syllabus construction and re-thinking canon formation for a class focused on transgender studies' relationship to art history. In the second half, I theorize trans joy as a felt vibration between/across multiplicity and singularity, belonging and unbelonging, and world-making and world-unmaking. Overall, I consider trans as a lived experience and its utility as a conceptual tool. As a coda, I consider the precarity of teaching this course in the current political climate of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Societal Impact Statement Summary People often undervalue plants, hindering botanical education and conservation efforts. This study demonstrates how art‐based approaches including audience co‐creation elements can yield new insights into human‐plant interactions. Analyzing plant‐related memories showed that reflecting on personal experiences with plants evokes emotions and can reconnect individuals to specific people and places. The role of multisensory experiences of plants was also highlighted. This knowledge can inform botanical education practices and improve the design of effective outreach programs, fostering greater societal plant awareness and appreciation. The lack of plant appreciation, a manifestation of plant awareness disparity, is concerning in the context of plant conservation and preservation of botanical knowledge and skills. Developing effective strategies to foster plant awareness requires a better understanding of the nature of human interactions with plants. Art‐based approaches offer a new lens for attracting diverse audiences and can generate unique data through promoting self‐reflection and evoking emotional responses. Herein, we used the case study of visual exhibition “In Memory of Plants” to investigate how arts can be used to explore lasting connections to plants. The exhibition, presented at the Alternative Kilkenny Arts Festival 2022, was designed to inspire reflection on plants as elements of personal experiences and introduce the concept of plant awareness disparity. It also included a co‐creation component where visitors were invited to add their own plant‐related memories to a display board. These audience contributions were subjected to qualitative and quantitative analyses. The results underscored the ability of plants to act as memory anchors, providing lasting connections to places and people from the past. Additionally, the study yielded insights into the identity of “plant mentors” and highlighted the role of multisensory perception in human‐plant interactions. Presented observations can inform future projects focused on plant awareness and may encourage new collaborations between artists, botanists, and science communicators. Collectively, this study supports the use of arts‐based methods to both enhance and investigate plant awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the planning of a town with a focus on craft and cultural identity. It explores examples from various towns, such as St Ives, Stroud, Malmesbury, and Western North Carolina, to illustrate how cultural initiatives can shape a town's identity. The text emphasizes the importance of community involvement, vision, and economic impact in creating a successful craft town. The author concludes by suggesting potential locations, like Bovey Tracey and Sleaford, that could embody the characteristics of a craft town. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses an exhibition at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art featuring the work of artist Jacqueline Poncelet. Poncelet's retrospective exhibition showcases her diverse practice over fifty years, highlighting her use of various mediums and themes such as jazz music, weaving, ceramics, and sculpture. The exhibition explores the continuity and evolution of Poncelet's work, emphasizing her unique approach to pattern-making and exploration of consciousness through art. The article provides insights into Poncelet's artistic journey and the influences that have shaped her creative process. [Extracted from the article]

I initiate the concept of 'making-remote' to capture various strategies for representing the human in late Palaeolithic cave art. Drawing out the role of remoteness within phenomenological accounts of perception (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty), as well as offering an analysis of a wide range of archaeological evidence, I argue that realism does not capture the specificity of these human representations. In contrast to naturalistic animal representations, humans are consistently represented with a high degree of abstraction e.g. schematisation and abbreviation. I also argue for a site-specific distinction between deep caves and rock-shelters. Following Bourdier (2010) and Pinçon (2012), art at sites such as Roc-aux-Sorciers is best understood as stylised 'public art'. Meanwhile, the highly expressive and realist art of La Marche is domestic in contrast to the exclusively symbolic art of deep caves. In conclusion I argue that 'making-remote' in cave art's human representations exhibits complex relations to self and others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay engages with Guias do Mocho [Mocho's Tourist Guides], a bottom-up cultural tourism initiative emerging in Quinta do Mocho, a 'peripheral' neighbourhood of Lisbon, as a way of problematizing the relationship between public and street art and social media aesthetics. Scholarship on digital creative industries and street art tourism tends to emphasize the complicities of this kind of cultural experience with neoliberal understandings of the urban space. By examining an example of bottom-up, localized guided tours that operates through social media in the context of peripheral areas of Lisbon, we argue that public art and social media should be seen as part of a more complicated correlation, one in which the affects and effects of creative, site-specific projects are actively developed and expanded in unforeseen ways. Our research demonstrates that public art and social media are mutually developing a renewed economy of attention and system of valorization. The critical examination of both elements is compulsory when measuring the impact of art-driven processes of community development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very limited information has reached the present day in terms of the institutionalization process of painting education, the opening of private schools providing painting education, their curriculum, staff and general operating rules. Within the framework of the renewal movements of the Ottoman Empire, painting lessons were included in the education curriculum of military schools. Although the domestic and foreign press of the period, travelogues, memoirs, diaries, archive documents are limited sources of information in this field. Pera and its surroundings, where foreign painters lived during their travels to the Ottoman geography, also turned into the art production and education area of the Ottoman Empire, in other words, the art environment. Pierre Désiré Guillemet (1827-1878) opened a school called Academie de Dessin et de Peinture and his activities laid the foundation for the idea of opening a school for the public and providing art education in the minds of Ottoman high-ranking bureaucrats. On the one hand, the Sanayi-i Nefise-i Şahane was taking shape and, on the other hand, the workshops and courses initiated by Western painters in the very early period continued their existence by increasing in number, and later they turned into private painting schools. In this article, for the first time, information will be given about educational staff, curriculum, rules, educational conditions and fee policy of a painting school with a special status in the light of the regulation of the painting school belonging to the painter Mehmed Muazzez Özduygu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of International Journal of Social Sciences (IJSS) / Uluslararasi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi is the property of International Journal of Social Science and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Tasarim+Kuram is the property of KARE Publishing and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, I shall discuss participation - the artist's role and responsibility in participation, and the potentials of participatory textile projects in the public space. In doing so, I will focus on The stitch project (2012-). This project involves public interaction through acts of tactile textile making such as stitching on a tablecloth. I have based this study within a context of understanding matter and the embodiment of participation from feminist (Ahmed, 2006; Butler, 1988) and new materialist (Barad, 2003; Coole & Frost, 2010; Garber, 2019) perspectives. I am interested in the interactive aspects of The stitch project and how these aspects relate to the concepts of diapraxis (Nunes, 2019) and al masha (Hilal & Petti, 2018). In regard to these terms, I aim to examine the potentials and challenges of participatory textile art projects, like The stitch project, by examining their social and material aspects as well as the complexities of inclusion and participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2017 and 2019, I created three temporary artistic interventions in public spaces in which passers-by could discover, interact with or ignore different materials related to libraries as social, public systems. During my work with the first, Expired Outdoors (2017), serendipity emerged as a principle I became interested in exploring further. In two consecutive installations, serendipity gradually manifested itself both as an interface between my installations and their audience and as a creative strategy guiding my choices of contexts and materials. Upon invitation from editor Olga Schmedling, in this article I discuss aspects of serendipity in the three projects, proposing to understand serendipity as instances of interruption rather than as accidental discovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How meaning is created, circulated, and manipulated in the post-truth era is not selfevident. How are we to distinguish between the distribution and power of constructed information and knowledge production? These were questions at the core of the discursive project on epistemology entitled How do you know? at KHiO Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2017/2018. How do you know? was initiated by professor Apolonija Šušteršič, a Slovenian architect and visual artist whose work is related to critical analysis of public space, and Maria Lind, a Swedish curator, art writer, and educator. In this project, they focused on current ways of thinking and how these generate significance across fields such as art, philosophy, science, and education. In the following conversation, Šušteršič and Lind use their experience from How do you know? to look back on how they have worked together on several occasions since 1997. The conversation is conducted in response to a list of topics proposed by Olga Schmedling, editor of the current issue of Researching public art and public space, part II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article has a multidisciplinary regard to the theory of the panopticon, defined by the French philosopher Michael Foucault, as a disciplinary concept applied to an architectural typology, in the form of a central observation tower placed in the central area of a prison; and afterwards, model extended and implemented in social or private - (corporatist) fields, in order to induce aleatory control. The main topic of this article aims to present a series of poignant examples of how contemporary artists engaged with the notion of panopticon, with the over-extended system of public and private surveillance and how the art theoretical bibliography integrates these new artistic practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy in Ethiopia and first in some African countries. It is six times more likely to occur in positive cases of the human immunodeficiency virus than in the general population. If diagnosed and treated early enough, cervical cancer is both treatable and preventable. However, among Ethiopian women who test positive for HIV, the uptake of cervical cancer screening is low. Its determinant factors were not well studied in the study area. Hence, this study was aimed at filling this information gap. Objective: To assess uptake of cervical cancer screening services and associated factors among HIV-positive women attending an adult antiretroviral treatment clinic at public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 1–30, 2022. Methods: A cross-sectional investigation was carried out in a hospital. 407 participants in all were chosen using the systematic sampling technique. A pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data from respondents. The data were entered into Epi data version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 25 for analysis. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis was employed. Adjusted odds ratio with its 95% confidence interval and p value < 0.05 were used to estimate the strength and significance of the association. Result: Among a total of 407 respondents, 238 (58.5%), 95% CI (53.5–63.3), HIV-positive women were screened at least once in the last five years. In multivariable analysis, age > 45 years old (AOR = 0.18, 95% CI: 0.053–0.644), number of children (3 children) (AOR = 0.19, 95% CI:0.036-0.979), perception of being susceptible to cervical cancer (AOR = 6.39, 95% CI: 1.79–22.74), knowledge of cervical cancer and its screening (AOR = 19.34, 95% CI: 7.87–47.75), and positive attitude towards cervical cancer screening (AOR = 8.06, 95% CI:3.62–17.91) were significantly associated factors with the uptake of cervical cancer screening. Conclusion and recommendation: in this study, Age > 45 years, having less than three children, feeling susceptible, knowing about cervical cancer and screening, and having a positive attitude toward cervical cancer screening were significant factor of uptake of cervical cancer screening service. There is a need to strengthen the policy and health education on safe sexual practices and healthy lifestyles through information dissemination and communication to scale up screening service utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]