14:00-18:00, Friday 29 May, 2026
Richard Hoggart Building Cinema, Goldsmiths, University of London, Lewisham Way, London SE14 6NW
Over the past two decades – and with increased momentum since 2020 – many public institutions have sought to reconceive themselves not as fixed, autonomous spaces governed by singular programmes and voices, but as open, networked, hybrid, and dispersed entities. These shifts raise pressing questions of equity and justice in relation to access, participation, and representation, including around:
- • Digital and virtual access
- • Authority and expertise
- • Possibilities of co-creation
- • Loans and restitution
- • Partnerships with academic and research communities
- • Defining and engaging new audiences
- • Representation in programming
- • Civic purpose and the creation of discursive space
At the same time, CHASE PGR researchers are exploring how access, visibility, and participation can be broadened and reimagined within institutional settings. Some are investigating untold or marginalised stories; others are developing methods of co-creation, or building alternative and extra-institutional archives and bodies of knowledge.
This event brings together researchers and practitioners working across these themes, to address two main questions:
- · How can research and researchers help shape these discourses and efforts?
- · How can researchers find ways into working with and within museums, galleries, and other institutional settings?
Guest speakers from the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Victoria & Albert Museum will open the day by framing the intellectual and practical challenges of institutional work and the methods they employ.
A roundtable will follow. Here, CHASE PGR researchers will give short presentations on their work in progress, setting and discussing the event’s topics in diverse contexts.
In a third session, guest speakers and researchers will take part in small-group workshops to explore practical routes into institutional project work through informal discussion.
The day will close with a presentation and performance from a team based in Goldsmiths’ Electronic Music Studios. The Studios’ practice-led research into electronic music’s women pioneers, and relatedly into historical instrument development, has reshaped the ways
histories of electronic music have been written and presented, leading to collaborative projects with the Science Museum, the BBC Proms and other institutional partners. In this session, the team will reflect upon and demonstrate how they have shaped and translated their research into public-facing formats.
A follow-up event will take place at the ICA in mid-2026. As part of its talks programme, the ICA will host a panel that draws on the first day’s topics and work, and will feature some of the PGR students in conversation with artists and other practitioners. Speakers and other participants will be selected by the ICA.
The event is open to all PGR students attending CHASE institutions, whether they are personally supported by CHASE funding or not.
The event co-leads are Tom Perchard (Goldsmiths) and Richard Williams (SOAS).