From 2003-5, during which we produced five newly commissioned projects, 21 lectures, a conference and publication, we recognised that we were operating in a burgeoning field of context-specific curating and commissioning, as manifested in the growing number of large-scale, international biennial exhibitions, public art regeneration initiatives and off-site gallery programmes; all of which were challenging the orthodoxy of site-specific art.
What distinguished us from many of these projects and exhibitions, however, was our academic context – where experimentation and learning were positively encouraged and through which we developed a distinctive approach to thinking critically through our commissions and to sharing that knowledge by publishing research online and in print, and by initiating unusual public events.
After the first two pilot years, we established a continuous programme of parallel strands of activity, ranging from one-off artistic interventions and public events, large-scale permanent public art programmes and strategies, professional development seminars, talks and discussions about commissioning and curating public art, and cumulative curatorial programmes of newly commissioned work. Part of the PLaCE Research Centre in the Faculty of Creative Arts, Humanities and Education at the University of the West of England, Bristol, Situations now operates as a commissioning programme internationally, working with partners in New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and the UK. The programme has been designed to adapt and respond to new ideas and opportunities, whether a slow burning evolving idea which is given the space to find its most vibrant form, or an experimental, fleeting intervention which challenges conventional assumptions about the permanency of public art.
