The conference at Cardiff Metropolitan University placed focus on the transformative potential of Berger’s work for educational practice. Berger may be said to have kept a distance from the institutional lecture hall, seminar room or studio; yet his work, through an interdisciplinarity seemingly without boundaries, continues to impact upon a number of academic fields. In dedicating himself to ‘the job of thinker and artist’ (Sally Potter), Berger seems also consistently to have orientated himself towards the future and to practice: he is, in the words of Sukhdev Sandhu, ‘in the best sense, a teacherly writer and performer’ -- a teacherly method characterised, that is, by the principles of collaboration and equality.
The conference therefore takes an exploratory approach to the question of how we might, as educators, use, discuss, learn from and continue to develop Berger’s thought. In what ways might that thought help to transform curricula, pedagogy, and our work as writers, artists and teachers? How pertinent is it, for example, to the growing internationalisation of the academy and to questions of global educational citizenship? Or how relevant as a critical resource within the context of a new, corporate and marketised environment in education? Might Berger’s ‘radical humanism’ (Tilda Swinton) help to carve out alternative futures?
Professor David Rayson's explored Berger's skill to 'think aloud' writing in real-time as questions and ideas unfold, and Rayson's paper focused upon spacial theory and art geography through Berger's seminal essay - The Field (1971).
Using visuals, short film clips and associated writings from other scholars, it was Rayson's intention to both critique Berger's mode of writing and also for the conference and through the reproduced paper create a space to think aloud in.