I am honoured to announce that the research project Artguments has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON), funded by the European Commission.
The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions are widely recognised as one of the most prestigious and competitive research funding schemes in Europe, supporting excellence in research, innovation, and international mobility. The project was evaluated with an outstanding total score of 95.20%, well above the established threshold of 70/100, reflecting the scientific quality, originality, and societal relevance of the proposed research.
The fellowship is supported by a total budget of €345,234.90, enabling the development of an ambitious interdisciplinary research programme to be carried out at Birkbeck, University of London, the host institution for this project.
I am deeply grateful to the European Commission and the evaluators for their confidence in this work, and for the opportunity to contribute to advancing critical and inclusive perspectives within contemporary art research.
Project summary (Artguments):
In contemporary Europe, art is used as a means of social exclusion, in contravention of Article 21 (Non-discrimination) of the EU Fundamental Rights Charter. Art is at the centre of exclusionary narratives that directly associate certain forms of artistic expression with dementia and crime, among other controversial issues. Specifically, Western culture has coined the term Outsider Art, along with other derogatory and patronizing labels, to marginalize creators from minority groups, arguing that artworks by those artists are not “meant” to be exhibited in traditional museums and galleries. Using biased arguments, which can be referred to as Exclusionary Arguments, the conventional art establishment questions the legitimacy or authenticity of this type of art and promulgates the idea that it is less valuable than academically recognised art. The ArTguments project seeks to address this issue by developing an automated method for identifying Exclusionary Arguments in the arts, aiming to reduce the entrenched narratives that hinder equitable representation and recognition of all forms of artistic expression in contemporary Western art. This research operates on the hypothesis that Exclusionary Arguments can be identified computationally since they display stable cognitive structures expressed through identifiable linguistic patterns. Hence, the research methodology employed involves applying Argument Mining techniques in order to identify and analyse the Exclusionary Arguments embedded in artistic discourse. ArTguments innovatively addresses exclusion in the art world by introducing Exclusionary Arguments as a novel cognitive and communicative unit, offering a systematic approach to analysing exclusion dynamics within discourse. The project will produce key resources, including a catalogue of best practices with actionable recommendations for promoting an inclusive discourse in museums, and a formal proposal for establishing an Observatory for Inclusive Art Discourse.
