Wet Paint: Visual Culture in a Changing Britain – A Round Table Debate

Abstract

Recent and future political decisions regarding the inter-regional and international partnerships which constitute Great Britain, including Scottish Independence, EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) and proposed legislation on an 'in/out' referendum on British membership of the European Union, have contributed to, and intensified, the examination of British institutions, as well as its national emblems and archetypes. In light of such dynamism we solicited contributions from representatives of the British Universities, Museum sector and Research Centres to respond to the idea of a changing Britain through the prism of British art and visual culture, using cogent examples wherever possible, and bringing to the fore their observations, understandings and positions within this rapidly developing context. Craig Richardson Ysanne Holt From the BorderlandsIn the round table discussion that launched the very first issue of Visual Culture in Britain in 2000, Jonathan Harris observed that accounts of the impact of globalization on academics and their disciplines necessarily called into question the formation of our sense of self, the extent to which some of us feel ourselves to be ''British', as opposed to 'English', or 'Welsh' or 'Scottish'' and the historical contexts for such affiliations. The implication was that future contributors to the journal might consider their attachments, or otherwise, to these notions, and Jonathan pointed to 'Welsh European' Raymond Williams' assertion that the term 'Britishness' was a way of 'containing the protests and resentments of neglected and marginalized regions and minorities within an imposed general 'patriotism''.