iJADE Conference 2025

Thursday 6 November 2025 | Online

Saturday 8 November 2025 | Arnolfini, UWE Bristol

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This conference is for colleagues in art and design pedagogy, gallery education, working in creative education at any level, formal or otherwise, students and researchers in the field, and those working in related disciplines.

The 2025 conference will be a hybrid format, with one online day and one in-person day hosted by the University of West England in Bristol. Attendees can choose to attend the online day only, or the whole conference. Where possible, online sessions will be recorded and made available to access on demand after the conference (please note: breakout sessions cannot be recorded).

Ecologies

Artists work at the messy frontier of drafting relations. Artists make connections that previously weren’t there, between humans and nonhumans, between disciplines, geographies, media and the senses, to go beyond the descriptive and representational towards new relations and somatics. And since relations are ecological, art is ecological.

- Stefanie Hessler, Director, Swiss Institute

Ecologists seek to explain the relationship between humans and their environment. The ecologies of an art and design classroom encompass constellations of behaviours, personalities, curriculum, pedagogies, and assessment practices, while interconnected challenges to funding, resources and subject expertise threaten ecological collapse in some sectors of arts education. In the theoretical field, ecological thinking can open up the relations between art and education, schooling and the creative economy, or the dynamics that define art, craft, and design disciplines. Exploration of the interplay between students’ lived experience, contemporary art practices, or the political intent of policymakers could help to define new, more inclusive models for artistic education. Understanding of disciplinary conventions in drawing or the plastic arts, and their interaction with new posthuman technologies, may point to probable or preferable futures for art education. Paradigmatically, as the fragile ecologies that govern our natural world are threatened by human activity, and post-truth diplomacy tests the social contract, what role does the art classroom play in climate justice, and civic equity?

For more information, please see the full conference theme and call for papers: www.nsead.org/files/6b2b77c9897009132e94bb33bb32a736.pdf

Submit an abstract: forms.office.com/e/HvZqu5BcMU

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Early Bird Registration (until 31 July)

• Early Bird online-only ticket: £53.00

• Early Bird online-only ticket (NSEAD & UWE discount): £43.00

• Early Bird full conference* ticket: £145.00

• Early Bird full conference* ticket (NSEAD & UWE discount): £130.00

Standard registration (1 August - 17 October 2025)

• Standard online-only ticket: £60.00

• Standard online-only ticket (NSEAD & UWE discount): £50.00

• Standard full conference* ticket: £170.00

• Standard full conference* ticket(NSEAD & UWE discount): £155.00

NSEAD member discount and concessionary rates:

Discounted rates are available for members of NSEAD, and staff and students at the host institution (UWE). Please contact ijade@nsead.org if you have any questions regarding concessionary rates and eligability.

* Full conference ticket includes online attendance on Thursday 6 November, and/or access to recordings, and in-person attendance on Saturday 8 November.

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For any enquiries regarding the conference, please contact the team at ijade@nsead.org and we will be happy to help.

Image: Dr Rachel Payne (2025)