The erosion of the public: from romper stomper to woof-woof

This delegate-led symposium will address the necessity and the rich potential of research, learning and teaching outside of formal institutions. PPI has created a non-institutional voluntary structure for working in the public space. The diverse membership of PPI including council workers, academics, artist’s provokes generative, cross-sectorial and cross-disciplinary conversations. The Institute’s major project is the ‘Pop Up School’. Conceptually the ‘Pop Up School’ takes a defined geographical area working to bring to the fore what might be considered current valued knowledge—spatially and temporally. This knowledge resides in and is determined by communities and is in a constant state of creation/recreation. In the first iteration of the ‘Pop Up School,’ the geographical focus was Footscray. Footscray is a post-industrial inner urban suburb of Melbourne, Australia.