To address access issues and enhance the functionality and value of the original Mapping project the 'Mobilising Mapping' proposal will create a new mobile interface to the 'Mapping Sculpture' database that will enable the project to reach out to audiences for whom the mobile phone is becoming a ubiquitous means of access to information. In 2009, for the first time, the use of mobile phones was more prevalent than fixed-line phones across the UK. In 2008 a quarter of mobile subscriptions, or 17.9 million, were to new, high speed, 3G services. In the first quarter of 2009 more than 8 million people in the UK (16% of adults) access the internet on their mobile phones, an increase of 42% on the previous year. This growth has in part been driven by the increasing use of smartphones, which accounted for 16% of all handset sales in the first quarter of 2009, and the increasing use of mobile applications. In the first quarter of 2009 11% of households had a mobile connection but no fixed-line connection, however, and more significantly, 22% of households in socioeconomic group DE are mobile-only. If cultural heritage institutions aim to not only increase visitor numbers but broaden their visitor demographics beyond ABC1 socioeconomic groups then mobile compatible web sites will be a crucial component. This change in online access patterns is equally important for the HEI partners in the project if they are to fulfil their ambition of making the fruits of academic research more accessible to the general public.\n\nIn addition to broadening and increasing access the mobile interface to the 'Mapping Sculpture' database enables in situ research, exploration and discovery. This is a significant paradigm shift in the way all users (academic and non-academic alike), can encounter, explore and interpret the sculpture immediately in front of them: There is a limit to the amount of information that object labels and information boards can contain. Even the most comprehensive exhibition catalogue would struggle to convey the multiple and complex relationships that the Mapping project has discovered. Providing online access can overcome these problems and was one of the key drivers in providing an online, open access database in the original project. However, online access through fixed-line internet connections ties the user to their desk and dislocates the additional information from the object. Wireless internet connection through a laptop is one solution to this problem but is ultimately compromised by the variable availability of Wi-Fi hotspots, the bulk and expense of laptops and their still limited battery life in comparison to mobile phones.\n\nThe 'Mobilising Mapping' project will also enhance the functionality for users through the new mobile interface. The interface will add personalisation functionality enabling users to save information from the database into a personal folder. This enables users to build their own 'virtual collection' of records for later research, study or sharing. This service can combine reference to data on the project website with other online resources by providing the facility to share the record links via users existing research, study, social and networking structures such as delicious.com, Facebook, Digg and iGoogle thus further disseminating the valuable resources of the project.

In terms of scholarship, modern Japanese sculpture is a relatively new field. Only in the last few years has it started to attract attention from museum curators and academics in Japan and in the West. The focus of this research network is sculpture made in Japan after the Meiji restoration of 1868, when the country was opened officially to Western influence for the first time in two centuries. The following decades saw the collision and fusion of two very different artistic cultures, as foreign artists were invited into Japan, Japanese artists travelled to the West and the first Western-style art academies were founded in Tokyo. Before the Meiji period, there was no word for 'sculpture' in Japanese and no concept of sculpture as an independent art form, distinct from craft practice. However, there were rich traditions of object making both for religious and secular purposes and of carving in wood, bone and ivory. In the Meiji period (1868-1912) Japanese artists with a background in traditional object-making experimented with Western techniques, aesthetics and forms, including modelling in clay, working directly from the life model, anatomical realism, portraiture and figure sculpture. By the following Taisho and Showa periods (1912-c.1937), a younger generation of sculptors were able to draw upon a variety of different sources, revisiting traditional craft practices and applying Western techniques to non-Western forms and aesthetics, to create hybrid objects, hovering between the different artistic traditions. This was an avant-garde that used skill and tradition to develop sculptural thinking in new ways. Given the current lack of knowledge in Europe of Japanese sculpture of this period, the research network will use the exhibitions A Study of Modern Japanese Sculpture, at the Henry Moore Institute and a further exhibition at Musashino Art Museum as the focus and starting point for a series of three research workshops: at the Henry Moore Institute; Musashino University and the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL, which will bring together scholars from Japan and the UK and promote international discussion around a subject which itself embodies cross-cultural exchange. The intention with the Modern Japanese Sculpture Network is to open debates on an under-researched topic, sharing ideas between Japan and the UK and developing opportunities for future collaborations.

This research network will record and begin to analyse what we have termed 'the decorated school'. For our purposes, 'the decorated school' means those aspects of the school building and surrounds that were worked on by artists and sculptors to integrated art works intended to project ideas about education in relation to notions of local or national identities. Mural decoration has been characteristic in school design in the past and is often a feature in the present design of new schools and today is frequently used as a vehicle for pupil or community participation. But in the past there was a deep appreciation of how the best design and art might act as a kind of educator and in England regional education officers such as Henry Morris in Cambridgeshire, Stuart Mason in Leicestershire and John Newsom in Hertfordshire ensured that new school buildings would contain works of beauty and excellent design. The post-war period was a time when the renewal of school buildings led to artists working collaboratively with architects and educators to decorate school interiors and grounds. The artifacts installed ranged from ceramic tiles to large scale murals and sculptures. These items were carefully considered to project a particular image of childhood, adolescence or education to a specific local audience. \nThe research network will meet at sites where there are existing examples that have survived to date. Additionally, the research will document what has existed, and what remains, making this data publicly available through a website and publication. This is urgent work as many school buildings that were built in the past are threatened with demolition as the renewal of the building stock progresses.\n

'Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951' ('Mapping Sculpture 1851-1951') is the first comprehensive study of sculptors, related businesses and trades investigated in the context of creative collaborations, art infrastructures, professional networks and cultural geographies. By presenting the results of the research through an online database, published articles and an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the project will broaden the way the medium is seen and understood and contribute new methods of approaching art practice.\n\nBetween the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Festival of Britain in 1951, sculptural activity was transformed by urban expansion, the growth of teaching institutions, museums and exhibiting societies, changing attitudes to art and craft, and, above all, the emergence of modernism. Yet there has been no authoritative study of this century of change and information on less than 14% of the estimated 3,000-3,500 sculptors and 1% of the 900-1,100 art related businesses and trades active in this period is contained in standard works of reference. By conducting a systematic survey and creating records on c.6,000 sculptors and organisations 'Mapping Sculpture 1851-1951' will give researchers access to a wealth of data dispersed in numerous libraries and archives.\n\nThis project takes an innovative approach to the research that moves beyond the conventional image of the sculptor as the sole creator of handcrafted works and reveals the uniquely collaborative nature of the sculptural medium. 'Mapping Sculpture 1851-1951' reassesses the status and roles of related businesses and trades, such as studio assistants, carvers and art metalworkers, by exploring their contributions to the creative process. The role of personal and institutional networks in supporting art practice is re-evaluated, particularly the partnerships between sculptors and architects. A significant portion of sculpture from this period falls outside accepted critical hierarchies: monumental, ideal or abstract. The study reconsiders the full range of sculptors' practices to throw new light on responses to changing patterns of consumption. In order to develop a deeper understanding of the geography of sculptural practice and the relationship between the metropolis and the regions, the project will make an inegtrated study of sculpture in Britain and Ireland. \n\nThese methods, supported by a fully relational database and a powerful search engine, will reveal the complex web of relationships between sculptors, associated businesses, professional colleagues, objects, organizations and places. This is a new way of looking at the practice and profession of sculpture that will create the foundation for numerous studies in art history and visual culture, including critical analyses of networks of production and explorations of real and imagined communities of consumers.\n \n'Mapping Sculpture 1851-1951' is a partnership venture between the University of Glasgow, the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Henry Moore Institute. The project builds on Feasibility and Pilot Studies carried out between 2004-06 with funding from the Trustees of the Henry Moore Foundation. The main project survey will be carried out in seventeen locations across Britain and Ireland selected to yield data on 80% of sculptural activity in the period. \n \nBy delivering the results of the research through a free access online database with contextual essays and an exhibition at the V&A, 'Mapping Sculpture 1851-1951' will ensure knowledge transfer to the broadest audience and serve as an invaluable aid to art historians and theorists, curators and heritage workers, the wider education sector and the general public. \n\n

The proposed research network will act as a forum for the discussion of non-sighted modes of beholding art, within the context of situated forms of contemporary art practice. It will question how a shift in the aesthetic engagement afforded by hybrid (intermedia) forms of contemporary art opens up new engagements for the partially sighted and blind community. Sound, smell and touch, for instance, have become an important factor in some installation art, while the discipline of sound art has expanded the spatial reception of the auditory. The network aims to develop a deeper understanding of the spatial and curatorial possibilities of such forms of engagement, and their potential application beyond the world of contemporary art. The proposal is set against a background where the engagement of 'visual' art by blind and partially sighted beholders has primarily been addressed through questions of improving access to medium-specific forms of art, such as through audio descriptions and touch tours, or (more problematically) mediated forms such as 'tactile' paintings and 3D facsimiles. While in a post-pandemic situation access is an ongoing concern, a narrow focus on 'traditional' art does not register how intermedial/installation art has (i) fundamentally challenged ontologies of art, (ii) deliberately sets out to dehabitualise the beholder position, and (iii) challenges the notion of 'context independent' art. Addressing where the criticality lies in non-sighted modes of engagement, the proposition is that the engagement afforded a blind or visually impaired audience should be every bit as complex as that of sighted beholders. This issue is pressing given the prevalence of the default white cube gallery situation and entrenched conventions of 'viewing' art. A deeper understanding of non-visual ontologies of art will not only widen participation to new audiences, but enhance the experience of non-sighted and sighted beholders. This will impact upon the design of galleries and museums - the types of spaces made available, such as their acoustic properties and embedded tactile cues - and attitudes to curating (where partially and non-sighted beholders are rarely treated as part of the core audience, despite the RNIB estimating that over two million people in the UK have visual impairment). This means challenging museum conventions of engagement which prioritise sighted audiences (such as the ubiquitous 'please do not touch'). This research network will facilitate an exchange of ideas that engages interdisciplinary thinking on the phenomenology of the non- or partially-sighted engagement of art. Crucially, it will engage the blind and partially sighted community and organisations that promote cultural opportunities for this audience, and those within institutions enacting policy around inclusion and access to (and the design of) museum/gallery environments. But it will also draw upon disciplinary insights from: cognitive science and psychology (i.e. non-sighted spatial orientation, and the interdependence of perceptual systems); the philosophy of art (the ontology of art and the aesthetics of reception); art and design practice (sighted and non-sighted artists making work where the engagement extends beyond the visual); theoreticians engaging critical disability studies. The workshops and symposium will be organised around three key themes: (i) non-visual perception and orientation (such as sound/haptic localisation); (ii) architectural and spatial situations/contexts (rethinking the gallery situation); (iii) expanding art and curatorial practices (theorising new types of encountering art). The discussions will be transcribed and made available through the network's research website, and live-streaming will facilitate virtual participation. An edited book, organised around themes emerging from the network discussions, will be published at a later date, and made available as an audiobook and large format print edition.