Atlas of the Poetic Continent

SHELLEY SACKS is an international practitioner of social sculpture, working in connective practices, exploring the relationship between imagination and transformation and rethinking responsibility as an ability to respond. She regards her long-term collaborative projects - such as Exchange Values, University of the Trees and Earth Forum - as 'instruments of consciousness' and flexible frameworks that link inner and outer processes. Her work includes more than 40 'actions', site works, installations and social sculpture projects; several essays and books, involvement in grassroots cultural and political organisations; facilitating social sculpture processes in the 1970s and 1980s in South Africa; and collaborating with Joseph Beuys for more than a decade in the Free International University. Shelley is Professor of Social Sculpture and Director of the Social Sculpture Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford. The ATLAS is one of several collaborations between Shelley Sacks and Wolfgang Zumdick. DR WOLFGANG ZUMDICK is an international author, philosopher, curator and a specialist in Social Sculpture and the work of Joseph Beuys. He was a scholarship holder at the Laurenz Haus Foundation, Basel, and has curated several Joseph Beuys and Social Sculpture exhibitions. He is the author of numerous publications on the history of philosophy and twentieth century art and philosophy, with a specific focus on Joseph Beuys and the philosophy of imagination. He is Senior Lecturer in Social Sculpture at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and has been a guest lecturer at numerous universities worldwide. He is active in the Social Sculpture Research Unit and collaborates with Shelley Sacks on writing and practical projects such as University of the Trees.