Open Space - December 2026: What does beauty have to do with education?
Forthcoming event
Overview
Drawing on her forthcoming book A Beautiful University, Beatriz Acevedo explores the relationship between beauty and education as a foundational dimension of contemporary higher education. She proposes to shift the understanding of beauty from an statical attribute to a relational dynamic. Grounded in classical understandings of the unity of beauty, truth, and goodness, the presentation traces the origins of the modern university through ideas of beauty, Bildung, and adding the South American concept of buen vivir.
Beatriz invites participants to reflect on their own conceptions of beauty and to consider how beauty can be resinstated within educational and research practices. The presentation opens a space for reimagining the university not only as a site of knowledge production, but as a place of ethical, aesthetic, and relational formation.
Bio
Beatriz Acevedo is an artist–educator and Associate Professor in Creative Education at Anglia Learning and Teaching, Anglia Ruskin University. She is a National Teaching Fellow, recognised for her innovative work integrating creative-based methods with education for sustainability through projects such as RawTag and Sustainable Transformation and Environmental Practice. Her research focuses on aesthetics and education, and she is currently writing a book titled A Beautiful University: Beauty, Bildung and BuenVivir, with Bloomsbury.