Public intellectual
exchange.

Ideas belong
in public.

Dis-Course connects the public, students, universities, artists, architects and theorists through a shared commitment to inquiry.

Research develops through encounters: between a question and an experience, an image and its interpretation, a discipline and a perspective it has not yet considered. Dis-Course creates a public space for those encounters. It brings the thinking behind creative work into conversation with the people, places and conditions through which that work acquires meaning.

The platform seeks to reduce the barriers that often separate academic knowledge from public life. Talks and panels invite participation beyond institutional membership or disciplinary expertise. The programme welcomes different forms of knowledge: the artist’s experiment, the researcher’s argument, the designer’s process, the student’s question and the audience’s lived experience.

Its purpose is to cultivate curiosity, critical attention and a capacity to think with others. Agreement is not a prerequisite. Productive disagreement, attentive listening and the willingness to reconsider a position are central to the exchange.

Thinking together.
Thinking aloud.

Public talks can do more than present completed work. They can become live public rehearsals of ideas: occasions to test a proposition, share an unresolved problem and discover how an argument changes when it encounters another experience. Dis-Course treats dialogue as part of the research process itself.

Individual presentations make room for the particularities of a practice. Panels bring contrasting approaches around a shared question. In its new phase, Dis-Course is expanding beyond art and culture into the humanities, including philosophy, and developing a programme of two panels in Larnaca alongside individual guest talks.

Online broadcasting will connect Alexander College in Larnaca with institutions and audiences worldwide. When speakers join us in person, their talks will be broadcast internationally, with audiences joining the discussion remotely. In the other direction, speakers based anywhere in the world will contribute online, while an audience gathers at Alexander College to watch, listen and participate together.

This exchange works in both directions: ideas developed in Larnaca can reach a global public, and international perspectives can enter a shared local conversation. Institutional collaborations will support this wider exchange as the programme develops. Broadcast links and participation details will be published for each event.

The digital archive extends this exchange beyond the event. It brings together talk descriptions, speaker biographies and original programme materials, establishing a resource for teaching, independent study and future research. Recordings and other supporting materials can extend that resource as they become available.

Open access is an editorial commitment: the programme’s knowledge should circulate beyond the institutions in which it is produced. Collaboration with universities and cultural organisations supports that aim while preserving Dis-Course’s distinct curatorial identity.

Three years.
Many starting points.

Founded and curated by Simon Pruciak, Dis-Course developed through the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the American University of Cyprus. The first phase connected university teaching with the practices of visiting artists, designers, architects and researchers, creating opportunities for students to engage directly with ideas beyond their taught curriculum.

These figures describe the distinct talks documented in the materials currently held in this archive, rather than a complete attendance record or a claim about the total programme delivered.

Connections across practice.

Simon Pruciak is a Polish photographer, visual artist and academic based in Cyprus, where he is Assistant Professor and Course Leader for BDes Photography at Alexander College. His practice and research connect photography, moving image and emerging media with questions of materiality, memory and technological mediation.

He has taught in higher education since 2010, connecting creative practice with research, critical reflection and public engagement. At the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) in the UK, where he led the Lens-Based Media pathway from 2014 to 2018, his work included co-curricular activities that brought students into contact with practitioners and opportunities beyond their formal taught programme.

During his Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education at UCA, he researched the impact of co-curricular activities in higher education. This work informs his continuing interest in how encounters beyond the classroom can contribute to students’ learning, creative development and engagement with a wider professional and intellectual community.

Dis-Course gives that educational interest a public form. Its talks, panels and archive create opportunities to connect taught study with lived practice: to hear how an idea takes shape, ask a practitioner about their decisions, and carry those questions into independent work.

Dis-Course extends this interdisciplinary approach into a public programme. Its curatorial focus brings established practice into contact with emerging questions, creating a meeting point for creative education, research and cultural life.

Alexander College

Alexander College is the Founding Academic Partner of this new phase of Dis-Course. The relationship connects the programme with an academic and creative community in Larnaca, supporting exchange between students, researchers, practitioners and the wider public.

Earlier events retain their original institutional context in the archive. Their contribution forms part of the programme’s history as Dis-Course develops its next chapter.

Bring a question.

For talks, panel proposals, research connections and programme enquiries, contact Simon Pruciak.