The Institute of Art and Ideas (IAI) is a British philosophy organisation founded in 2008.

Overview

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

described it as "engaged in changing the current cultural landscape through the pursuit and promotion of big ideas, boundary-pushing thinkers and challenging debates". Covering the fields of philosophy, science, politics and the arts, as of October 2021 the IAI's online platform IAI.tv hosts more than 3000 videos, articles, courses and podcasts from internationally renowned thinkers, with new content updated daily. The IAI is responsible for organising the bi-annual festival

HowTheLightGetsIn HowTheLightGetsIn Festival is a philosophy and music festival, hosted by the Institute of Art and Ideas. It aims "to get philosophy out of the academy and into people's lives" by bringing together philosophers, writers, academics, comedians and ...

, the biggest philosophy and music festival in the world aimed at "tackling the dearth of philosophy in daily life", in addition to monthly IAI Live events. The IAI was founded by philosopher

Hilary Lawson Hilary Lawson is an English philosopher and founder of the Institute of Art and Ideas. His theory of "closure" puts forward a non-realist metaphysics arguing that people close the openness of the world with thought and language. Lawson has also ...

with a mission to explore "the cracks in our thinking, in order to change how we think and how we change the world”. The IAI's first festival, Crunch, focussed on the visual arts and was held in November 2008 in the wake of the financial crash. In May 2009, the IAI held its first philosophy festival

in the book town of

Hay-on-wye Hay-on-Wye ( cy, Y Gelli Gandryll), simply known locally as "Hay" ( cy, Y Gelli), is a market town and community in Powys, Wales; it was historically in the county of Brecknockshire. With over twenty bookshops, it is often described as "the to ...

. The IAI's festival

is held in

Hay-on-Wye Hay-on-Wye ( cy, Y Gelli Gandryll), simply known locally as "Hay" ( cy, Y Gelli), is a market town and community in Powys, Wales; it was historically in the county of Brecknockshire. With over twenty bookshops, it is often described as "the to ...

in May and in London at Kenwood House,

Hampstead Heath Hampstead Heath (locally known simply as the Heath) is an ancient heath in London, spanning . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band ...

, in September. Described by Yahoo UK as “a playground for the soul”, philosophy and the exchange of ideas are at the heart of the event. The festival formulates its theme and programme around debates with headline speakers and live talks, in addition to live bands and soloists, comedy, cabaret and DJs. Speakers have included

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ...

Liz Truss Mary Elizabeth Truss (born 26 July 1975) is a British politician who briefly served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022. On her fiftieth day in office, she stepped down ...

, Roger Penrose,

A.S. Byatt Dame Antonia Susan Duffy ( Drabble; born 24 August 1936), known professionally by her former marriage name as A. S. Byatt ( ), is an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been widely translated, into more than t ...

Paul Krugman Paul Robin Krugman ( ; born February 28, 1953) is an American economist, who is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and a columnist for ''The New York Times''. In 2008, Krugman was ...

Jess Phillips Jessica Rose Phillips (; born 9 October 1981) is a British politician serving as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguard ...

Rory Stewart Roderick James Nugent Stewart (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, diplomat, author, broadcaster, former soldier and former politician. He is the president of GiveDirectly, a visiting fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for ...

, Daniel Dennett,

Peter Singer Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher, currently the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He specialises in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a Secularit ...

Kimberlé Crenshaw Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (born May 5, 1959) is an American civil rights advocate and a leading scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender iss ...

Bianca Jagger Bianca Jagger (born Blanca Pérez-Mora Macías; 2 May 1945)

, and Slavoj Žižek, along with musicians Brian Eno,

Clean Bandit Clean Bandit are an English electronic music group, formed in Cambridge in 2008. They have had four number 1 hits and ten top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart. They direct and produce their own music videos, many of which have been nominated for ...

Laura Marling Laura Beatrice Marling (born 1 February 1990) is a British folk singer-songwriter. She won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2011 Brit Awards and was nominated for the same award at the 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 Brit Aw ...

, and comedians

James Acaster James William Acaster (; born 9 January 1985) is an English comedian, writer, presenter and musician. As well as appearances on panel shows, he is known for the stand-up specials ''Repertoire'', co-hosting the food podcast ''Off Menu'' and co-p ...

and Robin Ince.

IAI TV

IAI.tv is an online platform publishing articles, videos and courses. It includes three sources of content: IAI Player, IAI News and IAI Academy.

IAI Player

IAI Player is an online channel where the debates and talks curated by the IAI and hosted at the

Festival are released and made available online. Speakers include Nobel Prize winners

Gerard 't Hooft Gerardus (Gerard) 't Hooft (; born July 5, 1946) is a Dutch theoretical physicist and professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics with his thesis advisor Martinus J. G. Veltman "for elucidating th ...

and Roger Penrose, public intellectuals

, Daniel Kahneman,

, and

Simon Armitage Simon Robert Armitage (born 26 May 1963) is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds. He has published over 20 collections of poetr ...

, and political figures and journalists

Owen Jones Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a British newspaper columnist, political commentator, journalist, author, and left-wing activist. He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'' and '' Tribune.'' He has two ...

, Helen Lewis, Diane Abbott and

IAI News

IAI News is an online magazine of ideas. It publishes philosophical articles on science, politics, and the arts along with core philosophy themes such as metaphysics and language. The IAI website states that the aim of its content is to rescue "philosophy from technical debates about the meaning of words yreturning them to big ideas and putting them at the centre of culture." Contributors have included Martha Nussbaum, Homi Bhabha,

Massimo Pigliucci Massimo Pigliucci (; born January 16, 1964) is Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York, former co-host of the '' Rationally Speaking Podcast'', and former editor in chief for the online magazine ''Scientia Salon''. He is a critic o ...

, Catherine Hakim, Hew Strachan, Phillip Goff, Huw Davies, and many hundreds of others.

IAI Academy

IAI Academy is an educational platform of online courses in philosophy, politics, art and science aimed at fostering a progressive and vibrant intellectual culture.

''Philosophy for Our Times''

Beginning in September 2016, the IAI has published its weekly podcast, ''Philosophy for our Times'', featuring IAI debates and talks from the

festival. In 2021 the podcast was ranked as the Best UK Philosophy Podcast by FeedSpot, based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority and freshness.

Notes and references

{{authority control Arts organizations established in 2008 Cultural organisations based in Wales Philosophy institutes Philosophy podcasts Cultural organisations based in London