Monthly Archives: October 2015

Alison Jackson in Conversation with Simon Baker

Chelsea Salon is a peer-to-peer network of artists working in fluctuating institutional settings. Chelsea Salon is a collaborative effort with multiple platforms through which students, alumni, and professional artists have had the opportunity to meet in a variety of spaces, exchange ideas and forge productive relationships with artists and art institutions.

One of the features of the Chelsea Salon programme is the series of talks organised by Laura Carew of Chelsea Salon. The talks are an example of the aims of Chelsea Salon to create a community of practice between current students at Chelsea College of Arts and its alumni. This forum is intended as an opportunity for artists to receive feedback on their practice and to experiment with ideas arising from their research. It is intended to expand the professional practice development of the artists involved. Although centred around Chelsea, it is intended to be inclusive and open.

Carew said, ‘We have probably all giggled at Alison Jackson’s images whether it be Elton John having an enema or Tony Blair looking down Cherie's bikini. All, by the way, are situations that are credible, but which we also know are a set up. The humour is powerful but there is serious intent here. At a time when the photographic image has become ubiquitous as has our obsession with celebrity, Alison Jackson poses some important questions about authenticity and voyeurism.

Theoretically we all know that the camera can lie but we are inclined to believe and want to believe what we see. What is authentic anyway? As Warhol said 'Who wants the truth? That's what show business is for, to prove that it’s not what you are that counts, it’s what they think you are.” This encapsulates the post-modern concept of truth as a subjective value.

The photograph is more seductive than the reality. We project our fantasies on images of celebrities who conveniently cannot answer back. We feel we know them but of course we don't. We seek our identity in public figures.

No public figure was more subjected to this treatment than Princess Diana. Voyeurism reached its zenith. We can only begin to imagine what Warhol would have made of it all. Following the death of Princess Diana, the almost pornographic detailing of her death and the outpouring of grief that engulfed the country, Jackson made her name with a series of disturbing works culminating in an image which still resonates. This is her notorious photograph of 1999 which depicts Princess Diana, Dodi Al-Fayed with their imaginary mixed race love child. There was an uproar and this uproar only served to underline the implicit racism in the viewers.

Jackson turns the tables on us. WE are implicated in the voyeurism. Photography she has said is, 'a slimy deceitful medium,' which, 'tells only a partial truth.'’

The in conversation between Alison Jackson and Simon Baker on the 28th of Oct 2015 at the Chelsea College of Arts lecture theatre. Chelsea Salon is the subject of CCW PhD student Joshua Y’barbo’s study into self-institutional art practice and institutional critique of the art school as is an overlooked site of critique neglected for art's institutions of display, galleries and museums. His PhD aims to explore new approaches to institutional critique by analysing the manoeuvrable practices of Chelsea Salon and will contribute to knowledge by generating a theory of interstitial pedagogy that shifts between institutions.

POP Goes Taste

'It's funny the way things change' -Andy Warhol

On Tuesday 27 October, CCW Professor Malcolm Quinn will present ‘POP Goes Taste’ at Good Taste/Bad Taste' at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Taste is how we fit ourselves into the world. Whether in art, architecture, literature, music or home furnishings, one's choices are social signifiers. In 18th century England, Palladian architecture told others about your wealth, class and status, today your phone or what TV show you watch does the same. Taste is free, yet incredibly prescribed, codified and enforced and we are all pushed and pulled by it. RIBA is hosting an evening exploring taste, manners, trend setters and pace makers. From Ken Russell’s film Pop Goes the Easel (1962) to the recent decision of Playboy magazine to to stop publishing pictures of fully naked women, ‘POP Goes Taste’ explores Pop Art and its shifting cultural motifs, taste boundaries and new frontiers.

Quinn says, ‘Since the eighteenth century, we've all been in thrall to a fantasy about taste. The fantasy is that a sense of taste and discrimination can allow us to live within commercial society while being able trust ourselves first before we trust the brands, products and services that surround us. This fantasy has been supported by mass media, liberal governments, art schools and universities as long as the narrow gap between the museum and the gift shop, between the editorial and the advertorial, could be sustained. However, that gap is shrinking and as it shrinks, the form of this fantasy is more clearly revealed. At RIBA, I'm going to talk about how this fantasy about the power of taste discrimination in the world of commerce was supported and defined by Playboy and Pop Art in the fifties and sixties.'?I will end with some comments on art after Pop, to show how a sense of taste can vanish without us even noticing it has gone.’

IMAGE: Town Hall, Borgoricco, Padua, Italy, by Aldo Rossi, completed 1983

Oficina Bartolomeu dos Santos Residency- Isabel Wilkinson

Continuing the annual residency at'?Oficina Bartolomeu dos Santos (OBS), this year’s winner was Isabel Wilkinson, who spent 2 weeks in early October 2015 creating new work in the studio in Portugal. ‘I use printmaking to create new semi-imagined landscapes, informed by film, fiction and lived experience of place. Through drawing and collage, I attempt to fragment reality through the abstraction of landscapes. I often underpin a body of work with a narrative taken from mythology or fiction. I like to explore the possibility that the stories we read, hear or watch begin to inhabit our real world, and to find the space created by this collision of real and imaginary.

Arriving in Tavira just before sunset, the rare beauty and peacefulness of the town and the studio was breathtaking. I could hardly wait to get out my drawing tools ' in the morning I began to sketch the stark white buildings and long shadows that characterize the landscape of the town.

Talking to Margarida Palma, who helps to run the Oficina Bartolomeu dos Santos, I found out how particular Barto dos Santos was when designing the studio. Each feature was considered, down to the design of the windows and the placement of the sinks, to suit his way of working. The pleasure of living and working in such a well-equipped and beautifully located workshop is borderline luxurious, a printmaker's paradise. I was struck by Margarida's passion for printmaking, and for the development of this space ' in fact everyone connected to OBS shared this passion. Barto left an incredible and generous legacy in his studio, and I felt incredibly lucky to have use of it ' and also honoured to play a role in the continued life of the building.

Isabel at OBS

Spending time alone in Barto's studio was an incredibly reflective and productive time for me. The solitude of the first week forced me to reflect on the direction of the body of work I would make while at OBS ' having recently completed my MA and taken part in the AYYO Residency in the Cotswolds, this was an important time for me to assess where I am going next in my practice. I also found out while at OBS that my work had been shortlisted for the 2016 Clifford Chance Postgraduate Printmaking Exhibition, and I felt as though my practice had now transitioned to beyond study and into real life.

In the second week I was joined by Professor Paul Coldwell. We looked over the prints and drawings I had been working on so far, and Paul gave feedback and suggestions on these. Having worked exclusively with monoprinting for the past 18 months or so, Paul encouraged me to be more experimental with my approach and to think about making some editions. We also discussed at length the process of adapting to life after MA study, and I feel more confident now to run with ideas and developments in my practice, while maintaining one of the most constructive aspects of postgraduate study ' conversation and debate with peers.

Isabel and Paul

Working alongside Paul was fascinating both from a conceptual and technical perspective ' and the sense of community that embodies printmaking studio practice gave me a unique opportunity to garner advice and techniques from him throughout the week. It was also comforting to see a printmaker 100 times more experienced than me become frustrated by their work ' and to see how this frustration was resolved. It highlighted to me that printmaking is a lifelong exercise in hard work and trial and error ' if you stay within your comfort zone and avoid making errors, the successes won't be made either.’

Paul Coldwell also told us about his experience, saying, ‘Working in the print studio of the late Bartholomeo Dos Santos(OBS), I was supporting a two week residency offered through OBS for a graduating student from the MA Printmaking course at Camberwell. This year, the recipient is Isabel Wilkinson who has been spending her time developing ideas through monotype while also savouring the delights of this beautiful medieval town in the Algarve. Dos Santos was one of the most important Portuguese graphic artists of the 20th century and was also Professor in printmaking at the Slade School of Art, UCL. He was a great supporter of the MA Printmaking course at Camberwell, and this annual residency is a wonderful way to perpetuate dos Santos's legacy. It's great for me to return and work in the studio again, this time alongside Isabel. While there we had a visit from students on the fine arts course from the University of the Algarve, culminating in a symposium on visual poetry, with talks by myself and Tomas Cunha Ferrera Faro at the Biblioteca Municipal lvaro de Campos in Tavira.’

Top image: Roof, by Isabel Wilkinson

Shock City: Launching the Year of Resilience

CCW Visiting Scholar Marsha Bradfield has organised a two-day event called Shock City: Resilience and the Anthropocene. This international event will launch the Year of Resilience (YoR) and features practitioners from Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon Colleges of Art and beyond.

Resilience can be understood as the capacity of a bounded network – a person, bacterial culture, a forest, a city or an economy – to deal with change and continue to develop. It is a response to shocks and disruption, like an infection, financial crisis or climate change that spurs creative practice and encourages renewal. Resilience is a means of taking action and creating sustainable ways to co-exist within our biosphere.

This year, resilience will weave together research and teaching across Chelsea, Camberwell and Wimbledon. Shock City aims to establish an ethos for supporting this integration. It will provide a community response to broader change that is shaking the foundations of cultural production, including art and design education.

YoR will actively intersect with Cultures of Resilience (CoR), a two year, cross-UAL project focused on researching and presenting a new cultural discourse on resilience.

We are also pleased to be joined by practitioners from CCC Head in Geneva and others beyond UAL who are exploring resilience in sensitive and situated ways. We will share specific examples and discuss them while walking, talking and workshopping. An exhibition will not only showcase resilient actions but also host traces of our emergent understanding over the two days.

SHOCK CITY is composed of three aspects: an exhibition, a practice exchange and a 'day of doing' via a walk and a workshop. All three aspects are open and anyone can join'staff, students and members of the public.

SHOCK CITY POSTCARD EXHIBITION: OPEN CALL

This exhibition will investigate urban actions that model resilience in contemporary cities; London and Geneva in particular. It is inspired in part by Actions: What You Can Do with the City, realised by the Canadian Centre for Architecture in 2007. This collection of actions aimed to reinvent daily life by engaging with urban space to change our relationships with the built environment. It identified the potential of everyday activities like playing, cycling, making and gardening for producing our cities in more creative ways.

To help us think about resilience as a consequence of our decisions and behaviours, the exhibition for Shock City will present postcards featuring actions of urban resilience. Each one should show a relevant image on one side and some accompanying text on the other: guidelines, reflections, facts or other information. The postcards should be standard size, roughly 148mm x 105mm. Beyond this, the brief remains open to encourage a wide array of responses.

You are invited to submit to this exhibition by sending your entry to:

Shock City

CCW Graduate School

Chelsea College of Arts

16 John Islip St, London SW1P 4JU

United Kingdom

DEADLINE: 27th October 2015

You can also create a postcard during the YoR launch event. Join Neil Cummings in tracing responses to the anthropocene in parallel with the panel discussions on 28th October 2015. Materials will be provided but you can also bring your own.

DAY 1: SHOCK CITY: RESILIENCE AND THE ANTHROPOCENE
A practice exchange composed of panel discussions presenting initiatives from CCW and beyond. Each one is modeling resilience in innovative and inspirational ways. Join us to learn more about initiatives such as, LOOK AT THE (E)STATE WE'RE IN (LATEWI), #TransActing: A Market of Values, Textiles Environmental Design (TED), The Department of Repair and Wilding the Edges.

Banqueting Hall, Chelsea College of Arts

10:00 – 10:30: Tea and Coffee
– Opening remarks by Marsha Bradfield and Malcolm Quinn

10:30 – 12:00: Empathy and Proximity: A panel chaired by Charlotte Web
– Edwina fitzPatrick and Geraint Evans (Wilding the Edges, CCW)
– David Cross (Fossil Fuel Divestment to UAL as a Social Enterprise)
– The Anthropocene Atlas of Geneva (CCC Head, Geneva)

12:00 – 13:30 Making and Repairing: A panel chaired by Aaron McPeake
– Robin Jenkins (Tsunami Escape Route, CCW)
– Ken Wilder (Interior and Spatial Design, CCW)
– Natalia Romik (The Bartlett, University College London)

13:30 – 14:30: Lunch provided

14:30 – 16:00: Community and Places: A panel chaired by Ezio Manzini
– Andrew Graves-Johnson and Patricia Ellis (Look At The [E]state We're In, CCW)
– Marsha Bradfield (#TransActing: A Market of Values, CCW)
– Braulio Eduardo Morera (Arup)

16:00 – 17:00: Discussion led by David Cross
17:00 – 17:15: Closing remarks by Malcolm Quinn and Neil Cummings
17:15 – 18:00: Drinks

DAY 2: SHOCK CITY: TRACING THE ANTHROPOCENE
10:00 – 13:00 A curated walk in the environs of Millbank to explore anthropogenic impact and response. Meet on the Rootstein Hopkins Parade Ground at Chelsea for a 10:00 departure. Rain gear and comfortable shoes recommended as we will be walking rain or shine.

14:00 – 17:00 The Anthropocene Atlas of Geneva: workshop with CCC Geneva exploring their inspirational research. We will consider methods and collaborative resources of artistic practice to produce new interdisciplinary representations of the Anthropocene. Chelsea College of Arts, E-block, Room E305.

CONTRIBUTORS' BIOGRAPHIES:

Aaron McPeake worked for many years as a lighting designer for Opera, Ballet and Theatre, but McPeake lost much of his vision due to an auto-immune illness. However, this has helped inform his artwork, and methods of practice. He was awarded PhD (2012) from Chelsea College of Art and Design, which examined adventitious vision loss, and its impact on visual artists and their practices. McPeake works with many different media and materials and has exhibited both nationally and internationally. Most of his work is interactive in nature.

Andrew Graves-Johnston was a leading collaborator on ‘Look At The (E)state We’re In’ project. He is interested (and concerned) by the way gentrification has suddenly become a byword for social cleansing. As well as being, at present, a mature sculpture student at Camberwell, he was a housing activist in the late 80/90s and was involved in the online/on the streets, global movements/protests of the noughties. Having been a squatter for 17 years, housing rights are very close to his heart. His studio practice is concerned with memory and he is currently researching how he can incorporate his activism into his practice.

Aur lien Gamboni develops a practice of critical investigation by the means of art, often involving field research and collaborations, and leading to multiple forms of interventions: installations, public discussions, texts and lectures-performances. www.ag-archives.net

Braulio Eduardo Morera is an urbanist and designer with a background in architecture and social sciences. He currently works as an associate, leading planning projects as well as resilience research, at the Arup International Development team in London. Braulio is also a PhD Candidate in Human Geography at University College London.

Bridget Harvey is a maker and PhD researcher exploring material practices of repair as a pathway to resilience and sustainability for makers and users. She is based between Camberwell and Chelsea colleges.

Charlotte Webb is an artist and researcher, currently undertaking a PhD investigating how the artist’s agency is enacted under the production conditions of the web. She has recently been involved in ‘The Work We Want’, a collaborative, cross-disciplinary investigation into the dynamics of global digital labour, which was showcased at the recent Web We Want festival at London’s Southbank Centre.

David Cross is an artist and Reader in Art and Design at the University of the Arts, London. Informing his research, practice and teaching is a critical engagement with the relationship between visual culture and the contested ideal of 'sustainable' development.

Edwina fitzPatrick is a UK-based artist whose work explores the living environment, especially in regard to mutability and change, focusing in particular on what happens when ‘grey’ and ‘green’ environments intersect and how human interactions have, and are affecting the nature, culture and ecology of a place. Edwina is also Course Director for MFA Fine Art, Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL.

Ezio Manzini is Chair Professor of Design for Social Innovation at the University of the Arts London, where he coordinates CoR: the Cultures of Resilience Project. He started DESIS: an international network on design for social innovation towards sustainability. Most recent book: 'Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation', MIT Press 2015.

Geraint Evans is interested in the ways in which we perceive, encounter and experience the natural world and read it as landscape. Geraint's solo exhibitions include Newport Museum and Art Gallery; Wilkinson Gallery, London; Chapter, Cardiff and CASA, Salamanca, Spain. He has been a resident artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts, Canada and, in 2003 received a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award and the Berwick Gymnasium Fellowship. He is the Course Leader for MA Painting at Wimbledon College of Arts, UAL.

Hannah Entwisle Chapuisat‘s research interests include seeking enhanced forms of collaboration between artists and non-artists through transdisciplinary research. Her research builds upon her background in law and peace studies, and her work with the United Nations and NGOs on issues related to humanitarian affairs and human rights, and, most recently, protecting cross-border disaster-displaced persons.

Janis Schroeder is an artist and researcher working with video, photography, artist books and essays. His research and artistic practice is about the influence and language of image montage. He uses the video essay as a niche form of knowledge production and representation to take a critical view on the power relations within these images. He currantly works as an assistant in the CCC Programme at Geneva University of Art and Design.

Kate McHugh Stevenson is a native of Rhode Island, USA, now living in the Rh ne-Alps region of eastern France. She is a writer, gardener, knitter, hiker, sourdough bread baker, canner of produce, and Henry David Thoreau enthusiast.

Ken Wilder is Course Director for the MA in Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Arts. His research explores Projective space, installation art, video sculpture, spatial practice, philosophy of art. He has exhibited widely in the UK since 1998, and has also exhibited in Ulm, Germany (funded by British Council).

Malcolm Quinn is Professor of Cultural and Political History, Associate Dean of Research and Director of Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon (CCW) Graduate School. His role at the University is to develop, sustain and promote world-leading research in art and design within CCW/UAL. Malcolm is also currently Chair of UAL Research Ethics Committee and CCW Research Committee.

Marsha Bradfield is an artist, curator, writer, educator and researcher. Marsha's current body of work explores economies and ecologies of collaborative cultural production and has developed through practicing with Precarious Workers Brigade, Critical Practice Research Cluster and many more people besides.

Natalia Romik has created numerous artistic and architectural projects, including videos (It's Not Here – about The Ghetto Heroes Monument), installations (JAD – post Jewish architecture in Silesia), performances (Zamenhof birthday, Shtetl Signboard) and she established the architectural collective, Senna, in 2013. Natalia is currently researching (post) Jewish architecture of memory and emptiness in contemporary urban reality of former Shtetls.

Neil Cummings is Professor of Critical Practice at Chelsea. He was born in Wales and lives in London.

Patricia Ellis is an artist, art writer, consultant and curator whose research spans all areas of contemporary art. She is also Contextual Studies Coordinator, Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts and CCW Academic Coordinator for Enterprise and Employability, Teaching and Learning Exchange.

Robin Jenkins is a Senior Lecturer at Chelsea College of Arts on the Interior and Spatial Design Course. He studied at the Architectural Association, London. Robin has, for the past 10 years worked in academia but is also an RNLI Lifeboat Man on the River Thames. Recently Robin has consolidated his research, practice as and artist and role on the Lifeboat together, having been invited to partake in a project endeavoring to breath life back in to the Earthquake and Tsunami affected region of Northern Japan. Robin's teaching and research practice concerns the investigation and promotion of solutions to disaster.

Top image: Superstudio, The Continuous Monument: St. Moritz Revisited, 1969

Evaporation, by Tania Kovats

Internationally acclaimed artist Tania Kovats (Course Director of MA Drawing at Wimbledon) explores the significance of our relationship with water and the world's seas and oceans in a brand new sculptural work 'Evaporation', the second in the annual Cape Farewell 'Lovelock Art Commission'.

Taking James Lovelock's Gaia theory ' of the earth as an interconnected super organism ' as her starting point, Kovats’ exquisite new sculptural piece explores global bodies of water and their crucial role as signifiers of climate change.

Comprised of large metal bowls reflecting the shape of the world's oceans lifted from the globe. Each bowl contains a solution of salt and blue ink that gradually evaporates in a hydro-cycle, leaving a jewel-like crust of salt crystals in concentric rings. This will be an object with its own tides; different each time a viewer sees it.

Alongside this work is 'All the Seas', hundreds of glass bottles containing water from each of the planet’s 200+ seas. This installation has been created with the help of a global network of people drawn in by the desire to bring all the waters of the world to one place.

Kovats- all-the-seas

All the Seas, by Tania Kovats

Throughout the exhibition water will continue to be added to the work, as the 36 remaining seas are collected for this striking and thought-provoking piece. Follow the hashtag #TheSeaStories to find out about new samples as they come in.

BBC Proms 'Gaia' Composer Jonathan Dove will also bring world premiere of new composition 'The Wave' to this installation on the 25th October ' a choral and instrumental piece responding to the work working with musicians from the Royal Northern College of Music.

On the evening of the 24th October at 7pm within the gallery space will be a wonderful in-conversation event between Kovats and Dove, led by leading Oceanographer Dr. Simon Boxall

Lovelock's work focuses much attention on the significance of the planets' oceans as a barometer of its health. As global sea temperatures rise and the impact of pollution is becoming increasingly clear, this work is more vital than ever. Evaporation opens the Manchester Science Festival 2015.

The exhibition is part of ArtCOP21. More information can be found online about other ArtCOP21 events and exhibitions.

www.facebook.com/ArtCop21

Twitter @art_cop21

Top image: Evaporation, by Tania Kovats

Lee Triming – Resident in Painting at Wimbledon

Wimbledon College of Arts is thrilled to announce that artist, Lee Triming will be resident in the BA Painting studios at the college this autumn. Lee is currently engaged in PhD research in Painting at the Royal College of Art, and his plans for the residency include developing collaborative writing strategies and working on large-scale drawings with an eye to developing these into backdrops or screens. He describes being interested in the format of the residency as a teaching tool, and how he might use it to rethink modes of pedagogical engagement, discourse and exchange.

Lee Triming is a London-based artist and writer interested in shuffling; both as a formal device employing repetition and recon'guration to generate composition, and as a way of keeping sets of references in shifting relation. Drawing, writing, appropriation and performance are areas wherein and between which he shu'es gestures and 'gures. A diagram of his current interests would make connections between formalist abstraction, occult traditions, queer politics, pop (sub)cultures and experimental literature. Recent works, involving large-scale wall paintings and live or pre-recorded sound as well as photocopies, objects and projected imagery, have involved ventriloquising Gertrude Stein, summoning Yoko Ono and pretending to be one of Paul Thek's sculptures.

This residency in painting forms part of our year long examination of Punk in the Suburbs. For more information on activities and events in Painting research at Wimbledon see: paintingresearch.net.

Re- Reanimate, Repair, Meld & Mend

This small selling exhibition, one of a series of curated shows at the Bluecoat, will feature the work of artists who are concerned with the re-use and reanimation of existent (often devalued or discarded) cultural material.

Confirmed artists include Michael Brennand-Wood, Neil Brownsword, David Clarke, Robert Dawson, Bouke de Vries, Steve Dixon, Amy Douglas, Jenni Dutton, Matthew Harris, Bridget Harvey, Charlotte Hodes, Gitte Jungersen, Carol McNicoll, Livia Marin, Irene Nordli, Caroline Slotte, Linda Sormin, Hans Stofer & Jacy Wall. The exhibition is curated by Paul Scott.

CCW PhD student Bridget Harvey will be showing Blue Necklace, made from 800 hand cut, coloured and polished beads made from reclaimed (or, in the terminology of the show, re-animated) maple wood. In keeping with this theme, all the exhibitors are working with discarded or pre-used cultural materials. Harvey’s doctoral research is focused on the practice of repairing and mending. Her research aims to define repair as a bridge between creativity and practicality, as crossing boundaries and as a methodology with which to actively explore sustainability, identity and community. Exploring the multidimensional area of repair through (re)making, investigating materials, joining methods and object narratives, she is making and collecting a series of objects, techniques and experiences as part of her AHRC funded PhD studies. Rooted in ideas of design activism, environmentally and socially conscious and iterative, she aims to investigate the potential for visible repair as part of an expanded studio practice. As a practice based researcher, Harvey also continues the redefining of assumed aesthetics of the recycled and examining the impact of personal actions in the greater scheme of sustainability.

Re- Reanimate, Repair, Meld & Mend is showing at Bluecoat Display Centre from 10 October – 14 November 2015.

Top image: Bridget Harvey, Blue Necklace, maple wood, nylon, 2012

Action Space Inflatable

On 14 and 15 October CCW Graduate School and Chelsea College of Arts will be hosting Action Space Inflatable. The inflatable is a re-versioning of pneumatic structures built by Action Space in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Over two days members from Action Space, Inter-Action and Artist Placement Group (APG) among others, will explore the relevance of community arts programmes of the '70s and '80s to contemporary artistic practices. Through workshops, performance, a walking tour, film screenings and discussion, this event will open up questions about art as a democratic tool, educational medium and instigator of social change. The Action Space Inflatable structure has been specially commissioned as part of an experimental film project by filmmaker, Huw Wahl. This two-day event marks the first stage of the UK tour of the inflatable and is presented by CCW Graduate School as part of Chelsea College of Arts' celebration of ten years of creative activity at Millbank.

On Wednesday 14 October, founding member of Action Space, Ken Turner, will deliver a performative lecture; CCW Research Fellow Mo Throp invites you to participate in the Inter-Action Trust Games Method session, as well as a programme of archival footage from Action Space, Inter-Action Trust and Artist Placement Group (APG) projects will be screened inside the inflatable. The day will close with a panel discussion on Socially engaged practices of the 1970s and their relevance today, chaired by Marsha Bradfield and including Joshua Y'Barbo, James Lander, Barbara Steveni, Mo Throp and Ken Turner.

On Thursday 15 October artist Barbara Steveni, of APG, and Jo Melvin invite you on their Walking Tour from Manresa Road – site of the original Chelsea School of Art – towards the current Millbank venue. The day concludes with a conversation between Barbara and Brian Chalkley focusing on APG’s ‘Not Knowing’ in relation to Chalkley’s pedagogical methods for teaching on the MA Fine Art course at Chelsea College of Arts. The conversation will be facilitated by Jo Melvin.

Mo Throp spent five years in the 1970’s as a live-work member of Inter-Action, a community arts organisation which became one of the UK's best known and most influential cultural and social enterprises. Its projects included the Almost Free Theatre in the West End (notable seasons and events included London's first Black Power, Gay and Women's theatre seasons), the Dogg’s Troupe – a street theatre group, the Fun Art Bus, the Media Van, a city farm, a publishing unit and one of London’s first Free Schools. ‘My time with this organisation has certainly influenced my pedagogical approach as a teacher of Fine Art students and my relation to art practice and my work with the Subjectivity & Feminisms Research group at Chelsea.

Recently, I came into contact with Huw Wahl who has been researching another such organisation from this period: Action Space. He has re-built a prototype of one of their huge inflatables and proposed to bring it to Chelsea, inviting us to organise a programme of events around the Community Arts movement of the late 1960s. This is therefore a great opportunity to ask how such projects resonate now in relation to the social turn in contemporary practice. Our programme of events addresses the current resurgence of interest in socially engaged artistic practices and hopes to address the challenge to conventional modes of artistic production and consumption under late capitalism.’

Drawing the World

On Sunday 11th October from 1-4pm Rootstein Hopkins Chair of Drawing and CCW Professor Stephen Farthing will be working with 30 postgraduate students from across the University, a drone pilot and a film maker to film the performance of a drawing. The work is called Drawing the World and is part of The Big Draw festival, which will be held in Granary Square, King’s Cross.

In this video Farthing talks about how the work/performance will be made and then erased.