Monthly Archives: February 2016

Launch: Dyslexic Academic Network

 

18th March 2016, 10.30am ' 5pm

The Board Room, University of the Arts, 272 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7EY

A support, advocacy, information and policy development forum for researchers and lecturers with dyslexia in Higher Education.

This will be the first ever opportunity for dyslexic academics to work together in identifying the challenges they face, ways of overcoming barriers and to re-address the deficit model of dyslexia.

To book a place please e-mail – [email protected]

Summary

Dyslexic academics are under-regarded and under-supported in Higher Education. Dyslexics tend to be isolated and fail to take steps towards self-advocacy even within the university sectors own disability, equity and diversity frameworks. The strategies that dyslexics use to become academics; self-reliance, individually developed compensatory strategies and hard work are the very things that cloud the issues and has the effect of obscuring underlying difficulties. Dyslexic academics share a range of characteristics and experiences that define them as a distinct group. Not least amongst which is that the arena in which they are expected to excel is precisely where the effects of their disability are most likely to be profound.

Dyslexia is a syndrome that manifests itself differently in each person. It is mostly understood using a deficit model but it might be better conceived in terms of neuro-diversity that can bring additional values such as; creativity, holistic and abstract thinking, high visual and spatial awareness and simultaneous multiple thought processing. DAN will support the understanding and promotion of these traits within professional frameworks.

DAN will act as a support, advocacy, information and policy development forum to campaign for greater support for and understanding of the unique position of the dyslexic working in Higher Education.

The purpose of the Network.

Provide a forum for challenging the deficit model of dyslexia by exploring the much-mooted advantages of dyslexia, such as; abstract thinking and creativity, heterogenic and multi-paradigmatic thought processing, holistic thinking, dissecting arguments and making unexpected links.

* '''''' To provide advocacy within the Higher Education sector and more widely. Help the sector understand the needs of the Dyslexic employee.

* '''''' Raise the profile of the dyslexic academic and help identify a discreet group with a shared identity and profile.

* '''''' Help to remove barriers to career advancement and counter pockets of intolerance and yet to be resolved discriminatory practices.

* '''''' Provide a campaigning voice to represent the views of the Dyslexic Academic community and inspire dyslexics to enter academia.

* '''''' To provide support to dyslexics numbered amongst the 40% of academic staff who, on part-time and temporary contracts, are doubly isolated and disadvantaged.

* '''''' Share best practice regarding compensatory strategies and in provision and policy.

* '''''' As dyslexia can have emotional effects relating to anxiety, depression and embarrassment provide a forum the sharing of experiences.

* '''''' To present a different 'map' of dyslexia drawing attention the fact that it is a wide-ranging syndrome effecting far more than the processing of printed symbols especially how the disability effects crucial features of performance such as timekeeping, short term memory, information retrieval, organisation and planning.

* '''''' Help the sector to develop strategies to uncover the 'hidden dyslexic'.

Provide information and strategy guidance to the existing, mostly student orientated, dyslexic support sector and Access to Work Schemes.

* '''''' Write a code of practice to help the sector and individual Universities meet their obligations under disabilities legislation and to develop standards, fairness and consistency.

* '''''' Create a forum for mutual support where dyslexics can assist each other with developing career strategies and maximising their strengths.

Mending Revealed at Bridport Arts Centre

CCW research student Bridget Harvey is exhibiting at Bridport Arts Centre in a show called Mending Revealed (5th March – 16th April), curated by Jacy Wall. Other included artists are Louise Baker, Jenni Dutton, Lisa Earley, Simon Hitchens, Guy Martin and Paul Scott.

She has spent the last 3 years researching repair-making as a material and social action, and uses broken ceramics to experiment with old and new repair techniques, materially recording her thought processes.

Her exhibit, Sides to Middle, is a series of repaired ceramics which propose ways of approaching repair and repairing, sometimes functionally, sometimes not.

bowl

https://bridgetharvey.co.uk/

https://www.bridport-arts.com/events/mending-revealed/

https://www.jacywall.co.uk/

https://www.louisepbaker.co.uk/

https://www.jennidutton.com/

https://lisa-earley.tumblr.com/

https://www.simonhitchens.com/

https://www.guy-martin.com/

https://www.cumbrianblues.com/ (Paul Scott)

Universities partner to promote online design collection

500 images have been launched online today on the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS) from the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture (MoDA) at: https://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/MODA.php

This unique collection includes well-known graphic designs, typography and book design, advertisements and posters, wallpapers, textiles, fashion, and interior design.

MoDA's collections engage with design histories including the furnishing of ‘ordinary’ homes of the early and mid-twentieth century, the design process of commercial wallpaper and textiles for the home and inter-war suburbia. The collections are also concerned with broader themes encompassing visual and material culture.

The museum developed from a number of collections acquired by Middlesex University between the late 1960s and the 1990s.

VADS has also developed custom built web stats for the museum collection, allowing MoDA to track visitors from theme and collection pages to individual items and gain a better understanding of how people are using the online collection.

VADS has been hosted online for over 16 years by the University for the Creative Arts (UCA). It provides online access to a growing collection of visual images contributed by universities, libraries, museums and archives from across the UK, which can be used freely for education.

To explore all the VADS collections, totaling over 140,000 images, visit: https://www.vads.ac.uk/collections

To view more of MoDA's collections online visit: https://www.moda.mdx.ac.uk/home

To view items from the museum's collection in person please contact: [email protected]

MoDA's collaboration with VADS was made possible with the support of Jisc, the not-for-profit organization for higher, further education and skills. It was one of the projects selected to take part in Jisc's Spotlight on the Digital resource discovery training programme pilot.

IESA at White Cube

Tuesday, February 23, 2016 – 18:30 – White Cube Bermondsey

This discussion will focus on the role of commercial galleries in today’s contemporary art world, looking at their strategies and role in the market. Over the course of the last years, the function of commercial galleries has evolved and is still rapidly changing, showing for instance an increasing support to exhibitions and projects in public museums, rethinking the relationship with auction houses and, in the case of the bigger players, opening new outlets in different cities worldwide.

The panel will then consider the role of social media and how it has changed the art world, also raising new and debated copyright issues. Self promotion via social media channels has now become hugely popular and museums and institutions in general have been urged to rethink their marketing strategies to include social media activities for attracting larger public.

SPEAKERS

Anna Dempster, Head of Academic Programmes, Royal Academy of Arts

Boris Pevzner, CEO, Collectrium

Fru Tholstrup, Director, S|2

Book your place

There will be opportunities to ask questions and continue the discussion afterwards with an informal reception.

The programme is free and aimed at students of contemporary art, both at undergraduate or graduate levels.

For more information please visit the IESA website

Registration:

Please contact Sorcha Richardson at [email protected] or call +44 (0)20 7749 8093 to book tickets for the sessions. These are available from two weeks before each event. Tickets are limited to 4 per person. Seats are limited so book early to avoid disappointment.

If you fail to show up to the event without having notified us in advance you will not be able to register for any other sessions

Getting there:

White Cube Bermondsey.
White Cube 144 ' 152 Bermondsey Street
London SE1 3TQ

The nearest London Underground stations to White Cube Bermondsey are London Bridge (Jubilee and Northern Lines) or Borough (Northern Line).

There is disabled access throughout the gallery space.

BALTIC 39 | Mohammad Namazi

Around Hospitality

BALTIC 39 | Mohammad Namazi

 

CCW PhD researcher Mohammad Namazi has been selected for this year's Baltic 39 Exhibition programme. Around Hospitality marks Namazi's first solo exhibition in the UK and will include artworks made from 2014 to 2016. The exhibition is open to public from 17 ' 21 February 2016 at Baltic 39's South Exhibition Space

The temporal tensions between transience and permanency, or kinesis and stasis, have been a constant area of research for Namazi, exploring the polarity of subjects such as the rights of individuals, consumerism and the political exchange of power and hospitality.

During this five-day exhibition Namazi will be in residence; utilizing a range of media including video, print, sculpture, the internet and sound to produce installations within the gallery and his self initiated artist's studio. The project aims to explore the boundaries between these two environments, where complete and realized artworks are presented next to works-in-progress. Privileging experimentation and process through dialogue and practice, Namazi will invite others to use the space for their own projects.

BALTIC 39 | FIGURE THREE is the third iteration of the open submission exhibition which offers a platform for artists to test works and ideas, or to develop works in progress within a public context. More information can be found on their website.

BALTIC 39

31-39 High Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1EW

Tel: 0191 261 3830 E-mail: [email protected]

BALTIC's project space

Open Wed-Sun during exhibition periods

Performance Management: Panel Discussion

Panel: Nicholas Ridout, Sarah McCrory, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd & Lois Rowe

19 February 2016, 5.30 ' 7pm

Institute for Contemporary Arts

In his latest book 'In Praise of Theatre' Alain Badiou writes 'the theatre attempts to make a previously unseen possibility emerge'.[1] For him, there is a precariousness about theatre, which not only responds to our present crisis in global capitalism, but which, through its provocation, enables the spectator to orientate him or herself in the present day. So it is that the mechanisms of theatre'its language, its arrangement of spectators and stage'have increasingly become the site for experimentation and radical performance that spans across the arts. There is something about the ability of theatre to enable the unexpected'a newness'that makes it an exciting ground on which to stage inventions, even interventions.

This event will discuss and interrogate the idea of Performance Management in a twofold sense. On the one hand it will be considered from the perspective of delegation: what happens when the authority of the staged performance gives way to alternative or democratized modes of engagement? What conditions of 'newness' enable possibilities to emerge that resonate with our current political moment? On the other hand Performance Management will be used as a trope to raise questions around the social and institutional structures and constraints that influence performance work today.

Nicholas Ridout has written extensively on political and social understandings of theatrical events. His work considers theatre not just as a mode of cultural production, but also as an affective experience and mode of social organization.

Sarah McCrory is a curator and director of Glasgow International.

Marvin Gaye Chetwynd is a visual artist who is best known for her improvised re-workings of iconic moments from cultural history.

Lois Rowe is an artist and writer who is Programme Director at Wimbledon College of Arts.

This event is part CCW Graduate School's public programme, and will launch Acts Re-Acts 3, a month long series exploring performance and new media, with workshops, disucssions, events,interventions, seminars and installations which take place art Wimbledon Space between 22 February and 18 March, 2016.

Open to all. Booking via the ICA website: www.ica.org.uk

[1] Badiou, Alain, with Nicolas Truong. In Praise of Theatre. Cambridge, Polity Press, 2015.

The Unspeakable Freedom Device | Q&A with Jennet Thomas

Ahead of Jennet Thomas’ talk and screening of THE UNSPEAKABLE FREEDOM DEVICE, we asked her few questions about her work and practice…

Please tell us about the piece you are screening at Chelsea in March ' it seems to address both some quite serious political ideas while also being quite surreal and almost touches on sci-fi.

The idea for this work started with my reaction to the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, the cult-like status of her image, and the fateful changes she brought on. As I was developing this idea I was approached by the Grundy Gallery, in Blackpool, to make a big film/installation work. It was a great co-incidence- via the Gallery I could get access to the fabulous Blackpool Winter Gardens as a location, the very place where those key Conservative Party Conferences happened when Thatcher rose to power! So thereby came the structure of the work- it would be a pilgrimage to the Winter Gardens, involving a Thatcher Cult.

But my work is never just about one theme ' it isn't even 'about' stuff, rather I construct parallel worlds in which you can glimpse reflections of things in our world, inside a kind of machine of play. Everything I am working on now seems to move toward Sci-Fi and the absurd, probably because I am fascinated by the way our increasingly intimate relationship with technology is changing the nature of our reality, and how this is entangled with ideology.

Trailer for THE UNSPEAKABLE FREEDOM DEVICE…

You work on Wimbledon's Print and Time-based Media course, can you tell us about how you balance your teaching and your own artistic practice? Does one feed into the other?

Everyone at UAL is aware that staff workloads are sometimes insane- even if you are part time. So no, it's not easy balancing the two. A brief Sabbatical helped. Working with our Print and Time Based Media students is great, and inspiring, and can definitely connect both ways with my artistic practise. It's the systemically self-defeating bureaucratic structures and flawed power relations that the institution propagates – that generate so much needless stress that makes the balance hard.

I understand you are also taking part in Acts Re-Acts 3 at Wimbledon Space, can you tell us a bit more about your work for that?

It is a new work that will contain live performance (including a fairly deranged monologue) video animation, costume' it slightly touches upon my inappropriate moan above- it's called 'Enhanced Monitoring Event' and is inspired by a spectacularly opaque power point presentation that was so incomprehensibly stacked with management-speak that it reached a delicious level of absurdity, and number of my colleagues suggested it was a bit like one of my films. It's a work in progress.

The Unspeakabke Freedom Device

Image: Jennet Thomas

Acts Re-Acts looks at performance from both a fine art and a theatrical perspective and considers where and how they intersect, is this something you have considered in your own work before?

I don't believe that there are ' or should be – clearly defining perspectives or disciplinary 'territories' between creative arenas, I don't think that is how interesting culture works. It's something that obsesses the academic world, and those that have a stake in maintaining 'territories' through funding structures. My work has been crossing over various territories for decades now- it often doesn't sit comfortably in the 'artists film' territory as I have long been interested in spoken word, televisual forms, and, yes, aspects of experimental theatre. Only recently have these aspects been sucked into the monstrous digestive system of the Fine Art world and become a bit trendy.

Thanks Jennet!

Jennet’s talk and screening will take place on 2nd March, see below for more information and this event and Jennet’s work…

2nd March, 18:00 – 20:00, Lecture Theatre, Chelsea College of Arts, London, SW1P 4JU

No booking required.

Details of THE UNSPEAKABLE FREEOM DEVICE book can be found at the Book Works website

For more information about Jennet Thomas please visit her blog.

Performance Management: Masterclass

19 February 2016, 11 ' 4pm

Institute for Contemporary Arts

Performance Management will be a provocative day-long performance master-class that explores the notion of invention within performance. Led by Turner Prize nominee Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, the session will be based at the ICA and possibly extend out into the city. Throughout the day there will be opportunities for debate and discussion on the politics of performance, the architecture that often houses it, and the limitations that often inform it.

Masterclass participants are encouraged to attend the Performance Management panel discussion scheduled for later in the day.

Open to all. Booking via the ICA website: www.ica.org.uk