Geneva University of Art & Design

Geneva University of Art & Design

Staff from Chelsea College of Arts and the Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design (HEAD), Geneva University of Art & Design, have been developing a collaborative partnership around shared areas of research interest. A common aim of both institutions is to use research in art as a powerful agent of artistic and cultural transformation.

Beginning in autumn 2014, Chelsea, Camberwell, Wimbledon/UAL and CCC/HEAD began a joint seminar/workshop programme on the theme of environment and sustainability. The lead academics for this collaboration in Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon are Neil Cummings, Professor of Fine Art, and David Cross, Reader in Art and Design. In March 2015, staff from Chelsea contributed to a week-long research exchange in Geneva, focusing on work towards the 'Anthropocene Atlas: Geneva' (TAAG) based on practices of live-tracing and mapping, using the methods and collaborative resources of artistic practice to produce new interdisciplinary representations of the Anthropocene. This was followed by further mapping/tracing for the 'Anthropocene Atlas: London' as part of the UAL 'Cultures of Resilence' programme in March 2015. This programme began to tease out and trace UAL's financial entanglements, our energy use and providers, our interactions with NGO's, resilient organisations and communities, our networks of empathy, and our aspirations.

Our work with HEAD Geneva benefits from a critical and creative engagement with the theme of Resilience in Camberwell, Chelsea, Wimbledon Graduate School, which deepens our collaborative relationship by envisioning a cultural and democratic transition to a zero carbon society.