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Critical Distance: On illustrating news events from afar
Get PDFPowerful images depicting the horror and devastation of geopolitical events and heinous abuses of power have an indisputable role to play in our society. This article however challenges the role of the eye witness as the sole conduit to valuable insights within news and media discourse. The authors propose that image-making practices (such as illustration) that operate at a distance from events allow for equally valid insights. Using three case studies of imagery produced at a remove from the news events it thematises, they argue that it is precisely the distance from the news event that enables the work to draw out aspects that are usually outside the frame of visibility. An analysis of Daniel Heyman’s portraits of Abu Ghraib detainees, Tings Chak’s schematic representations of migrant detention centres, and Catherine Anyango Grünewald’s animated film concerning the death of black teenager Michael Brown demonstrates that working at a remove can enable illustrators, artists and activists to reveal overlooked systems of power and control, restore dignity to dehumanised subjects, and reveal the limits of visual evidence. The article concludes with a reflection on the possibilities and limitations of the visual as a form of evidence
Carole Collet on the magic of mycelium and regenerative design
No full textMaterial Matters is a platform dedicated to exploring the role of materials in shaping our environment. Curated by Grant Gibson the podcast articulates research directions and perspectives on Biodesign and regenerative design stemming for research inquiries developed in the Living Systems Lab and Maison/0 at Central Saint Martins UAL
Traces: Stories of Migration. A Qualitative Research Report on Visual Arts-Led Textile Practices in Collaboration with Migrant Communities in East London
Get PDFTraces: Stories of Migration is a qualitative research report investigating the impact of participatory art on the well-being and identity of first and second-generation migrants. Led by visual artist and researcher Lucy Orta, the project was conducted in partnership with the University of the Arts London’s Portal Centre for Social Impact and Centre for Sustainable Fashion, and funded by the Arts Council of England, The Portal Trust, and Foundation for Future London.
Drawing on the multicultural fabric of east London, particularly the migration history associated with the East End Rag Trade, the project aimed to offer a positive and engaging artistic experience. It was divided into three phases: community engagement, responsive textile practice, and the exhibition of outcomes.
The community engagement phase collected and translated the memories and experiences of east Londoners with migrant backgrounds. The project employed visual-arts methods, including oral and mapping storytelling and textile-based practice in group settings. This approach enabled participants to share personal narratives and textile knowledge collectively, and to practice or learn new textile crafts. The resulting Story Cloths by participants and textile Portraits by Lucy Orta visually or conceptually depicted personal and/or family migration experiences and were presented in two public exhibitions.
The report explores how the participatory methods used in the project influenced the well-being and identity of the participants, fostered community connections, and provided a space for individuals to contextualize, reflect on, and express their migration history in an original format
Sustainable and Circular Practices in the UK Fashion and Textile Industry
Get PDFA vision for an innovative practice, development and business growth ecosystem.
This report is based on joint research by the Business of Fashion, Textiles and Technology (BFTT), University of the Arts London, and the Future Fashion Factory (FFF), University of Leeds
Camp Fire
Get PDFA transient workspace for the CSM Art Programme at The Good Rice, 98 Robert St NW1 13th January - 1st February 2025. Open daily 1-5pm. A gathering place to bring research that is smouldering in the art programme into public view. The old Museum of London had a gallery called London Before London. In it were the remains of a camp fire site from the Neolithic era, people had gathered around the fire, worked and eaten together in this clearing over many generations, bringing tools and leaving some debris, bones and sticks, reworking old stuff. The material evidence can only be a start to imagining the skills and stories and histories shared around the fire. Camp Fire at the Good Rice is a set of daily meetings over January 2025. The invitation is to bring yourselves to the space, sometimes to show and perform, sometimes to listen and respond, cast some shadows, share your thoughts and work, get warm around Unicode Character “�” (U+1F525
Alien: Romulus and the Problematic Saviour
Get PDFAppropriately for a film named for warring mythic twins, this paper identifies a shift in the Alien Mythos and analyzes the tension in a key oppositional duality of Alien: Romulus. I suggest that director and writer Fede Alvarez collapses the separation between the Weyland-Yutani company and the xenomorphs as distinctly separate metaphors for social organization. In doing this the director ends the hitherto association of the protagonist’s heroism with the alien creatures. In this vein I explore the confrontation between a pathological rationalist position, represented in the company android Rook; and a more sympathetic, though problematic, individualism communicated through the central protagonist Rain and her group of friends. The article suggests that the colonial overtones of Joseph Conrad’s Nostromo, the real-world referents of The Great Depression (1929–1939), and the concept of a frontier mentality are apparent in the film’s imagery and exchanges, helping us to understand anxiety around a desire to escape the industrial modernity that persists in contemporary societies
School Play
No full textWe are casually making a school play about an art school, while working at an art school. “Causally making” is important since we do not want this to entail more work. The “while working” is important because it emphasises what Stefano Harney and Fred Moten call a necessary “criminal relation to the university” in that we might be seen to be doing our artwork “on the job” so to speak. Consequently, this “casually making” art “on the job” might be an interesting way of navigating the little time left for making art as art teachers. Whilst breaking down hierarchies between artists, teachers and students it also blurs the lines between teaching, theory and practice – they become as one simultaneous. The school play is important to some of us because at some point of our lives it gave us a reason to live when we thought we might not want to. But it is also a construct through which we can imagine and importantly put into practice an alternative to what already is, while also critically grappling with the questions that our mirror school throws up. The school play produces a doubling of our school and ourselves – a body extension that becomes our accomplice in imagining an alternative. One thing the school play is good at is being inauthentic and this is important in showing up any retrograde “return to authenticity” that criticism of the neoliberal university might risk reproducing.
Our presentation thus takes the form of a 20-minute school play about casually making a school play about an art school, while working at an art school. There will be make-shift props, lines spoken aloud and in unison, maybe songs, and definitely bad makeup. It will also, we hope, not only get us through the school term, but also activate our collective imagination and remind us why we are art teachers all along
Uncatalogued: Vietnam and Archives of Visual Culture
Get PDFAccompanying the exhibition "Mangrove Theatre," at IC Visual Lab (Bristol, curated by artist Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn and Afterall research editor Adeena Mey, 'Uncatalogued' will unpack material documents of Vietnam’s history, including propaganda posters, architectural drawings, musical scores, wartime illustrations and photographs. Whether state-produced or grassroots in origin, these materials echo across borders, revealing the transnational circulation of images and ideas
Becoming wildly nomadic with the Nomadic Detective Agency-Assemblage
Get PDFThis experimental “unessay” explores the concept of becoming wildly nomadic as a lens for envisioning hopeful futures in creative Higher Education. Structured as a play, each “act” is inspired by a different plateau from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s 1980 book A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. The narrative employs the fictional Nomadic Detective Agency-Assemblage (NDA-A) as a creative device to navigate the philosophical ideas within A Thousand Plateaus and to rethink and reimagine education more hopefully. Through its experimental form, this work aims to evoke joyful and just approaches to developing new educational practices, policies, and pedagogies for the universities of the future. By emphasising collective action and envisioning transformative possibilities, it seeks to inspire ways to collaboratively build a more just and equitable educational landscape for all
A comprehensive review of the advances in process engineering and greener solvents in dyeing to impart sustainable textile manufacturing
Get PDFThe textile dyeing industry is not only seen as one of the largest environmental polluters, but dyeing operations also have high carbon footprints. Considering the current global water and energy crisis and to address the UN's sustainable development goals, it is of utmost necessity to make textile materials and their manufacturing sustainable. Over the years, improvements in machinery design, process engineering, and the development of green solvents have been made to reduce energy, water, and chemical usage as well as the environmental impacts of dyeing. Despite their potential, significant challenges remain in developing a dyeing method that is zero-effluent, economical, industrially feasible, and eco-friendly. This review article critically discusses various aqueous and waterless sustainable dyeing methods investigated, along with their dyeing mechanisms, recyclability, merits, and demerits. The dyeing performance and colourfastness properties of the fabrics dyed by various sustainable dyeing methods have been compiled and compared. Supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) have emerged as the two most promising green alternative dyeing media. The ionic liquid, reverse-micellar, and D5-based dyeing methods are virtually zero-effluent but are not industrially feasible due to various issues, including industrial dyeing machines are not designed for solvent dyeing, requiring the handling and use of a large amounts of harmful solvents, and the difficulty of the removal of some solvents from the dyed fabrics. Conversely, scCO2-based dyeing is primarily suitable for dyeing polyester fibres with disperse dyes but is unsuitable for dyeing cotton, wool and other fibres as the dyes used in their dyeing are not soluble in scCO2 medium. The findings of this review will aid in the development of future industrially feasible, sustainable dyeing methods that are zero-effluent, economical, and eco-friendly