Leeds Arts University Repository (CREST)
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Materialising dissent: Pussy Riot’s balaclavas, material culture and feminist agency
No full textThis chapter explores the specific material qualities of the balaclavas made and worn by the Russian feminist performance group Pussy Riot. The balaclavas are analysed as objects of activist feminist materiality with reference to the ‘feminine’ qualities of the materiality itself (tights), also to processes of material engagement (hasty hacking, the home made object), both materiality and making seen here as the manifestation of feminist dissent. In the essay What is a Feminist Object? Feminist Material Culture and the Making of the Activist Object, (2016) Alison Bartlett and Margaret Henderson propose a feminist system of objects within which the material culture of feminist activism is defined by the primacy of the object’s political agency. Bartlett and Henderson identify four major categories of feminist objects: corporeal things, world-making things, knowledge and communicative things, and protest things. I examine Pussy Riot’s balaclavas in relation to the identificatory criteria of each of these categories, as such presenting the balaclavas as objects of material culture with feminist agency
The Chris Graham Collection
No full textThe output is an exhibition and accompanying catalogue featuring a large body of work which covers staff and students, past and present of Leeds Arts University. As part of the University’s ongoing celebration of its heritage, the output offers an exhibition of a collection that honours the creative outputs solely of this institution. The University’s historic 1903 Vernon Street Gallery hosts a celebration of works that span Graham’s career, from the former Jacob Kramer College, through to the now Leeds Arts University. The exhibition aims to celebrate the vitality of work produced by staff and students at the University, whilst also marking a milestone in a continually evolving collection that builds on the legacy of our Head Librarian. Presented in the exhibition output is a carefully curated selection of 43 works from 25 artists from The Chris Graham Collection, representing the broad and vibrant output of the institution. The collection is detailed in full at the end of the accompanying catalogue
The Yellow Steps
No full textThe output is an artefact by Ellis, which navigates with notions of visibility and change; primarily how the construct of gender is determined by what is visible.
Research Process: The work is a conceit for the way in which the trans body acts in opposition to this trope and moreover, as a site of cultural resistance. The project is a collaboration between Ellis and Mika, a trans boy, allowing him to build and actively participate in a narrative of his own construction. The title of the project is derived from Mika’s poem The Yellow Steps, which describes a piece of architecture that at once unsettled him but also offered an escape from his troubled home life growing up.
Research Insights: Architecture is used throughout to echo this sense of construction, the constant shrouding alluding to the underlying transition beneath. The work is a construct of measured realisation; beginning initially with the hidden, before a gradual advance towards revelation.
Dissemination: The output was disseminated by Conde Nast from 19 – 22 November 2020
Non-traditional students and Practical Wisdom a perspective from a practitioner-researcher
No full textThe investigation into the experiences of ‘non-traditional’ students in art and design began with an initial pilot study that was supported by The Institute for Learning (IfL); The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS); The Education and Training Foundation (ETF); and the University of Sunderland Centre for Excellence in Teacher Training (SUNCETT). Subsequently, Leeds Arts University supported the development of the research that underpins this chapter.
The issues related to the experiences of non-traditional students have been investigated and analysed from a practitioner’s point of view. I have worked as an Access to HE tutor and course leader and wished to use the insight I had gained from many years of experience to inform the research. Calucci-Gray et al. (2013) have argues that there has been an increased impact of research on educational policy but this has been unsatisfactory. This is because it has been carried out by universities on teachers in schools (and colleges) rather than with them. This has led to research that is not engaged with by practitioners and a gulf exists between research findings and the practices in the classroom (or in this case the studio). As an Access to HE educator I aimed to prepare students for undergraduate study, but I also wanted to understand how these students experienced higher education when they made the transition from further to higher education. This understanding would enable Access to HE teachers and those working in higher education to better understand the needs of this group of students and maybe lead to some changes in practices. I appreciated the life experience, wisdom and other capacities or capitals these students had (O’Shea, 2014) and aimed to discover if these were beneficial to the Access to HE students’ undergraduate education. The purpose of this chapter is to explore how practitioners can value and develop the capacity of students to draw upon their own practical wisdom. Phronesis or practical wisdom is an intellectual virtue of deliberation based on the desire to act in the best interests of the self and other people. The stories told by ‘non-traditional’ students, are analysed through narrative inquiry revealing the ways in which they deliberate about their education. This approach uses narrative as a means of capturing experience and argues that the ability to narrate our own experience is integral to phronesis. The conclusions drawn from this study are not easily turned into generalisations or ‘truths’ as they are contingent on the contexts in which the narratives are produced. Narrative is a representation of experience which is mediated by the social and cultural positions of the narrators and their audiences. This study found that some students were adept at using their practical wisdom; making courageous decision to leave their careers and re-enter education in order to improve their lives for themselves and their families. The implications for those of us who work with ‘non-traditional’ students are that we should think about the strategies that encourage them to deliberate well for themselves and others; where instances of phronesis are celebrated rather than curtailed. The value of this approach is that it aims to promote the capacity of deliberation in students and educators, so they become wise and active agents in helping construct positive educational experiences
Shoplifting in Woolworths: And other acts of material disobedience
No full textThe solo exhibition Shoplifting in Woolworths: And Other Acts of Material Disobedience, comprises a series of free-standing and wall based sculptures, film and installation works made from domestic objects. Research process: The sculptures and installation works in this exhibition perform narratives of domestic disobedience; in each, overlooked and undervalued domestic objects have been activated through careful manipulation of the material culture of femininity to disrupt purpose and intention. These sculptural works are intrinsically domestic, the objects and materials from which they are constructed are the things of home, the stuff of femininity. Research insights: The artworks exhibited unsettle our expectations of the homeliness of home; following Alexandra Kokoli’s (2016) proposition that art informed by feminism is intrinsically uncanny, and that uncanny domesticities are those where the familiar is infected with the unfamiliar, the women and girls implied by the sculpture and installation exhibited enact domestic resistance. Using materials and objects close to hand, the domestic detritus of everyday life; these sculptural objects that reference ornaments or domestic furnishings are misleading, for their feminine materiality has been put to use in a manner that suggest rebellion, albeit with humour and an eye for colour coordination. Shoplifting in Woolworths: And Other Acts of Material Disobedience poses an alternate understanding of home as a place where women can create a site of resistance as well as comfort. Dissemination: The exhibition was open to the public at The Civic Barnsley from 25th January until 7th March. The exhibition was supported by an artist’s talk, a performance evening, a youth poetry group workshop, and a talk to Fine Art students from Barnsley College. The exhibition was reviewed by Dr. Dawn Woolley for Third Text and by Jay Drinkall for Corridor 8
The dissecting gaze: Fashioned bodies on social networking sites
No full textIn ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, Laura Mulvey says the gender
inequality that favours men and disadvantages women also structures how
we look. Women are passive objects of the look and men are active agents
of it. Fetishistic scopophilia exaggerates and emphasizes the physical beauty
of a woman so she is pleasurable to look at, but at the same time it reduces
her to a non-threatening fragment, a part-object without subjectivity.
In reference to Marxism and psychoanalysis, this chapter will argue
that contemporary culture, characterized by the predominance of social
networking sites and selfies, produces a particular type of fetishistic look:
a magnifying, dissecting gaze. This mode of looking is an internalized gaze
that compels the individual to work on the body so it more closely resembles
social body ideals. It is not the pleasurable scopophilia described by Mulvey
but a judgmental, disciplining gaze
Mature students matter: The impact of the research development fellowship in accessing art and design education
No full textIn the United Kingdom, number of mature students studying in higher education is diminishing. This is also the case within the subject of art and design . This article reports on a project ‘Mature Students Matter', a study that aims to widen participation in art and design education within a small specialist university. The approach was developed from a Research Development Fellowship, which provided a model for the project. A case study is used as a method of inquiry through which the project is described and evaluated using a form of narrative inquiry. The study found that the principles of Joint Practice Development (JPD) underpinning the design and development of the project enabled practitioners from different parts of the University to work together and to share similar aims, objectives and values in their research. Drawing some tentative conclusions, the project also found that the wider institutional context was important in the success of the project
The Thinking Skills Deficit. What Role does a Poetry Writing Group have in Developing Critical Thinking Skills for Adult Learners in a Further Education Art College?
No full textThis article investigates Brown’s (1998, p.2) assertion that students today exhibit an unwillingness/inability to engage in critical thinking (CT). He describes this as a ‘critical thinking deficit’. The question of whether CT can be taught or if we can only create the conditions in which CT can thrive and develop is explored through analysis of data from a pedagogical intervention of a Poetry Group; it aims to develop CT by employing Community of Inquiry (Lipman, 2003) as methodology. This intervention was offered to a group of Further Education (FE) students over a period of six months with the intention of preparing them for progression into Higher Education (HE). Findings from the study lend support to the claim that sharing stories and poems is helpful in developing social and cultural capital across the group and in supporting CT and academic development. Students in the study report that they found the Poetry Group particularly valuable in encouraging both critical engagement with their Arts subject, deeper levels of learning and supporting improvements in attainment
Tracing entropy
No full textThe output is an exhibition bringing together the work of Kelly Cumberland, Hondartza Fraga, and Eirini Boukla. Cumberland constructed new work responding to the space, comprising of a video accompanied by a site-responsive installation.
Research process: Practice research investigating systems, material executions, and expanded definitions of drawing. Through employing 'tracing' and sequential methods of reproduction, the work plays host to its own systems of entropy and breakdown reflecting spatial and cognitive thinking. The research explores biomorphic elements referencing naturally occurring patterns or shapes reminiscent of living organisms with a focus on microbiology. Material research was undertaken on-site as Cumberland employed new fabrication methods.
Research insights: It was found that in the work ‘Stitched’ 2019, the mix of analogue and digital technology allowed the work to be reconsidered across nine screens. The digital version, of the original projected piece, enabled expansion of the serial aspect to create a new body of work by recording the gradual material destruction, capturing the history and narrative of the decomposition of the original concept. In addition to this, repetition and systematic methods of drawing were employed throughout a 45 metre drawing on aluminium cinefoil, ‘Vestigium Pulvis [ffoyle]’ 2020. Responding to the format of existing vitrines, the material research and presentation remains fluid and open ended. This resulted in the drawing being seen as an object or a material to make marks in space. This sequential work is manipulated from two-dimensional to three-dimensional forms, retaining the ability to revert back to a two-dimensional presentation.
Dissemination: The research was disseminated through an exhibition in January & February 2020, Tracing Entropy at The Foyer Gallery, University of Leeds. The work was also disseminated at an Art-Design-Technology taster afternoon event with Artist Talks and a closing event in February 2020 in the Foyer Gallery Exhibition
Educating risk: How fear of failure is stifling creative practice within Higher Education
No full textThe presentation explored how creative play, free from assessment
can manifest itself in learning about animation practice. There is an increasing concern within higher education that students are
no longer prepared to take risks, try new things and develop their practice
through place. This is problematic as it stifles creative play, experimentation,
the development of new knowledge and ultimately innovation. Clifford asserts that, “Teaching students to take risks as a means of learning and motivation facilitates learning and increases effort in academics” (Clifford, 1991). Encouraging students to take risks, stimulates and creates an environment where uncertainty and ambiguity arise; because of this students have to learn to be critical and reflect upon their learning. A key aspect to developing risk taking to encourage all involved in the activities to discuss their learning and that of others. As such it’s vital that learners are equipped with strong communication skills to articulate their thinking. Creative play allows the student to exercise and test out skills without the
fear of failure, or indeed assessment. The current research explores how can we develop a community of practice where creative play can be fostered to allow students to acquire skills that can be applied to other projects (transferrable skills), Winthrop & McGivney suggest, “Content is not learnable if communication skills are not in place, and critical thinking operates on content, not in a vacuum. In
this way, the skills build on and reinforce one another.” Winthrop & McGivney (2016)