Leeds Arts University Repository (CREST)
Not a member yet
446 research outputs found
Sort by
What is the role of critical thinking in vocational Further Education? A practitioner’s point of view.
No full textCritical thinking (CT) is a phrase we hear a lot about in Further Education (FE). What is it, is it critical and how can vocational students benefit from it? As a practitioners I am often asked to work with governmental and educational must haves, such as stretch and challenge, problem solving and transferrable skills as well as working to stipulations from awarding bodies and Ofsted specifications. This project focuses on critical thinking (CT) skills and whether it can be taught as Brown (1998) and Elder and Paul (2007) advise or can we only create situations to support its development as Lipman (2003) suggests. CT introduced in the form of The Diary Project and Book Club, was open to lecturers, workshop technicians and students in an effort to develop flattened hierarchy and a community of inquiry. Story and connection through CT driven narratives and texts have been a transformative element in this research project. Voices not often heard in research from the FE sector tell their own tale
AEKI (Almost every known Ikea)
No full textThe output, AEKI (Almost Every Known IKEA), is a creative project comprising multifaceted approaches to photographic image making to comment on the themes of globalisation and cultural homogenisation of the home environment. The project consists of a number of elements that combine to comment on the practice of photography. Research process: Aspects of the project have been made through physically travelling to selected stores (eg, China, Japan, Thailand). Whilst other images have been produced as ‘couch photographer’ (not leaving the home environment and travelling the virtual world). The idea of the perfect computer-generated images within the Ikea catalogue are in stark contrast to the photographs made by ebay users selling their outdated Ikea products, images that give glimpses into their private homes. Research insights: The home interior retailer Ikea promotes a vision for the domestic space on a global scale through idealised catalogues and showrooms. Ikea highlights how global consumerism can result in the loss of individuality within the home environment. Stores are similar in design and their interior layout in all countries. The global repetition of stores is mirrored by the customer experience. The idea of choice and taste is promoted to the consumer but often with limited selections of products to choose from. Whilst the shopper may feel they are making choices to personalise their home, their action and decision-making process is being replicated in stores all around the world. Peoples’ individual and regional tastes become diluted in domestic homes the world over as they are filled with the same products that are standardised in all stores. Thus, the notion of identity and the home becomes less personalised and standardised across different countries. Dissemination: The project was disseminated via a conference paper at Visualising the Home, University of Cumbria, 13-14 July 2017
a(muse) eightwonder
No full textFollowing an international call for submissions, A Paraphrase on a Grecian Urn by bookwork artist Richard Nash was selected for the group exhibition a(muse) Eightwonder 2019. The exhibiting works were selected and curated by guest curator Nina Jesih in collaboration with the 44AD Project Director, Katie O'Brien. The exhibition was held at the 44ad Artspace gallery, Bath, from 08 - 18 August 2019. The group exhibition included painting, print, photography, video, sound, and 3D artworks from 29 regional, national and international artists. Along with an opening private view, the exhibition also included a gallery talk on the theme of the ‘muse’ by Jessica Otterwell, and a gallery tour and discussion by the artists and curator. As part of a serial body of work, Nash created A Paraphrase on a Grecian Urn IV (2019) specifically for the 44ad gallery space
Best British bonces
No full textThis output is an artefact, an artist’s book containing a practice-led history of British cartoonists. Research Process: This research investigates the political elasticity of ‘Britishness’, exploring the semiotics of humour, and how select cartoonists represented the ‘Britishness’ of their childhood. It is researching perceptions of humour and the potential revival of British humour comics. The results of this investigation were represented through a comic format using drawing. Research Insights: The project found that there are modes of humour that are no longer acceptable due to a shift in societal values. The project tries to address what is humour now and the potential for the revival of such aesthetics.
Dissemination: The project was disseminated via publication, The Zine, via exhibition and a series of workshops aimed at young people
Cookbook anxiety
No full textThe output is a creative project that responds to the Cookery Collection, one of the special collections in Leeds University library, which contains printed and archival material relating to food and cooking that dates from the late 15th Century until the present day. Research process: The project responds to selected cookbooks and printed material through still photography and moving image, especially mid 20th Century cookbooks containing early examples of colour photography. The work is inspired by mainstream images of food in cookbooks, particularly visual depictions of idealised lifestyles which conjures shared social fantasies, perpetuated by mainstream images and our own internalisation of them. In my response, still photographs and moving image sequences explore staged scenarios and table sets which parody the lifestyles depicted in the books, to explore the social and domestic anxieties subtly generated and communicated. Research insights: Cookbooks are utilitarian - they have an instructional purpose, but are also aspirational, and filled with social-class anxieties. They not only tell one how to do a thing, but also imply value judgements, sometimes directly through words, and sometimes indirectly through photographs. The reality of preparing to entertain is hugely influenced by visual culture – we try to attain the mythical ideal, and in doing so perpetuate the visual myth. The output was exhibited and presented at;
MAKE GOOD (group exhibition), Leeds Arts University, Sept 2019;
PEERS (group exhibition), Vrij Paleis, Amsterdam, Sept 2019
Accessing postgraduate art and design, transitions and intersectionality
No full textInherent within this chapter is a criticism of the notion of higher education participation as a form of transformation, in particular class transformation (Reay, 2002; Hudson, 2009; Byrom,2010). It can be seen that socio-cultural factors still impact on students’ experiences within postgraduate study and beyond. The intersections of class with age or life stage are explored through the students’ experiences which are the focus of this chapter. By reading the stories from students from ‘non-traditional’ backgrounds who have successfully undertaken postgraduate study within the arts it can be seen that firstly identities are not ‘overwritten’ by new experiences within higher education and secondly, the intersectional nature of identity would make such a transformation problematic. The idea of transformation also implies that students’ previous experiences and identities are deficient and need to be improved or cleansed. Experiences in education can therefore be seen as adding to an individual’s wider life experience through a process of reflection
Can poetry develop critical thinking skills? Narrative enquiry in an art college poetry writing group.
No full textThe purpose of my session is create a discussion around the role of critical thinking in university pedagogy. This is a small scale ethnography (Burke 2001) making use of action research (McNiff 2014). The paper has an underlying question anchored by two theorists, Ken Brown (1998) and Matthew Lipman (2003). Can critical thinking be taught or can we only create opportunities for its development? This will be investigated through qualitatively and thematically analysing data. There are eighteen self-selecting volunteer participants. Data is collected from participants using narrative enquiry (Gregory 2009) methodologies and interventions. These include video interviews in small groups and using the poetry written in fiction based analysis. The ontological particularity of the art school is the framing for this paper, viewed through a post-structuralist lens. The epistemological stance is hermeneutic/ interpretative. Themes of metal health well-being and increased confidence in written and spoken English, and a community of inquiry are discussed in the findings. Recommendations are made as to how critical thinking could be developed in curriculum design in the future, and in the wider field of pedagogic policy making. To me critical thinking is an exploration and a debate of deep issues such as the environment, identity, gender. It is asking Socratic questions, it is investigating philosophies and deciding which of them applies to our lives. critical thinking makes the world an exciting place, there is always more to know, to discover. Critical thinking leads us to like-minded critical friends
BEINGS
No full textBEINGS has been published by Salt n Pepper Press to coincide with an exhibition held at Village bookstore in Leeds as part of Index Festival, a series of fringe events alongside Yorkshire Sculpture International. Village hosted a series of photographic exhibitions focused around sculpture and form. As a project it adds to the conversation about how photographic images speak about the sculptural nature of their subject, and in fact contribute to a transformation of 'things' into something that can be interpreted as sculptural objects. Objects come into being with an intended purpose; a reason to exist. This ‘stuff’ then sloshes around the everyday, like detritus: sometimes being useful (as intended); sometimes just being stuff. The area outside these two states is like a transformation, when an object or an environment can be seen as a separate entity from its particular function. In BEINGS, objects and environments are what they appear to be; a cheese pot, a ladder, a piece of laminate flooring, a road. However, they are also constituent parts of a larger whole, like the matter from which they are themselves made. Where these object-particles collide they create something new that is without a particular purpose, but which takes on a new sculptural form. In this context of remixing the everyday, some subjects instead sit as-found. Sitting in the glow of their reconfigured counterparts, they are somehow altered by association. They have a sculptural potential radiating beyond their use-function
Flourish and fade: utilising colour in textiles to promote closer connections to the natural world.
No full textThe ability of the decorative surface to reflect and promote a heightened awareness of the natural world underpins Caroline’s practice. Colour’s role in this relationship is fundamental and the narratives of tone, hue and our perception of chroma provide a rich area of inspiration for her work. This presentation will discuss the importance of colour within biophilic textiles and how understanding a human’s ability to process, work with and live
Dictionary of percussive coordination
No full textThe output is a composition, ‘Dictionary of Percussive Coordination’, comprising rhythmic notation. Research process: The point of departure for this research was a philosophical investigation upon the nature of, essentially, what percussion playing is and how percussionists conceptualise their activity. This enquiry led to a conception of percussion-playing as the activation of a potentially finite set of interactions across two limbs which interact with time and space. The research seeks to catalogue all the possible interactions, or kinetic ‘letters’, two limbs can encounter within specified parameters: • Occur within one Crotchet (1/4 note) beat. • Use either triplet quaver (1/8th note) or semiquaver (1/16th note) subdivisions. • Use two dynamic positions: pronounced, unpronounced. The systematic integration of these motion coordinations provide artist percussionists with all the possible units of coordination within these specified parameters. Research insight: Drumming is ‘Dance’; an artistic interaction within time and space curating a set of motions which interact with a range of surfaces for the purpose of sound production and emotional communication. Codifying these motions within a single text contributes to our discipline through an alternative conception of what the percussive ‘rudiments’ essentially are and how they can be expressed. Freedom of motion and artistic expression develops as kinetic language is identified, internalised and activated. We ‘speak’ what is possible to speak. Our aim is to speak with freedom, clarity and eloquence. This aim of this text is to develop motion coordination vocabulary and eloquence of activation. Dissemination: This composition is used as a teaching resource and disseminated amongst Leeds Arts University students