Leeds Arts University Repository (CREST)
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446 research outputs found
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Consumer curated exhibition project
No full text'Consumer' examines the influence of capitalism on the visual landscape. During March – May 2015 Woolley purchased advertising space around Cardiff city centre and populated it with artworks that critique capitalism. The artworks employ the methods of enticement that are often found in adverts but invite people to think about the pervasiveness of capitalist consumption rather than impel them to buy something. By creating disruptions within the commercial advertising field the exhibition aims to provoke the audience to reconsider consumerism as a distraction that inhibits positive social development towards social justice and equality.
Alongside Woolley, three artists participated in the project. Ellie Harrison is an artist based in Scotland. She studied Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University, Goldsmiths College and Glasgow School of Art, where she undertook a Leverhulme Scholarship on the Master of Fine Art programme. In 2012 she created The Redistribution of Wealth installation at Tate Britain. Peter Kennard’s artwork aims to instigate debate about art, politics and society. It attempts to bring together different issues to stimulate the development of new forms of art that deal with everyday global themes. He is a Professor in Political Art at the Royal College of Art and his work is
in many major collections, including Tate, the V&A and the Imperial War Museum. Davin Watne is an inter-disciplinary artists based in Kansas City in Missouri, USA. He received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1994 and his MFA at Maryland Institute College of Art in 2013. He has been awarded the Charlotte Street Foundation Award, ArtsKC Inspiration Grant, Avenue of Arts Municipal Arts Grant, and a Studios Inc. Residency. Watne is a lecturer at University of Missouri Kansas City and is the head curator at UMKC Gallery of Art
Wishbook
No full textThe title Wishbook derives from nineteenth century commodity catalogues such as The Great Wish Book and American Dream Book, that sold the American way of life, homogenizing other cultures to the American ideal. The title also alludes to Benjamin’s idea that consumers can appropriate commodities as emancipatory wish images. To intervene in a commercial space in which advertising tactics are far more insidious than in traditional advertising media, I disseminated this work on Instagram using hashtags that reveal the commodities signifying message. The reproduce the advertising convention in which an object isolated against a white background. However, in Wishbook the commodities more closely resemble the content of a bin than a glossy mail order catalogue. The images look like poor quality adverts or the content of a bin and the hashtags read like bad poetry. They appear among adverts on social networking sites and behave abnormally
Modelling lines of sculptural thought: the use of a transcription project to interrogate, intervene and dialogue with a sculpture archive
No full textThis article is the outcome of a conference paper, part of the ‘Archival Interventions in Sculpture’ panel for the annual Association of Art Historians conference at the Royal College of Art in April 2014. It discusses how a formative encounter with sculpture early on in my artistic career has resonated over many years within my research. It explores whether and how objects from the past, encountered in gallery and museum conditions, can enable us to read the present. I use a personal exhibition project of my own as a case study which was the material outcome of a period of time spent using a transcription method. A transcription project is typically the taking of a master painting and drawing from it to understand how it is made. This is not copying because it is not an action of replicating it verbatim. Instead, the artist distills the image, taking from it what she desires, leaving the rest behind. I show how employing transcription can progress knowledge and understanding of sculpture from the past in the present. I account the way that I used transcription as a tool of interrogation, intervention and dialogue with history. I signpost ways that other sculptors have evidenced the reading or transcribing of art in the making of their own work. I use the psychoanalytical ideas of Christopher Bollas in his book The Shadow of the Object: psychoanalysis of the unthought known (1987) to explore how this particular form of thinking through making, that I have knowledge of as a creative practitioner, can be a research tool to reflect on a key moment of my own development, and more widely interrogate what was at play between British sculptors in the 1980s, who were working in the inherited sculptural field of British sculpture in the twentieth century
A device suitable for protecting and / or allowing cleaning of a bike and / or vehicle component and method of use thereof: technical report
No full textThe Brake Shield is an innovative new product for cleaning and maintaining the moving parts of a bicycle drive train and is the only one of its kind. It has a simple yet effective design of a polypropylene barrier that sits between the spokes and the cassette to protect your disc brakes and wheel rims whilst cleaning and/or lubricating of the gearing and drive train is undertaken. The nature of the product allows this difficult and unpleasant task to be performed in a quick, tidy and efficient manner. Many people just ignore this part of their bike; they put up with a muddied cassette and chain, either cleaning them periodically, maybe monthly, or just replacing them when they become unworkable which is wasteful and unsustainable. With the Brake Shield 'little and often' cleaning is made simpler and easier. The Brake Shield's innovative tray catches all the cleaning fluid, dirt and oil, allowing this dirty task to be undertaken anywhere without making a mess. A more formal abstract taken from the Patent Application Publication: A device is provided for protecting, allowing cleaning, servicing and / or lubrication of one or more components of a bike or vehicle in use. The device is formed from at least one blank of material including a first portion arranged to act as a shield element so as to at least partially shield at least one component of the vehicle or bike in use, and at least a second portion. The second portion includes at least one wall joined to the first portion by at least one fold line. The at least one wall and fold line are arranged such that when the second portion is assembled and / or erected in use it defines a tray or container portion joined to the first portion
Emily Towler: Sculptor [review]
No full textTowler is a Leeds-based artist who is working with issues around gender and identity. In 2011 she achieved a Kenneth Armitage Foundation Emerging Sculptor Award and in 2012 was short listed for the Woolgather Art Prize . Her work combines humour, absurdity and playfulness in relation to sculptural and drawn works that raise some serious questions about how we ‘fit into our skins’ whilst living in a complex world
Ecogon
No full textThe output is an artefact, in the form of an ecological boardgame, ‘Ecogon’ (2015), and the sequel, ‘Ecogon: Still Wasser’ (2018), commissioned by Gaiagames. ‘Ecogon’ is a portmanteau of ecology and hexagon. Gaiagames aims to be the first completely environmentally friendly game publisher in Germany. Ecogon and the sequel/expansion comprise a series of hexagonal cards, where 8 digital paintings of terrestrial species and 36 digital paintings representing an aquatic ecosystem were contributed. Research process: Research entailed study of Northern European species. The purpose of the game is to educate players on the diversity of indigenous creatures and their interrelatedness. This is represented through a hexagonal ecosystem, strategic gameplay, and engaging wildlife illustrations on each hexagonal card. Research drew on Chalmers’ long-standing research into creature design and SciArt. Research insights: The research found that the use of creature design principles can create engaging wildlife illustrations for game design to make ecological awareness more accessible to a wide audience. Creating engaging card art can even foster interest in traditionally non- charismatic species, such as leeches, and reveal the importance of these species within the ecosystem through the mechanics of the boardgame. Dissemination: The primary method of dissemination is a published game and its sequel. The English translation of ‘Ecogon’ (2015) was sponsored by Bavarian Academy for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management (ANL) within ELENA (Experiential Learning and Education for Nature Awareness), a trans-European cooperative project. ANL showcased ‘Ecogon’ at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress, Hawai’i (2016). The artefact was also exhibited by peer-review firstly as the boardgame itself in Curator’s Choice, April 2019, and secondly as a printed variation within ‘Creature Design: ex femina’, 29 August – 10 October 2019, both at Leeds Arts University
Students as producers: an ‘X’ disciplinary client-based approach to collaborative art, design and media pedagogy
No full textThis article presents the findings of a cross-disciplinary project between BA (Hons) Interior Design, Creative Multimedia and Film and Media Studies at a large Metropolitan University in the North of England. The collaboration was part of Unit X, a faculty-wide credit-bearing initiative to enable better collaboration across art and design courses.
The project explored cross-disciplinary approaches to problem-solving and generating designed outputs using a ‘vertical studio’ model. The outcomes for the students were to create a number of media/arts/design-based interventions, responding to real clients (festival organisers, local bar and café owners) and real client briefs. The constructivist approach to pedagogy allowed students the opportunity to develop their practice skills within communities of practice to help explore, develop, support and form their creative identities. The aim was to facilitate a supported environment to allow knowledge creation to take place through group tasks, reflection and the challenges of working and negotiating roles as professionals
Portrait of a queen : the photography of Paul Bennett-Todd
No full textThis output is a journal article in a peer reviewed journal. Tobias-Green explores a body of photographic portraits by Paul Bennett-Todd. These thirty images were taken at the ‘Speed Queen’ night at the Warehouse Club in Leeds (1998-2008), and this is an historical enquiry into an ephemeral subculture documented by Bennett-Todd (2002-2003) and re-documented in this more recent article by Tobias-Green (2015). Research process: Tobias-Green interviewed Bennett-Todd about this period of his photographic practice and the embodied experience of that club night. Bennett-Todd has presented this snapshot of the venue at the apex of its vibrancy and popularity; clientele at their self-assured peak.
Not only has queer club culture been historicised, there is also a rich field of enquiry around clubbing in the north. In popular culture, the nightclub has been considered an alluring and escapist setting in which people can temporarily convey who they aspire to be. (Almond, 2011) and Butler (1990) writes about the performative nature of gender, in particular the construction of a social and physical exterior to communicate a physical and sartorial message (Almond, 2010).
Research insights: Documenting an energetic and inclusive event, the article demonstrates that ‘Speed Queen’ was an exemplar in its embodiment and celebration of sexuality, transgender, class, race and age. The club night presents a model of inclusivity. Like Wigan casino and Manchester’s Hacienda, Speed Queen (appearing originally as ‘Vague at the Warehouse’ between 1992 and 1998) occupies an almost mythological place in queer subculture’s own folklore. Dissemination: The journal in which this article is published specifically caters to early career researchers and as such has a wide readership. Tobias-Green has also utilised this research material within her postgraduate teaching to explore ideas around inclusivity and the less-heard voice and less-seen image
‘Public’ Art on Campus: strategy and reality in UK universities
No full textA report from The Curating the Campus symposium held at Leeds University on 11 June 2015; marking the launch of the University’s Public Art Strategy. The article asks: ‘who is the audience for public art on campus?’ and considers what the potential answers tell us about the imagined role of higher education institutions. Drawing upon a distinction between ‘placemaking’ and ‘place marketing’ made by Sian Vaughan (Birmingham City University) – plus contributions from speakers from Leeds, Newcastle and Loughborough Universities – the article highlights the value of process-based artworks and participatory public projects. These can be used to engage students, staff and wider community users, alongside more permanent public artworks
Kelly Cumberland: Expanded drawings [review]
No full textKelly Cumberland graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 1998 with an MA in Fine Art having instigated a collaboration between the departments of Microbiology, Radiology and Visual Art. She has exhibited in many group and solo exhibitions, including: Vestigium [Pulvis] (isw) at Whitechapel London; Local Imagination at San Francisco Art Institute; The Drawing Shed at Project Space Leeds; Multiples & Additions at Con|temporary Gallery, Berlin and Protoavisis opt at the Atrium Galley of St James Hospital, Leeds. She exhibited as part of La Nit de l’Art (Night of Art) in Palma de Mallorca, September 2013 and later participated in Art Palma Brunch 2015. Cumberland examines the change and removal, growth and deterioration of the life of a virus. Her installations and objects incorporate drawing which acts as a metaphor for how something seemingly delicate and insubstantial can overwhelm its environmen