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Three Lecturers, Three Universities, Three Countries: Can Facilitating Connecting Art Practice Pedagogic Workshop in International Educational Contexts Create Connection and Criticality?
No full textThis chapter explores the impact of the Connected Art Practice pedagogic method across three international contexts—Germany, Spain, and the UK—by examining a collaborative Close to Practice research project involving 59 art students and lecturers. The study demonstrates how the method fosters critical thinking, creative collaboration, and a sense of community, enabling participants to connect across diverse disciplines and cultures. The findings highlight how this practice-driven, dialogic approach empowers students to engage with complex concepts and address social issues such as sustainability in the arts
Sadong 30: The Animistic Domestic in the Work of Heague Yang
No full textIn 2006 artist Haegue Yang installed a series of sculptural works in an
abandoned house in Incheon, South Korea. Yang produced and installed highly considered, and sympathetic artworks in response to, and in relation with, the temporal and material realities of this space. The dilapidated house had for many years prior to Yang’s installation, been home to the kinds of feral fauna and flora that inhabit the spaces vacated by humans. Yang did not attempt to eradicate the traces of these non-human dwellers but rather sought to illuminate their occupation and the temporality
inherent in the processes of decay, through carefully placed objects that led visitors from room to room in a manner that prompted humble contemplation. Building on Tim Ingold’s (2011) exploration of animacy as material reciprocity, this chapter analyses Sa-dong 30 as an artwork that through its object-to-object relationality subtly questions the nature of belonging (or not belonging)
Director
Full text linkThe output is a body sculpture. The work is intended to present opposing movements: a rigid forwards-and-backwards-only walk which at the same time creates the freeform movement of the steel ball on the tray between the performer’s legs.
Research process: Director was conceived in response to research into Franz West’s ‘Adaptives’ (body sculptures) at the Franz West Foundation, Vienna, 31 May 2024. It was the result of viewing many hours of archive footage of the ‘Adaptives’ that captured a range of performances with the sculptures over decades of West’s career: from studio experiments with the artist’s close circle; to invited responses via arts professionals such as Ivo Dimchev; to the open-ended testing of the works by the public in galleries across the world
Research insights: The tacit understanding betrayed by both professionals and laypeople in the archival recordings is that humility, braggadocio, embarrassment, confidence, tenderness and aggression are equally welcomed via the Adaptives. This coalescence of contradictory responses also coalesces opposing worldviews.
By exploring whether West’s Adaptives can be said to be representative of a phenomenological we-horizon, or whether are they something more prosaic (just another symbol of the alone-together culture upon which contemporary Capitalism insists), the initial insight was that they are neither and both: West’s wholesale turn away from didacticism via the Adaptives deliberately courts ambiguity.
The further insight was to visualise ambiguity, to take West’s idea that a gesture can only emerge with the help of an object to its ambiguous extreme by enacting the ways in which subject (performer) and object (body sculpture) express and control their agency.
Dissemination: Draft tested as part of Emergency24 exhibition at the Contact Theatre, Manchester 28 September 2024. The finished version was performed at “The Same Deep Water As You”, curated by Rowland’s Leaving at PINK, Stockport, 31 May 2025
Feral Interventions: Objects and Artworks on the Periphery
Full text linkBeing an artist requires stamina and a certain level of subterfuge. I make sculptural objects and installations from found domestic objects, the detritus of feminine material culture sourced from flea markets and second-hand shops, stuff I term “feral objects”. To be feral usually implies an escape from domestication, although it could also imply abandonment and vulnerability. In order to survive in the wild, feral animals, plants and insects—and perhaps feral objects too—must develop adaptive strategies in response to their new environment; a process that can have unforeseen consequences. Often unexpectedly productive, anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing calls this process “feral effects”, the non-designed and unplanned-for consequences of imperial and industrial infrastructure.
In 2023 I travelled to Norway with a suitcase of artworks to install in and around the island of Jeløya, including the gallery spaces and grounds of Galleri F15. This occupation of spaces and places beyond the parameters of the cultural institution was a feral intervention that took material form not entirely independent from, but as an intentional process of scavenging on the peripheries of the art world. For the three iterations of “The-Lost-and-Found” symposium that took place in Lisbon, Warsaw and Riga between December 2023 and June 2024, I travelled with artworks in my suitcase to opportunistically install feral interventions in and around the symposium venues. Understood in this context as a feminist position, feral interventions allow for evasion and unpredictability, for creative resistance to systems of control, and for the potential to undertake adaptive art-working strategies. Through analysis of the feral interventions undertaken, this article investigates how the versatility of artist and artwork might accommodate peripheral practices of exhibition and display
Home is a Belief
Full text linkIn this case study two sets of images are compared that emerged from drawings made by the artist Garry Barker whilst talking to people who live in his local community. One
set of drawings were produced in response to conversations made about a selected ‘special’ object from a domestic setting, that meant something important to a post
stroke victim; another group of drawings were made after talking with refugees living in temporary accommodation in a repurposed high-rise block of flats. In both cases
drawing is used to reveal narratives that can emerge from human/object relationships and two different world views are articulated, both revealed as being as much to do with fiction as reality, as they travel in opposite directions, sometimes as imaginary travellers and at other times as observers of a harsh reality.
A third ‘life story’ is then interjected as an example of how when images are woven from the threads of stories about ‘home’ they can also be disturbing, especially when events
are generated by political realities.
These drawn images allow us to reflect upon the fact that sometimes the home hosts doorways to other worlds and sometimes home is not a home at all
Lullabies in Lockdown illustration exhibition
No full textFrom 2020 onwards, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted and significantly altered our familiar way of life. For those experiencing parenthood for the first time, they found themselves adjusting to two new realities. This article asks the question, ‘What can illustrated stories within the gallery offer to uncover, support and unite those with shared but unspoken lived experience?’ More broadly, it looks, via a group exhibition case study, at the opportunities of the gallery space for purposing illustration and its unique qualities, as a gentle invite to engage audiences with hidden and emotionally charged subject matter which benefits from being shared. The Lullabies in Lockdown project began as a month-long group illustration exhibition in Leeds, UK, in October 2022. It featured work by various illustrators addressing new parenthood during the pandemic. This article looks at different illustrative approaches to tell a holistic story of the time, providing an overview of the exhibition and the development of ‘Lullabies’ into a pop-up touring show. Through artist statements and audience feedback, it considers how collectivized illustration validates and processes lived experiences, revealing how public exhibitions can reassure individuals facing hardships alone by acknowledging shared struggles. This discussion emphasizes the illustrators’ role as witnesses
and the gallery as a medium and highlights their combined potential to create tonally sensitive aesthetics
that invite audiences to engage with challenging experiences. It argues for further research into the overlooked
values of illustration, especially amidst cultural polarization and artificial intelligence concerns,
as a means of humanizing communication. This article was first presented for conference at Washington
University, St Louis, Missouri as part of the ‘Blind Spots’ 2023 Illustration Research Symposium
#Rebel Selves: Queer Selfies as Practices of Care
No full textThis visual essay presents an exploration of the gendered nature of visibleness and possibilities for queer entanglements through self-portraiture, performance, and installation. It culminates with #Rebel Selves, a practice-based research project comprising installations, self-portraits, contemporary dance performances, participatory workshops, and a smart phone app. #Rebel Selves draws on queer and posthumanist theories to develop experimental approaches to producing queer selfies. Research on selfies finds that negative feedback in comments and the currency of likes reinforce and police dominant gender ideals. However, research on queer selfies has highlighted their role in enhancing queer visibility, challenging stereotypes, creating supportive communities, and improving self-esteem. In this respect, selfie taking and sharing can be practices of care. In this essay I argue that #Rebel selfies do not escape the risks attached to being visible in the public sphere. However, they offer opportunities to be present without being subjected to disciplining gazes, and to participate in caring communities
Spirits, liquid bodies, and more-than-human entities in Indigenous cosmologies
No full textThis chapter examines how Indigenous artists in Latin America reengage
animism as a decolonial strategy, challenging the Western nature/culture
divide and dominant extractivist narratives. Drawing on Amerindian
perspectivism and multinaturalism, it explores the interconnectedness
between human and more-than-human entities in Amazonian and Mapuche
cosmologies. Through close analysis of works by Sueli Maxakali and Seba
Calfuqueo, it demonstrates how Indigenous artistic practices articulate
spiritual, ecological, and political resistance to colonial and neoliberal
violence. Maxakali’s film and photography highlight Tikmũ’ũn relationships
with spirit-beings and ancestral land, while Calfuqueo’s installations and
performances develop a critical approach to water commodification and
binary modes of existence. These practices not only preserve cultural
knowledge but also enact alternative onto-epistemologies rooted in kinship, reciprocity, and resistance. The essay calls for deeper engagement with Indigenous perspectives in postcolonial theory and environmental
humanities, proposing Indigenous art practices as a site of countervisual
resistance and a radical reimagining of human–nonhuman relations
Queer Joy on Social Media: Exploring the Expression and Facilitation of Queer Joy in Online Platforms.
Full text linkQueer Joy is conceptualised as a form of resistance to oppression by celebrating queerness in the face of adversity. This research aimed to centre queer joy and understand how it is expressed and may be facilitated in online spaces. To do this we conducted a survey with 100 UK participants who indicated they identifed as LGBTQ+ on the online recruitment platform Prolifc. We asked a series of open and closed questions in an online survey to investigate 1) what queer joy looks like on social media 2) how queer joy content is engaged with on social media 3) which platforms are perceived to facilitate queer joy and 4) how queer people protect their privacy online. The results suggested that to facilitate queer joy online, platforms should allow fexible self expression and community engagement, while allowing for granular control over privacy and the audience such content is shown to
Liminal Ecologies: Thresholds of Transition and Entanglement
Full text linkA curatorial research project comprising an exhibition, public programme, and film screening that explores ecological entanglements, climate precarity, and migration. The project foregrounds more-than-human relations and challenges extractivist paradigms through eco-critical curatorial strategies.
Curated by Marianna Tsionki and Mariana Cunha, Liminal Ecologies extends their collaborative inquiry initiated through Reclaiming EcoVisualities. The project draws on shared interests in ecological aesthetics, posthumanism, Indigenous epistemologies, and environmental justice.
Research Process: The curatorial research was developed through an iterative, collaborative process grounded in situated knowledge and dialogical exchange. Drawing from eco-critical theory, critical spatial practice, decolonial thought, and border epistemologies, the curators engaged in sustained conversations with artists, researchers, and tranzit’s curatorial team. The project evolved through research into relevant theoretical and artistic practices, artist commissions, and the development of curatorial strategies that responded to these themes, enabling an open-ended and reflexive curatorial methodology. These curatorial concerns were further explored and contextualised in the exhibition text, which articulated the theoretical framework of the project.
Research Insights: The project underscored the potential of curatorial practice as a form of environmental inquiry that activates embodied experience, situated knowledges, and relational aesthetics. It revealed the importance of working across disciplinary, geopolitical, and ontological boundaries to challenge extractivist logics and foreground ecological entanglements. Central to the research was a concern with borders—not only as geopolitical constructs that regulate movement and migration, but as ecological, cultural, and epistemic thresholds that shape more-than-human relations. Liminal Ecologies offered insight into how curatorial practice can resist territorial thinking, enact more-than-human solidarities, and foster alternative imaginaries for planetary futures.
Dissemination: The curatorial research was presented in the form of an exhibition, performance, panel discussion and film screening at Tranzit.sk between 27 March and 11 July 2025