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Objects and arrangements
No full textThe output is a creative project, comprising a collection of photography, digital montage and animation, and is part of a broader and ongoing body of photographic work responding to bereavement and inheritance, to explore the power and meaning of the familial object. Research process: This project takes as its starting point a family archive of a collection of art objects and art materials inherited from the artist's mother, in particular a plaster bust made of her mum in the 1950s, alongside vernacular family snapshots taken at the same time. The work draws on ideas about the ‘affective object’ (Casella and Woodward 2014: 104), ideas of ‘co-presence’ (Barthes 1980), and the ways in which materiality (or immateriality) enables the image to be performed (Edwards & Elart: 2004: 10). Research insights: The work responds creatively to the partial visual culture of a life lived, to suggest that family photographs, objects and artefacts continue to be resonant in some way and that through a creative process of repurposing and re-contextualisation, existing meaning can be drawn out and re-animated by enabling new creative and visual associations to arise. In this specific case the work highlights the different ways in which different the mediums of sculpture, photography and the moving image memorialise, reflecting on the changing technologies of representation. Dissemination: The work has been exhibited in a number of ways including a display at Leeds Arts University, 2016, in solo show Objects and Arrangements at St Martins Church LS7 2018, in an article in the Leeds Church Institute Magazine 2018, in group exhibition Make Good Leeds Arts University 2019, and in group exhibition Peer at Vrij Paleis Amsterdam Sept 2019
Leonora Carrington/Lucy Skaer
Get PDFThe output is a curated exhibition and catalogue of Viktor Wynd's impressive collection of Leonora Carrington artworks.This collection is macabre as it is unique, bringing together little-known prints and drawings which detail the surrealist bestiary of Carrington’s imaginative universe (explored further by Marina Warner), as well as four early canvases from Carrington’s pre-surrealist period (analysed in- depth by Susan L. Aberth). An anecdote by Wynd and short story by Carrington’s son, Gabriel Weisz, further nuance the visual narratives under consideration.
Until this exhibition, the collection had never been shown together. Leeds Arts University hosted the collection as a major part of its Leonora Carrington/Lucy Skaer research exhibition (15 July – 2 September 2016). The artworks included in the catalogue toured subsequently to The Viktor Wynd Museum in London.
Special thanks go to Viktor Wynd for his enthusiasm, generosity and support in realising the exhibition as well as Susan L. Aberth, Gabriel Weisz Carrington, and Marina Warner for their erudite contributions to the catalogue. The photography is by Chris Renton and the catalogue has been designed by D&M Heritage Ltd. Further grateful thanks and acknowledgement to: Chloe Aridjis, Jonathan P. Eburne, Sean Kissane, Lynn Lu, Steve Lucas, Wendi Norris, Jeffrey Sherwin, Lucy Skaer, Samantha Sweeting, and colleagues at Leeds College of Art
3D printing fashion with recycled polyester: A sustainable journey
No full textTextile waste is a global problem and one in which we all must tackle together to minimize. In the UK alone 350,000 tonnes of textile waste go to landfill each year. In order to foster pro environmental behaviours in the household and for it to become part of our culture, recycling awareness must be converted into practice. Bringing together sustainability and innovative technology, the focus of this enquiry, aims to examine, design and manufacturing possibilities using recycled Polyester filament to 3D print fashion garments. This explorative journey will determine whether it is feasible to use this material to create wearable or sculptural fashion pieces, through design, development, sampling and testing whilst using an entirely sustainable material. Recycled PET has been used for many years by outdoors clothing companies such as Patagonia who have been the pioneers of using old polyester clothing and recycling it back into new yarn to make more clothing. Working with Teijin a Japanese high-performance material developer since 2005 they have been able to advance their environmental responsibilities further into more of their products. In this study, the use of rPET will be explored. Since 2010 3D printing has emerged as a new method of manufacture for clothing. This is mainly evident in experimental sculptural forms for women as seen by Iris van Herpen. Likening the development and commercialization of 3D printing in fashion to that of the desktop computer. In the beginning, few could afford or know how to use a PC, in time many improvements made it more affordable, smaller and more commercial. We are at the beginning of this journey with 3D printing in fashion but like the PC, before too long it will be commonplace to all
The people's echo: memories of the 1984-8 miners' strike. Christmas 2016.
No full text12-page Newspaper published to accompany A share of a pensioner’s Christmas ‘Bonus’ exhibition at the National Coal Mining Museum for England 12 November 2016 — 18 January 201
Designing experiences: friendship and practical wisdom in the art and design higher education
Get PDFThe national policy of widening participation for students exists within a competitive and uncertain higher education culture. The impact of this on those who want to become artists and designers and are at the same time labelled as ‘second chance’ or ‘untraditional’ students needs to be examined. This paper analyses the narratives constructed by and between Chad, a post-Access to HE student, and myself, the inquirer, that represent some of her experiences during her BA (Hons) Surface Pattern course. Surface pattern designers are concerned with designing for surfaces and embellishments which could include wallpapers, fabrics, flooring, and packaging. This case study was part of a longitudinal study (2011-14) that sought to investigate the experiences of post-Access students in art and design higher education. The participants were studying on a range of creative degree programmes in various institutional contexts. Narrative inquiry was used to show the ways in which students reflected on and took stock of their educational journeys. The analysis draws upon some of the notions concerned with phronesis (prudence or practical wisdom). Aristotle claimed that only a person of experience can practice practical wisdom, and a young person is unlikely to have extensive life experience, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, Chapter 8). This discussion recounts some of the critical incidents within Chad’s story where I have noticed evidence of phronesis or at some points the absence of wise judgement. It is suggested that within the context of higher education mature adults sometimes make poor decisions leading them to act in ways that continue their sufferings. This is because they do not exercise their potential to act with prudence, (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, Chapter 5). Chad offers an explanation of why this maybe so at the end of her story where she describes the culture of her course as being very competitive and not conducive to her thinking and acting well for herself and others
Nuclear map of Great Britain 26/4/86
No full textNuclear Map of Great Britain 26/4/86 is an artefact that represents all the Nuclear Power Stations that were operating in Great Britain on 26th April 1986. They are represented by the 50-mile exclusions zones that would be imposed in the event of a nuclear meltdown. Research Process: Young visited Chernobyl in April 2016 as part of the 26:86 Collective. He wanted to see the site of the disaster first hand and investigate if the reported death toll was true. During the visit, he spoke to people who lived and worked there, resulting in the aim to create a new piece that could make their story more relevant to an audience in Great Britain. The locations of Britain’s nuclear reactors operating in 1986 were identified and a map designed to show their locations. The map was constructed in Illustrator and extensive experimentation was undertaken to create the most appropriate colour, tone and weight of line. Research insights: Young used his Reductionist Manifesto to tell this story. What is absent from this ‘map’ are the large swaths of Great Britain that would be uninhabitable for over 250,000 years in the event of a meltdown. The significant areas are absent from the ‘map’. When undertaking the initial research, Young was shocked to discover how few of his colleagues knew of the disaster. As a result, he created something that brought the story closer to the audience, so that they could put themselves in the place of the residents of Pripyat. He also discovered that he was misinformed about the death-toll. It was not 31 at all. It was ‘32’. Dissemination: 26:86 Collective Exhibition, House of Blah Blah, 2nd December 2016 - 12th January 2017, Exchange House, Middlesbrough. 26:86 Collective Exhibition, Hartlepool Art Gallery, 9th September - 11th November 2017, Church Square, Hartlepool. 26:86 Collective Exhibition, ‘Palace of Culture’ in the abandoned city of Pripyat in Ukraine, 7th April 2017
Emma’s navel: Dorothea Tanning’s narrative sculpture
Get PDFIn her critical essay, ‘Some Parallels in Words and Pictures’ (1989), the American artist and writer Dorothea Tanning (1910-2012) noted a literary dimension to her enigmatic soft sculpture ‘Emma’ (1970). With explicit reference to Gustave Flaubert’s protagonist Madame Bovary (1857), Tanning, a voracious reader, fabricated her own Emma. I use ‘Emma’ to tug at the late surrealist/postminimalist crux in order to reposition Tanning in a more theoretical context. In particular, ‘Emma’ can be read through Mieke Bal’s intertextual notion of the “navel of the text” (2001). Tanning, in turn, can be said to embody Flaubert’s contradictory character as a form of “autotopographical” critique (Bal, 2002). This chapter, therefore, presents a methodological model for art historical and literary analysis, contributing to the growing body of research on underrepresented feminist-surrealist artists. The essay volume, edited by Patricia Allmer, was reviewed favourably by Dr Christine Conley in Racar 42 and mentions this chapter specifically: “Catriona McAra’s criss-cross reading of Dorothea Tanning’s soft sculpture Emma, 1970, with the literary character Emma Bovary positions the sculpture as an intermedial visual object that evokes, in its material specificity, the fetishization of the female character in Gustave Flaubert’s novel and the navel as (maternal) signifier. As an example of Mieke Bal’s “theoretical object” or an art “that thinks,” Tanning’s Emma disrupts modernist and surrealist codes of femininity and art making” (2017, 91)
Consumer poster project
Get PDFIn my art work photography is both subject and medium: I produce photographs in response to photographs in popular visual culture, particularly advertising. Interventions into the commercial visual landscape include work on posters and billboards shown in Cardiff (2014/5) and London (2016). Consumer examines the influence of consumer culture on the visual landscape. I buy advertising spaces and fill them with posters that use the tropes commonly found in adverts, however, my posters encourage viewers to think about the contradictions of capitalist consumption rather than compel them to buy something. They appear among adverts on social networking sites and behave abnormally
The scientific method
Get PDFHow do we make sense of today's information overload, from post-truth politics to mind-boggling quantum physics and neuroscience? The Scientific Method showed how artists have revealed the structures and systems of knowledge that we consume daily, subverting the accepted and confounding the expected.
This exhibition brought together recent moving image works by artists such as Amelia Crouch, Patricia Esquivias, Sîan Robinson Davies, Liz Magic Laser, Kate Liston and Yuri Pattison, alongside drawings by KP Brehmer and works by John Latham, Semiconductor and John Smith presented in association with LUX.
Some artworks appropriated a faux-scientific rhetoric, others highlighted the potentially unanswerable questions of contemporary science, or employed humour and irreverence to puncture conventional wisdom. Departing from the objective knowledge sought by the classical scientific method, these artists often foreground the bodily, the personal or anecdotal
The hunchback and the swan
No full textThe output is a creative project resulting in a short animation directed, produced, and adapted by Dotty Kultys. Kultys also contributed as VFX artist, composer, sound designer, animator and character and background designer for the animation. Research Process: The film was created using mixed techniques: paper cut-outs, collagraphy, pixilation and 2D digital animation. A core group in the production team was made up of UWE Animation students, and the entire process was mentored by Peter Lord, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Aardman Animations. Adapting folk tales for screen was the underlying exploration theme during the film’s production. Research Insights: In order to complement a folk story, its animated adaptation needs to acknowledge and abide by the particular laws that govern it. If there’s repetition, you need to somehow include it and make it work. If there’s narrative in the third person, you need to utilise its advantages, rather than focus on its drawbacks. If there are reoccurring patterns, you cannot ignore them, but need to turn them into a key ingredient in your film. Kultys understood that removing the features that were inherent in a folk tale would mean that she was no longer animating a folk tale. They needed to be kept, embraced and made to work visually.Dissemination: The investigation process resulted in an article written for The History Press: ‘The challenges of adapting a folk tale’, and in a talk presented at the 2017 FMX Conference in Germany as part of the ‘Animation: The Quest for Young Talent’ thread. ‘The Hunchback and the Swan’ was screened at 25+ festivals worldwide, including the BAFTA qualifying Brest European Short Film Festival in France and the Academy Award qualifying Anima Mundi Festival in Brazil