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Weeds
Full text linkThe output is an artefact created by Boiangiu, commissioned for the 'Following Threads' exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum. Boiangiu has combined printmaking and stitching to create an artefact which celebrates the medicinal properties of undesirable plants that are often overlooked or treated as 'Weeds'.
Research Process:
The brief for this commission was to create an artefact exploring the effects of industrialisation on the environment in the Bradford area.
Boiangiu produced work based on the Cliff Castle Museum collections, with particular focus on the implications of using pesticides from the Victorian era in current times for the benefit of modern gardening techniques, which are promoting exotic plants and hybridisation.
The creative output produced by Boiangiu as a result of this research is an artefact which brings attention to and celebrates the existence of plants that are often overlooked or treated as ‘weeds’.
The artefact Boiangiu has created sits alongside images of the herbariums found at Cliff Castle.
Research Insights:
This research celebrates the beauty and properties of weeds in modern times. ‘Weeds’ brings attention to the fact that a large proportion of undesirable plants have always been at the heart of botanical research, and have curative properties which are still evidenced and trialled today in modern medicine. These plants are also all well-known to be rich food sources for natural pollinators.
Dissemination:
The work has been shown in the 'Following Threads' exhibition at Bradford Industrial Museum, from 26 February 2022 - 23 January 2023. The project will also form part of an exhibition documentary, which will be created at a later date
Consuming the Body: Capitalism, social media and commodification
No full textConsuming the Body: Capitalism, Social Media and Commodification examines contemporary consumerism and the commodified construction of ideal gendered bodies, paying particular attention to the new forms of interaction produced by social networking sites. The book describes the behaviours of an ideal neoliberal subject: modes of discipline, forms of pleasure, and opportunities for subversion are identified in an examination of how individuals are addressed and the ways in which they are expected to respond. Key modes of address that compel the consumer to consume are: sadistic commands communicated in adverts, TV programmes and magazine articles; a fetishistic gaze that dissects the body into parts to be improved through commodification; and a hystericized insistent presence that compels the consumer to present their body for critique and appreciation that is exemplified in the selfie.
Woolley interprets the visual characteristics of different types of selfies, including #fitspiration, #thinspiration, #fatspiration, and #bodypositivity to understand how they relate to current body ideals. Fat acceptance selfies suggest there is a fourth mode of address, empowering presence, that has the potential to liberate consumers from the ‘trap of visibleness’ produced by the other three modes of address. In conclusion, the book identifies some creative methods for producing selfies that evade commoditisation and discipline
Retouch
No full textThe solo performance ‘Retouch’ comprises a series of acts relating to an exhibition of JA Nicholls’ paintings.
Research process: The performances were developed in response to new paintings by JA Nicholls. Through this new series of portraits Nicholls sought to “speak of personal worlds, of desire, uncertainty and failure. Awkward and rough, the paint searches to and fro for a sense or touch of people absent and missed, settling here then there, upon uncertainty, disquiet, affection, intimacy. The paint pulses the presence of what’s missing.” The performances call attention to the particularities of Nicholls’ technique – for the performance, the artist presents her own face as canvas, medium and mirror in order to explore performativity and portraiture, gesture and expression.
Research insights: Responding to four of the paintings, four performances replicated different aspects of Nicholls’ work – from the vigour of her brushwork (repeated with vigorous movement on the performer’s own face), to a sense of the person represented (the artist lost in a moment of idle fidgeting), to a consideration of the isolation encountered by the figures (the artist demarcated areas of isolation around herself and the gallery visitors). Repeated and changing in tone and pace throughout the event, the acts took on different interpretations depending on who was witness to them and their own responses to the paintings on display.
Dissemination: The performances were presented on the opening night of ‘On Touch’ at Bobinska Brownlee gallery (BBNR), London, 17 March 2022
Disaggregating the Black Student Experience
No full textSlow progress has been made by educational leaders in addressing participation, non-continuation and awarding gaps between black and white students. However, there is the potential of strong leadership to drive change in arts higher education institutions. The barriers that prevent action are partly due to the structures in which leaders operate that discourage challenge and change and promote white privilege. Professor Randall Whittaker, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Leeds Arts University in conversation with Professor Samantha Broadhead, Leeds Arts University, discusses some of the reasons why previous policies have failed to close participation, non-continuation and awarding gaps. He also argues for the disaggregation of categories of different ethnic groups in data collection. Whittaker’s arguments about leadership refer to national and institutional policies and practices that impact on race in the UK’s arts higher education
Deconstructing writing in arts education and beyond
No full textWriting, in an art institution and beyond, can be viewed as a form of creativity, a tool of pedagogy and a way of questioning traditional concepts of knowledge and power. This study explores the complex and shifting relationships between writing, the art institution and constructs of dyslexia. The writing lives of six art students with dyslexia were investigated over the course of an academic year. One student’s writing life is presented as a detailed case study. Writing is interrogated in some of its many manifestations, notably writing as an academic, assessed and measurable outcome and writing as a form of fluid and imaginative communication.
By placing writing in the art school, both institutional power and constructs of the art school are explored. The study examines how these notions interact with and create each other. Through the work undertaken in a specialist arts university—among students both with and without the defining label of dyslexia—a possible scope for change is understood. Both in the positioning of student identity and in the way that writing is explained, explored and taught alongside a creative arts practice
QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project, 2021 Belonging through Assessment: Pipelines of Compassion
Full text linkIn February 2021, colleagues from University of the Arts London (UAL), Leeds Arts University (LAU) and Glasgow School of Art (GSA) secured funding for the QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project – Belonging through assessment: Pipelines of compassion. The project began against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and the team identified a shift in assessment practices across the three participating arts institutions. This offered an opportunity to further our work, in collaboration, to address social justice, belonging and inclusion through compassion.
This project aims to:
1. Identify areas of enhancement in assessment policies and practices to promote student sense of belonging and tackle issues of social justice.
2. Link this relational work with attainment gap/awarding differentials agendas in the creative arts.
3. Develop collaborative, dialogic, polyvocal and affective resources for staff development across the HE sector
Mummy Hood Nesting Forest
No full textThe output is a creative project. Mummy Hood Nesting Forest (Steans 2022) is a digital artwork that takes the form of a website incorporating text, sound, graphics and 3D animation.
Research Process: Steans was invited to produce a new work for online presentation by Primary, Nottingham. A macabre story about storytelling, preparedness, and packable techwear, Mummy Hood Nesting Forest uses the provisional scenario of a hiker getting lost in the woods to conjure, recur, rewrite, and exhume. The website functions both as a specific context informing the story and a contrived situation for engaging with it. Accompanied by 3D animation, graphics, and acousmatic music, the injunction to get lost – in the forest, in the narrative, in the text itself — is accentuated by the design of the site. The work develops Steans' ongoing practice-led research around hybrid narrative writing, genre (particularly horror) and media technologies.
Research Insights: Mummy Hood Nesting Forest is a work of hybrid writing that uses specific media processes (html, flash, 3d animation, graphic design) to accent, distort and "creatively obstruct" (Sutcliffe 2022) the audience's reading experience. Steans 'sites' the macabre story in the titular forest, which is conflated with the website itself. The central narrative stalls, stutters, and restarts like a struggling webpage, and the site is rigged with dead ends, trapdoors and "decaying 'user experience' tropes[, working] to absorb the reader by incorporating echoes of their browsing disorientations directly into the story". (Sutcliffe 2022)
Dissemination: The work was presented at www.mummyhoodnestingforest.com [accessible online as of Sep 2023]. An related expression of the work was commissioned by Primary on their plinth facade (March-August 2023). Steans discussed the work in a panel at the symposium a-n Assembly (Potter, Steans, Russell, 30-31 March 2023). It was reviewed in the Dec-Jan 22/23 issue of Art Monthly (Sutcliffe 2022
What are the long-term benefits of investing in art, craft & design in education for learning, culture, wellbeing and society? Preliminary report
Full text linkThe inquiry began on 17 November 2020 with two preliminary evidence sessions, chaired by Sharon Hodgson MP and Nicholas Trench, The Earl of Clancarty. Nineteen reports and case studies were also gathered for the report.
This report is a collation of findings from two sessions. The sessions took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings therefore acknowledge the impact of lockdowns on creative education in schools, in further and higher education.
The Research Group were also concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the creative sector, and how the pipeline of talent into those industries was in danger of becoming more fragmented and homogenised. Their specific enquiry focuses on: the benefits a creative education can have for learning, culture, wellbeing and society, while recognising the barriers that threaten access for some pupils and students to studying the arts.
MEMBERS OF THE STEERING GROUP include Helen Burns; Prof. Susan Coles; Hilary Cresty; Samantha Broadhead; Patricia Thomson; Dr. Kate Noble; Lucy Kennedy; Paula Briggs; NIicholas Trench ; Georgina Spry; Vicky Prior; Dr. Penny Hay; Liz Macfarlane; Ruth Sapsed; Richard Davies; Elizabeth Bainbridge; Sheila Ceccarelli; Michele Gregson; Baroness Sue Nye.
MEMBERS OF REPORT WRITING WORKING PARTY: Prof. Susan Coles, Prof Patricia Thomson Thomson, Dr. Helen Burns, Prof. Samantha Broadhead
PEER REVIEWERS: Dr. Kate Noble, The Fitz William Museum and The Earl of Clancart
Halston and Pat Cleveland mixed media on paper
No full textThe artefact is a mixed media painting on paper representing the fashion designer Halston with model Pat Cleveland in his Olympic tower studio in New York, 1977.
Research Process: The painting was created in layers, using a black and white photograph from the Halston Archives as a reference. Further research was undertaken in museums and archives with a focus on Halston’s design process and the fabrics that he used. This was done in order to accurately represent the colour and texture of the garment in the black and white photograph, and to inform the application of paint to capture the fluidity and movement of the material.
Research Insights: Through the process of interpreting this historical image through a contemporary lens, insights and greater understanding has been attained into the design drawing process.
Contemporary fashion illustration generally represents a designers finished garments statically modelled. This painting shows that figurative drawing in fashion within a studio setting can represent a deeper narrative about a sense of time and place.
Images of designers such as Halston are quite often taken in social settings -- this painting shows Halston at work in his studio surrounded by his designs on the floor. This was a key (but unseen) stage in Halston’s design process, which often occurred before a fashion show or presentation.
Dissemination: The research was exhibited at the National Arts Club, New York, 22 April 2022, as part of a collection of 10 artworks from artists around the world selected by the Halston team in celebration of what would have been Halston’s 90th Birthday.
The artefact has been published in Patrick, M. (2023). The Fible Triptych V.03. FIDA Worldwide, pg 50
Post-War Design Education and the Jewellery Industry in Yorkshire: Drawing on the Experience of Designer-Maker Ann O’Donnell
Full text linkAnn O’Donnell, a designer-maker of jewellery, was educated at Leeds College of Art and the Royal College of Art during the 1950s. Her experiences of undertaking her work placement at Charles Horner Ltd are analysed to discover how successful ‘educating designers for industry’ was in practice. O’Donnell’s story reveals a disconnect between her creative education and the conservative jewellery manufacturing context. In the 1970s O’Donnell started her own small jewellery making, retailing and exhibiting business. She also taught the jewellers in her locality of Leeds. It is argued she created curricula that were responsive to the needs of the local industries, whose workers needed training in skills. She also encouraged her students to be creative and imaginative, giving opportunities to those who could not access full-time education