Writing in Creative Practice

Writing in Creative Practice: Collage, Reflection and Writing

UWS Ayr Campus, Friday 12th April 2013

On 12^th April the University of the West of Scotland will host the first Scotland-based workshop in the Writing in Creative Practice series, which is run in conjunction with Writing PAD and partly funded by the Higher Education Academy.

Titled Collage, Reflection and Writing, this workshop looks at collage’s potential as a method of inquiry through creative practice which seamlessly merges the making and the textual. We will explore the versatility collage offers as it allows one to find the words to express subjective experience through reflexivity and its (collage’s) intrinsic multiple interpretations of the ‘image’. We will take a look (and possibly have a go) at collage as a method of inquiry, reflective bookmaking, poetic inquiry and poem houses, as well as discussing ways of introducing students to structuring academic texts through collage.

Conceived as a hands-on day with lots of activities and discussion, this workshop will give participants the opportunity to explore collage in both a theoretical and practical way, but particularly as a way of engaging students in a reflective and analytical process that can prepare and support their writing tasks.

For more information on previous workshops in the Writing in Creative Practice series, please check the HEA events archive or http://tactileacademia.wordpress.com/?s=writing+in+creative+practice.

The attendance of this workshop is free of charge to all those interested in the workshop topic, with preference being given to staff working in HE institutions and HE in FE colleges from across the UK. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Lunch and refreshments will be provided, but travel expenses will not be covered. However, the HEA is currently running a funding scheme to support travel crossing national borders to attend events, which could be applied for independently.

For more information or to book a place, please get in touch with Dr Alke Gröppel-Wegener (tactileacademia@gmail.com).

11:00 registration and refreshments

11.30 welcome

11.45 Thinking through Collaging: Reflective bookmaking and poetic inquiry (Sarah Williamson)

13.00: Lunch

13.45: Collage as subjective experience: Transitioning, Relinquishing, Becoming (Alison Bell)

14.45: Collaging in three dimensions: the Poem House (Brigid Collins)

15.45: refreshments

16.00: Collaging the Context: Visual Ways of Collating a Literature Review (Alke Gröppel-Wegener)

16.30: Discussion

17.00: end

Bullet Catch

Bullet Catch – on tour in the UK and the US in spring 2013

Directed by Lecturer in Performance, David Overend
Written and performed by Associate Lecturer, Rob Drummond

A stunt so dangerous Houdini refused to attempt it, the Bullet Catch has claimed the lives of at least 12 people since its conception in 1613. Now, direct from a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe, Rob Drummond’s dark and exhilarating one-man show sets off on an international tour. A unique theatrical experience featuring mind reading, levitation and, if you’re brave enough to stay for it, the most notorious finale in show business.

59E59, New York
6 – 21 April

National Theatre, London
21 May – 1 June

Spoleto Festival, South Carolina
5 – 9 June

Bullet Catch will also tour venues in Scotland and Brazil later in the year.

Imagining Possibilities: participatory arts and media and the creation of community wellbeing

(Odd Numbers, Milton: Photo: NADFLY/www.cargocollective.com/nadfly)

Creative Futures Institute, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley Campus, High Street, Paisley PA1 2BE

Friday 1^st March 2013

9.30am – 5.00pm

A conference exploring the findings of Remaking Society, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Connected Communities ‘Pilot Demonstrator’ project.

Participation in cultural activity is an essential ingredient in making healthy communities. The Remaking Society project explores how neighbourhoods experiencing multiple deprivation, in particular, might harness engagement in creative activity to build capacity for social change. The project takes a broad view of wellbeing as a social construct: that is, more than an individual’s state of physical and mental health connected with income and wealth, and with life satisfaction, wellbeing is “related to our sense of social connectedness, inclusion and participation, existential security and safety, political citizenship, self-development and actualization, and opportunities for education, recreation and creative expression.” [1]

The Remaking Society project is made up an interdisciplinary team of researchers, partnering with experienced community arts organisations, working in four contrasting contexts of deprivation, alongside the arts and health programme of NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Cadispa Trust, and www.poverty.ac.uk.

 It aims to:

• Demonstrate how participation in cultural production in locations where people are  experiencing increasing economic hardship can catalyse the creation of community and wellbeing.
• Explore the ways in which, through creative engagement with arts and media processes, participants can re-vision collective futures
• Compare the different working principles and theories of community arts practice in the demonstration site organisations
• Test methodologies for evaluating cultural practice as an integral component of socioeconomic regeneration.
• Provide a set of narrative insights, through cultural production, into the lived experience of poverty and social exclusion; broadening the range of evidence contributing to the UK national Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) Study (www.poverty.ac.uk).

This conference will explore those aspects of the project which complexify current understandings of the ‘social impacts’ of the arts:

• providing a grounded analysis of histories of practice and specific creative processes
• exploring different ways of activating arts and cultural practices as community assets (i.e. arts not simply ‘brought in’ from outside to impact communities
• showing arts working within multi-agency arrangements;
• exploring conflicts over the rationales for arts project design and evaluation by different organisations (government, NGO, corporate, commissioning, funding, etc.
• questioning key concepts of power, participation, representation and agency in participatory arts and media practices

Although cultural policy debates are entrenched, the situation on the ground is dynamic, and tends to be driven by urgent pragmatism rather than ideological purism. Moving beyond a reliance on arguments about ‘instrumental’ versus ‘intrinsic’ benefits of arts participation, the project explores the role of creative participation in acting as a catalyst for social change, exploring the proposition that  “there is a fundamental connection to be explored between creativity and health as a pathologically optimistic expression of survival.[2]” Whilst concepts of ‘community’ and ‘participation’ with arts and media practice remain contingent, contested and partial, under some circumstances they may also retain the potential to articulate alternative values and visions to the dominant socio-economic order.  

Connected Communities

Connected Communities is a RCUK cross-Council programme designed to help us understand the changing nature of communities in their historical and cultural contexts and the role of communities in sustaining and enhancing our quality of life. The programme seeks not only to connect research on communities, but to connect communities with research, bringing together community-engaged research across a number of core themes, including community health and wellbeing, community creativity, prosperity and regeneration, community values and participation, sustainable community environments, places and spaces, and community cultures, diversity, cohesion, exclusion, and conflict.

What will participants in the conference gain? 

• learning from examples of interesting work elsewhere
• heightened awareness of the key issues and challenges facing the field of participatory arts
• access to resources/expertise/networks
• broadening perspectives on the histories, values and politics of participatory arts and media practices
• some ways to think beyond entrenched positions, views, and criticisms of participatory/community arts practices

Programme Outline

Sharing findings - with examples from each of the projects:

·      Theatre Modo working in Fraserburgh: the Maelstrom Project

·      Odd Numbers project (NADFLY/Baxendale/Love Milton) in Milton, North Glasgow

·      Bradford Community Broadcasting, Bradford

·      Swingbridge Media, North Tyneside

Keynote Speakers

Rahila Gupta, Southall Black Sisters: Imagining 'Communities'

François Matarasso: Community arts: histories, values, futures

Workshops:

Learning/training/mentoring/skills exchange for the field (Creative Scotland/Paul Hamlyn Foundation 'Artworks' project/Mary Dowson/Graham Jeffery)

2   The value of this work to individuals and communities (Tom Wakeford/BCB)

      Cultural participation and relationship to health and wellbeing (Kerrie Schaefer/Theatre Modo/NHSGGC)

      Myth, magic and regeneration (Neill Patton and Nicola Atkinson)

      Relationships to policy (Graham Jeffery)

      Creation of alternatives (Tom Wakeford/Kerrie Schaefer)

Who should attend?

Researchers, practitioners, policymakers, commissioners, evaluators, activists, curators, artists, citizens – people with an interest in the roles of the arts and media in community development and regeneration.

We welcome proposals for additional workshops, relevant to the conference theme, of 1 hour 15 minutes. Please email graham.jeffery@uws.ac.uk with details of your proposal, no later than Friday 15^th February.

Registration details

An online system for registering for the conference will shortly be available. In the meantime please email Gillian.Dyer@uws.ac.uk to reserve a place. The cost of the day, which includes lunch/refreshments, is £50 (£40 for voluntary sector/students/unwaged participants).

The Remaking Society research team is made up of

Nicola Atkinson       NADFLY/Love Milton

Martin Danziger       Theatre Modo

Mary Dowson           Bradford Community Broadcasting

Lee Ivett                    Baxendale/Love Milton

Graham Jeffery        Reader in Music and Performance, University of the West of Scotland

Hugh Kelly               Swingbridge Media, North Tyneside

Neill Patton              Fieldworker and Researcher, The Cadispa Trust

Kerrie Schaefer       Senior Lecturer in Drama, University of Exeter

Tom Wakeford         Senior Research Fellow, School of Health in Social Science University of Edinburgh

www.twitter.com/RemakingSociety

remakingsociety.ageofwe.org

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[1] Mulligan, Humphery, James, Scanlon, Smith and Welch (2006: 22): Creating Community. Celebrations, Arts and Wellbeing Within and Across Local Communities, The Globalism Institute; Vic Health.

[2] White, M. (2009: 9): Arts Development in Community Health: A Social Tonic. Radcliffe Publishing.

Archaeology in electronic music: Re-discovering Turenas by John Chowning

Commercial Music research seminar series, seminar 4
CCA Cinema, CCA Glasgow
Tuesday 26th February 2013
5.30pm

Dr Laurent Pottier (University of Saint-Etienne)

Electronic music uses tools that are evolving at an incredible speed. Many pieces of music that were written during the last fifty years can no longer be played again because they used electronic instruments that no longer work today. With the development of computer technologies, the situation is even worse. For this reason it is important to develop a new language for creating digital tools that will last over time. In parallel, we apply these tools to preserve some important pieces of the digital music repertoire.

In this seminar, we will show how the language can be used for creating DSP (Digital Signal Processing) applications. We will also present the piece Turenas by the American composer John Chowning (inventor of the FM sound synthesis technique and of sound spatialization theory). This piece was initially only available for a 4-track tape but we have rewritten it, for four performers, electronic percussions and a computer.

Laurent Pottier has been teaching Computer Music at the University of Saint-Etienne (France) since 2005. He was Musical Assistant for Computer Music at IRCAM-Centre George Pompidou in Paris from 1992 to 1996,  and then  became the Scientific Director of GMEM (National Center for Musical Creation) in Marseille from 1997 to 2004. He has both a PhD in Science (1986) and in Musicology (2001).

Art as unlearning: finding a place

UWS MEd Artist Teacher Programme

School of Education presents

Professor John Baldecchino (Falmouth University)

Art as unlearning: finding a place

Gallery of Modern Art

Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow

Saturday 2nd February 2013

10.30 - 12.30

Somewhere to start with ...
As I have argued in my recent paper Willed Forgetfulness, to make a case for unlearning is to reject the assumption that somehow, unlearning will become a new model for education. Unlearning is neither a new pedagogy, nor a new way of doing art. There is nothing new in unlearning. Unlearning is implied in what we are by dint of what we do ... and vice-versa. The focus of unlearning is found in the paradox that seems to happen between being and doing which we always find much much later. So where does art come into this? Art is, amongst other, unlearning per se. It is such a space, such a place, such a moment ... such an afterthought that we realize much much later. Though as I say this ... I begin to doubt!

Speaker:
John Baldacchino is Associate Dean and Professor of Arts Pedagogy in the Graduate School, Falmouth University. He was full time faculty at Teachers College Columbia University, New York, Gray’s School of Art, Scotland, and Warwick University, England. He is the author of six books, including Education Beyond Education (Peter Lang, 2009); Makings of the Sea (Gorgias, 2010); and Art’s Way Out (Sense, 2012). Amongst other, he is currently completing two books, including John Dewey: Liberty and the pedagogy of disposition (Springer 2013)

Website: www.johnbaldecchino.com   

Sans Papiers? Video screening and Tanja Ostojić in conversation with Katarzyna Kosmala on the other side of migration and politics of representation

Saturday 16 March 2013

5:30pm - 7:00pm: FREE (ticketed)

Venue: CCA 4 (cinema)

Ages: all

Call the CCA Box Office on 0141 352 4900

Sans Papiers (2004), a 14 min video by Serbian artist Tanja Ostojić (collaboration with David Rych), addresses the questions of the restrictive asylum laws and comments on detention spaces in a deportation center in Berlin-Kopenick, Germany, through the conversations with ethnic African, Middle Eastern, former Yugoslavian and Turkish men. ‘Otherness’ refers to a migration status, an access to citizen rights across the border of ‘no origin’.

Prof Katarzyna Kosmala critically engages with Ostojić’ practice in her new book Imagining Masculinities (Routledge, 2013), addressing politics of representation, migration and gender. By marking the parallels between national borders and the boundaries of gendered bodies, Ostojić’s work opens up spaces for rethinking of the ‘other’ through mobility and resistance. After the video screening, Prof Kosmala will discuss with Ostojić her approaches to art activism, drawing on the video Sans Papiers and her most recent work Misplaced Women? The event is presented by the University of the West of Scotland.

Tanja Ostojić is a Serbian-born, Berlin-based artist working predominantly from a migrant woman’s perspective, combining political engagement and art activism with performance and humour. She holds an interdisciplinary fellowship at the Graduate School of UDK, Berlin University of Arts. Ostojić presented her work internationally, including the Venice Biennale 2001 and 2011, Škuc Gallery Ljubljana, 2012, KUMU Art Museum Tallinn, 2011, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest  2011, ASAB, Bogotá, Colombia, 2010, MUMOK, Vienna, and Zacheta gallery Warsaw, 2010,Kusrpavillon Innsbruck 2008, ICA London 1999, Manifesta 2 Luxembourg 1998. Her videos have been screened at a number of festivals such as IFFF Dortmund /Kölon  2010, Globale Berlin 2008, Oberhausen Kurzfilm und Video Festival 2000. Ostojić participates in the Economy show at CCA  http://www.van.at/see/tanja/

Katarzyna Kosmala, PhD is Professor of Culture, Media and Visual Practice at the University of the West of Scotland, and freelance curator and art writer.

To book tickets, visit the CCA website. 

Irish Women of our Past @ Film City Glasgow

Rachael Flynn writes: 

An event/gathering on Tuesday 4th of December at 6:30pm at Film City (Old Govan Town Hall), Glasgow - http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Film+City+Glasgow,+Govan+Road,+Glasgow&hl=en&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=9.676196,28.103027&oq=film+city+g&hq=Film+City+Glasgow,+Govan+Road,+Glasgow&t=m&z=15

As you are aware I have been advertising and asking people around the world to submit names of women in their past who have made the trip from Ireland. These names have been growing as word has spread and are continuing to build a collection of names and memories (see www.irishwomenofourpast.co.uk ).

I have recently returned from a trip around Ireland visiting the ports which they would have departed from and lit candles at each site in their memory. The aim of this trip was to allow both herself and the relatives of these women to commemorate the migrant women’s departures from these sites.

On Tuesday 'a sea' of candles will be lit in memory of those Irish women who journeyed to other lands. As mentioned above this will take place at Film City (Old Govan Town Hall), Glasgow, close to the Broomielaw where some of the boats arriving from Ireland would moor, with Govan itself a site of considerable Irish migration. The collection of names of Irish women of our past has continued to grow with more women remembered and represented by their descendants across the Diaspora, and more and more of their stories being remembered, recognized and shared. Each of the women’s names sent to me will be represented by a small candle which will be lit within this temporary devotional space while the names of the women and the places they left are commemorated in a subtle video work close-by.

I will be filming the sea of candles and streaming online for those who have submitted the names to access with a password being able to see the event from any location, allowing them to witness the event on behalf of their relation. The original candle which I lit for my own grandmother in Donegal, and then lit at the various ports on my recent visit will sit amongst these other candles, adding to the “sea” of light - a simple but effective act of remembrance.

I will be continuing to collect names up to and post event so please continue to tell those who you feel may be intetrested.

Names can be submitted via my email address – Rachael.flynn@uws.ac.uk

through the website - irishwomenofourpast.co.uk