Art and Design

In the Future …. How will we Create?

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‘In the Future …. How will we Create?’ took place from 9 November to 14 November 2021 at the UK Pavilion Expo 2020 Dubai. The Royal College of Art is the Heritage Partner of the UK Pavilion, having a 170-year history of shared heritage with world exhibitions, going back to the first Expo, The Great Exhibition of 1851. The RCA’s contribution to the UK Pavilion will bring together a wide range of interdisciplinary projects from staff, current students and recent graduates. I developed and delivered ‘A City in a Day’ project as part of my ongoing research. Four local schools with approximately 20 students participated in an hour’s workshop, each hour a different age of the city’s development.

A City in Seven Days

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I am pleased to release the video of A City Seven Days project produced at FutureLab, Shanghai 2019.

FutureLab was an initiative from WestBund Art Center drawing together art and design educators from around the world. I was invited in my role as Head of Programme of Graduate Diploma in Art and Design at the Royal College of Art to create a project demonstrating synergies between degree level and primary level teaching approaches and methodologies to creativity in student-centred learning.

My ongoing creative thinking and learning research work with FunDrawing initiated the ‘city’ as a vehicle or model for creative engagement. The workshop investigates how creativity can be enabled through action-based teaching and learning approaches to embed and encourage creativity in the curriculum for primary and early secondary learners. The projects’s basic premise is based on the creative and imaginative potential of the humble cardboard box, focusing on proven alternative approach models to creative and trans-disciplinary engagement to provide an immersive experience and critical takeaways from skills-based teaching of art and design.

Memory and Light – conference interview

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I was recently invited by Emre Altindağ, PhD researcher and editor for an interview in the first edition of Memory and Light and to be the keynote speaker at the accompanying conference in August 2021. Memory and Light is an international artist-led collective and new publication for illustrators, graphic novelists, and storytellers. I discussed with Emre the role of narrative and storytelling as a key tool in my approach to sketchbooks and my practice. Article pdf here.

In Session: Publishing Self

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Publishing Self was a 40 minute discussion around the nature and positioning of the portfolio as a tool and platform.

Creating a progression portfolio can be a mystifying experience. How do you create a compelling narrative about you? This talk brings together Gary Clough, Richard Nash and renowned graphic designer and publisher Tony Brook to discuss their individual practices and parallels between the progression portfolio and art & design publishing. This is an opportunity to join Gary, Richard and Tony in a conversation that draws on aspects of publishing, art direction, editorial design, curation and critical writing. Hear some of their ‘trade secrets’ and then interact with them to ask your own questions.

Sketchbook Thinking

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Sketchbooks are an intrinsic and integral part of my practice, a place where I collate, record and synthesize viewed and remembered experiences.

I am currently obsessed with comic book like hieroglyphs, in search of or potentially reliant on a visual equivalent to the Rosetta Stone, combining the recognized, the invented and the possible. These draw from a range of real and imagined destinations and cultural references, many from regular visits to China.

The Educationalist…

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As a precursor to my next lecture visit to China later this month here are a couple of promotional items and some photos from the previous tours of 2016.

the-educationalist

Photos from CAFA High School (Central Academy of Fine Art Beijing), AIP Arts International Programs Guangzhou, GAFA High School, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, British Council school tour Tianjin and Shenzhen National Art Museum.