Colour me Pink! ​Being inspired by the Zandra Rhodes' Colourful Heritage Project

On Thursday, 6th February 2025, the University for the Creative Arts, Library & Learning, and the Colourful Heritage Project hosted a webinar introducing the Zandra Rhodes’ Colourful Heritage project. The webinar highlighted the vibrant fashion images and educational resources now freely available for educational use. The project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, offers a unique platform for students and educators to explore the influential work of fashion designer Zandra Rhodes. The webinar attracted art librarians, visual arts researchers, educators, fashion historians, curators, and museum/gallery staff, interested in learning about Rhodes' legacy and how to inspire future generations of designers and creatives. The Colourful Heritage project emphasizes engagement with fashion heritage and skill-building opportunities, particularly for underrepresented learners in Medway, Kent. The webinar introduced participants to the expanded Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection, which now includes textiles, headpieces, hats, jewellery, and iconic pieces such as the cape worn by Freddie Mercury. The webinar also included discussions on copyright rights and the use of the collection, visual literacy, and 'slow looking' techniques for better understanding garments and fashion collections. The event concluded with a reflection and Q&A session, offering attendees a chance to engage directly with the speakers. Further details about the Colourful Heritage project and the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection can be found on the website: https://mylibrary.uca.ac.uk/colourfulheritag

Advancing sustainable development goals through green inclusive leadership in hospitality industry: a dual study perspective

Implementing green innovation is paramount for the luxury hospitality industry in accomplishing its sustainable development goals (SDGs). Therefore, identifying the key drivers that enable green innovation (GI) is essential for promoting sustainable development. Existing literature on luxury hospitality management has overlooked exploring the key factors that drive green innovation. This study leverages the natural resource-based view to examine the mediating roles of green dynamic capability and green environmental orientation in the relationship between green inclusive leadership (GIL) and green innovation. The research further examines the effect of GI on a hotel’s environmental performance and a hotel’s green image. The theoretical model was evaluated through two distinct studies focusing on Italian employees in the hospitality sector. The findings underscore the significance of GIL practices with environmental initiatives to promote sustainable GI. Expanding the GI debate offers compelling insights that might help hotel professionals make informed strategic decisions contributing to SDGs

Contemporary art in the conflicts of globalization

Sole authored monograph

At Home: mobilising contemporary design history through curatorial practice

In April 2022 At Home: panoramas de nos vies domestiques opened at the Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Étienne. Co-curated by three design historians and curators, Penny Sparke, Jana Scholze and Catharine Rossi, the exhibition explored the values and meanings of the home today, and examined how designers, architects and artists have deployed these concepts in their work. This paper positions At Home as a case study in contemporary design history. Based on a collaborative cu- ratorial approach, and focused on mobilising design’s past to interpret and communicate the present, the exhibition sought to show the relevance of design history to an international, local and non-specialist audience. The curators organised the exhibition into five themed sections: Utopia, Shelter, Identities, Well-being, and Connectivity. Through a selection of international artworks, designs, architectural projects, photographs and films showing design-based responses to these issues past and present, the curators set out to stimulate reflection on the ways the domestic interior interacts with its inhabitants and the external world. They sought to articulate designers’ and inhabitants’ growing concerns about the climate emergency, widespread inequality, the erosion of the bound- ary between the private and public self, and the challenging aspects of today’s technological advances, and how these affect the inhabitants of the domestic sphere (Taylor, Downey and Meade, 2023). Conceived before Covid-19, researched during it, and exhibited in its aftermath, At Home also reflected on the home’s changing meaning in light of the pandemic. The curators sought to include everyday and familiar design objects alongside critical, speculative and polit- ical projects in order to facilitate the audience’s engagement. The latter included examples of Italian design from the 1960s to 1980s; Recognising the repeated citation of these designers’ practice in Italian design historiography, we sought to provide a different perspective by contextualising these architects’ work in light of contemporary designerly concerns. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the history of design and its contemporary interpretation, how the developing realm of curatorial research methods and approaches can further the relevance of design history today, and how design history can inform curatorial practices and vice versa

Monstrosity in Bioshock: monsters, modernity and strategies of containment

This chapter examines the ways monsters in the videogame Bioshock are managed, controlled, captured and contained. A key theme is the tension between monsters and modernity. Monsters exist outside modernity. Associated with ancient beliefs, they have no place in the terrestrial zoology. The first and most brutal method of containment games employ involves the monster’s eradication, disposing of that which cannot be accommodated by contemporary epistemology. Another more complex method of containment brings monsters into the fold of scientific rationality, providing logical reasons for their existence through evolutionary or pharmaceutical explanations. The game also conscripts players themselves as scientific researcher, photographing monsters as a further means of furthering their eradication through modern technologies. Yet despite these strategies this process is never entirely effective. The monster by nature cannot be entirely contained and controlled. Moreover, the line between monster and human becomes increasingly strained as the adversaries eradicated accumulate, as the playable character develops increasing semi-supernatural abilities, and as they assume the guise of the very creatures they battle

Foreword

This brief piece is a discussion of the haunting qualities of the videogame medium, incorporating the ghostly entities of early arcade titles, the abandoned labyrinthine spaces of contemporary walking simulators, the often-spectral presence of players within game environments, the uncanny nature of videogame technologies and digital animation, glitching, game nostalgia, and the way games experiences haunt everyday life

Normalized cyborgization: cybernetics in the Cyberpunk franchise

his chapter investigates how Cybernetics, and specifically cybernetic augmentations, are represented in the Cyberpunk franchise and how their impact on society is portrayed. Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and other extensions will be touched upon due to their flexibility and openness in creating imaginary speculative futures, the chapter will focus on worldbuilding elements in official TRPG publications. Also called ‘story-world databases’, these publications, like rulebooks and sourcebooks, play a major role in framing and shaping TRPG experiences by providing complex world infrastructures describing the culture, technology, and society of a fictional world with intentional gaps and adaptation spaces to be filled by the players during game sessions (Schallegger 2018; Mochocki 2021). The chapter begins with a brief history of cybernetic augmentations in the Cyberpunk franchise, explores their normalization, and concludes by examining one of their key impacts on individuals’ health

Multi-dimensional scale for green internal marketing in Italian higher education

Purpose: This study aims to develop a measurement instrument for green internal marketing (GIM) in a knowledge-intensive industry (Higher Education). Design/methodology/approach: This study consists of four phases, using a mixed-methods design. Study 1 used a systematic literature review, interviews and focus group discussions (n = 30) to identify five categories and 29 initial items. Study 2 used exploratory factor analysis for scale purification and refinement. The study confirmed a 20-item and five-dimensional scale. The final data collection (n = 576) was conducted for Study 3 using the quantitative approach and establishing the scale’s predictive validity. Study 4 checked the impact of GIM on knowledge worker performance using Smart-PLS 4. Findings: This study found that GIM has five dimensions, which work as a catalyst in the knowledge-intensive sector. The study also found a significant impact of GIM on knowledge worker performance. Originality/value: The study’s innovative approach involves the development of a multidimensional scale and an examination of its effect on the identification of variables by GIM, specifically on the academic performance of knowledge workers in higher education. The study provides valuable recommendations for professionals and academics on achieving knowledge worker performance within higher education institutions effectively

Staircase modernism: Moholy-Nagy's English photobooks

Lázsló Moholy-Nagy’s work as an avant-garde photographer, painter, sculptor, film-maker and theorist has been examined extensively in books and exhibitions. However, one aspect of his output is relatively under-researched — three photobooks made in Britain in the 1930s, on the subject of Eton (private school), Oxford (town and university) and the informal street markets in London. Even when the first two of these books have been analysed, The Street Markets of London (1936) has continued to be neglected. This paper re-examines Moholy- Nagy’s three English photobooks and investigates the marginalisation of the street markets volume. It argues that, far from being ‘merely documentary’ in nature and antithetical to Moholy-Nagy’s earlier experimental photography, all three books, but especially that on street markets, show continuity with many of Moholy-Nagy’s earlier concerns and innovations, employing these in the context of a socially-engaged documentary mode which applied the artist’s ‘new vision’ as a tool for observing and analysing the modern city of the 1930s, an approach designated staircase modernism. Moholy-Nagy’s photographs depicted the street markets more effectively than previous representations, providing a visual dissection of both the spatial configuration of the markets and the character of the people and things that were gathered in them

LLM integration in game writing: an investigation of visions and tools

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models (LLMs), is reshaping creative practices across industries, including game writing. This study investigates the evolving relationship between generative AI and game writing, focusing on how LLM-integrated game writing tools are transforming traditional workflows and roles. Beginning with an exploration of the conventional responsibilities of game writers, the paper contextualises the challenges and opportunities presented by LLMs in narrative design. The study then examines the current industry landscape, analysing the promises and speculative narratives surrounding LLM adoption. Through three case studies—Charisma AI, Convai, and InWorld—and a fan-led modification of Skyrim, it explores the diverse ways LLMs are being integrated into game writing practices