Experience as a transformational practice

The field of Experiential design has gained more relevance as new technological advances change the way we register and document cultural content, audiences are becoming more active in seeking active participation, and cultural organisations are being forced to re-evaluate traditional spaces and approaches to cultural display. As educators working in this field, weare interested in the emergent conceptual spaces created by these advancements and the possible frameworks required to guide our pedagogical thinking. In this paper, we explore how experiential design has the potential to act as a catalyst for exploration and discovery. Through case studies, we explore how alternative ways of inclusivity can be achieved by challenging human-centric perspectives, and how experiential dialogues have the potential to blur the lines between performer and audience. Thus, creating dynamic spaces for exchange, exploration, and collaboration; and how cultural associations facilitate ways to become spaces of possibility where transformative experiences can unfold

Polar Aesthetics: Art of the Arctic and Antarctic

What hidden histories written in polar ice can contemporary art reveal? Propelled by the urgency of addressing the climate crisis, my research identifies ice-core laboratories as important historical sites. It posits that an understanding of the narratives embedded in these sites can enable the production of contemporary artworks and that a material engagement with these works will lead to a better understanding of our past and present interactions with the world we live in. I explore the slow accumulation and rapid disappearance of ice sheets, glaciers and ice cores as experienced through my audio-visual exploration of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) ice-core laboratory. Recorded interviews and oral testimony by climate scientists were also used as the basis for developing a sensory, material and atmospheric approach to writing and making. The BAS ice core laboratory holds an important collection of ice from both the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions. Dating back 800,000 years in geological time, the BAS ice cores contain vital information from the polar past, including changes in both temperature and concentration of atmospheric gases. (bas.ac.uk) Ice cores are cylinders drilled from an ice sheet or glacier that scientists use to measure and predict the direct correlation between accelerating global warming, rapid melting of glaciers and rising sea levels. Ice cores contain small bubbles of trapped ancient air that make popping sounds when dissolved in water. I have been conducting audio and film recordings of this released ancient air. During this research, I created three integrated bodies of written and practical work. The first chapter explores the sublimation and deposition phase changes of polar water through my Vapour Series of sound installations. The second chapter explores the condensation and evaporation phase changes of polar water through my Liquid Series of painting and photography. The third and final chapter explores the freezing and melting phase changes of polar water through my Solid Series of glass sculptures. The work is informed by my real and imagined experience of the Arctic in southern Iceland and Rothera in northern Antarctica. I document and interpret how ideas of polar water, as experienced through contemporary artworks, contribute to our understanding of time, place and memory. These ideas are further refined through my central case study, Roni Horn’s Library of Water (2017). The research examines the threat posed by the current climate crisis at the site at which its consequences are most clearly apparent – the polar waters of the Arctic north and the Antarctic south. The research examines notions of climate crisis through the work of critical theorists including Esther Leslie (liquid crystals) and Jane Bennett’s idea of the ‘vibrancy of matter’, or the ‘political ecology of things’. (Bennett, 2010) Bennett’s notion of the human and non-human has alerted me to the magnitude of the work conducted by the climate scientists at the British Antarctic Survey. Bennett’s idea of passive, inert or active forces, amplifies the magnetic stories and unnamed polar history they are yet to tell. The active participation of visitors during my exhibitions to date suggests that such histories are not vanishing points, but co-ordinates marking points where parallel lines emerge and converge. Polar Aesthetics identifies the British Antarctic Survey ice-core laboratory as a vital yet critically under-explored repository of scientific and cultural data that reflects humanity’s engagement with, and intervention in, the polar regions. As a nexus of historical information, it facilitates the production of contemporary artworks at a time of accelerating climate crisis. My research makes an original contribution to knowledge of the laboratory and argues that material experiences of these artworks enable and encourage a deep consideration of the fragile glacial past, present and future

Integrating design literacy within Chinese health promoting hospitals

The World Health Organization (WHO) established the concept of Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH) in 1986, with the main aim to expand the role of hospitals from treatment-centred to health promotion-centred cultures and by doing so, empowering and facilitating deeper community context. Design research and social healthcare have permeated western studies. However, when it comes to design practice in Chinese HPH, research suggests hospital managements still tend to believe design is only a last-minute intervention rather than drawing comprehensively and synthetically from a design research perspective. This is the gap my PhD practice-led research aims to fill, by employing designerly research, Chinese HPH practitioners may access and apply a systematic, comprehensive understanding of what design thinking means for HPH implementation. The research asks: Can design thinking create a supportive, sustained and creative community setting for Chinese HPH? Can the WHO philosophy of HPH and design epistemology be adapted and situated in Chinese hospitals through design research? The practice in this research is reflected in field trips, two case studies and design frameworks. First, the research examines Chinese hospitals in Central and East China, looking at the role of design in HPH and investigating the level of design penetration within that context between 2017 and 2019 using field trips and action research. Second, two case studies were conducted with two focus groups through participatory communication design (PCD) research: (1) participatory action research into a low-literate group targeting medical consumption issues in Hantun village; (2) a participatory dental health promotion course for children aged 4-8 in Wuhan. Both case studies propose a change from “top-down” policymaking to adopting a “bottom-up” strategy; from expert-dominated to participatory and democratic approaches. The core of HPH activities is enabling people – patients, professionals and communities – to design their own experiences, services, tools and artefacts. Finally, the design frameworks offer a pluralistic, situated, nuanced and inclusive process for Chinese HPHs. My main contribution to knowledge is within the Chinese HPH field, developing and proposing comprehensive design-thinking frameworks – designerly ways of knowing, thinking, and doing – increasing accessibility to the inclusivity of design ontology, epistemology and methodology, within Chinese HPH context. A secondary contribution to knowledge is situated in the design fields. It defines PCD through participatory design, communication design and communication theory as a blended theoretical construction, developing novel PCD methods and transitional communication methods as extensive methodology. These design contributions address gaps in current design research

Serpent symbolisms 1: From mythological rage to biblical wrath

Feminist gallery tour: Wiebke Leister and Catherine McCormack uncover how contradictory snake iconographies have been used in both mythological and biblical paintings. Date; Friday, 16 February 2024 About: Of old, snakes have embodied conflicting hybridities that represent both wisdom and deceit, danger and healing, redemption and destruction. Join Wiebke Leister and Catherine McCormack for two short 30-minute tours as they reflect on how snake iconographies are used to trigger our symbolic good-evil associations. Their conversations will reveal how the image of the transgressive serpent becomes a chance to revisit themes of patriarchal repression and feminist resistance from history, bringing them together with today’s lived experiences. 6.30-7.00pm: We discover the characters of the Medusa, the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons, in Luca Giordano’s ‘Perseus turning Phineas and his Followers to Stone’, as well as the satyr tangled in writhing snakes found in Titian’s ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’. 7.30-8.00pm: We explore the story of Moses and 'The Brazen Serpent' as seen in Peter Paul Rubens' painting, as well as the setting of the snake watching ‘Adam and Eve’ from above in Jan Gossaert’s depiction of the Garden of Eden. This event was part of the Friday Lates, curated by Joseph Kendra

Serpent symbolisms 2: an interactive inquiry

Workshop: Gallery Educator Katy Tarbard and artist Wiebke Leister lead a multi-disciplinary workshop exploring snake iconographies in the collection and in our lived experiences. Date: 22 March 2024, 6.30-8.00pm About: Artist Wiebke Leister’s recent research is an exploration of snakes in both our Collection and throughout global traditions of painting across the centuries. This participatory group workshop explores how the varied depictions of serpents have represented both wisdom and deceit, danger and healing, redemption and destruction. Joined by Gallery Educator Katy Tarbard, the two lead a range of activities, including an open discussion based on techniques of philosophical inquiry, thinking through gesture and drawing, tableau vivant re-staging and image clustering. Participants are encouraged to bring their own stories about encounters with snakes as well as images of snakes from art and popular culture to the session to work with. This event was part of the Friday Lates, curated by Joseph Kendra

The polygenetic designer

In Metamodernism: The Future of Theory, Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm (2021) structures a new timeframe to understand better the 20th century; the pre-modern, the modern, and the post-modern, which gives way to the metamodern. Metamodernism is a way of viewing the world that emphasises a kind of integrated pluralism. Given the latest development in design during the late 19th century and 20th century, this framework may assist to understand the evolution of its practice. Following this framework, the evolution of design practice may be structured in four fundamental periods; pre-modern embodied by the craftsman, modern embodied by the industrial designer (Papanek's “Like It Is”), post-modern embodied by the innovator (Papanek's “How It Could Be”; Papanek, 1972) and an emerging metamodern paradigm embodied by what I will describe in this chapter as the Polygenetic designer (Figure 5.1). In what follows, I will review the evolution of design practice from a historical perspective to understand the current intersection between design and biology. This position will lead a case for the Polygenetic designer and a potential operational framework

Gestures: a body of work

Combining creative and critical methods, this cross-disciplinary collection contributes an original feminist investigation of embodied, affective, and political gesture in/as feminist art and writing. It considers and performs how gesture/s and feminism/s have animated one another in feminist and interdisciplinary artistic practices, contributing new theorizations of gesture, gender, sexuality, and embodiment, alongside revised histories of feminist art and literature. The book’s introductory essay “Writing Gesture” argues for a logic of in-betweenness that connects gesture, feminism, and interdisciplinarity. This new articulation of feminist practice is realized in the book’s innovative structure focused on ‘gestural’ stances, which contain transnational readings of artists and writers’ work from the 1960s onwards, as well dialogues between contemporary artists and writers

Grace and harmony (live)

In Grace and Harmony Thomasson is joined by a small group of performers for a musical theatre experiment. The work uses song and dance to describe the fantasy and sometimes awkward reality of trying to gracefully move in and out of social encounters. Having learnt the song and dance routine separately, they come together in public to perform for the first time, and do their best to move in time and sing in harmony. Performers: Federico Hewson, Anna Holmes, Jos McKain, Shade Théret, Stanley Weissoh

In common: Housing coalitions for producing, owning and living in London

The thesis starts with a simple proposition: What if housing were a common? A pre-modern English custom of land ownership and use, the notion of the commons has reemerged in recent architectural debates as a participatory ecology for production, ownership, and use. The thesis explores their transfor- mative value in addressing the much-needed change in London’s housing context today. In that sense, grassroots efforts promise not only more accessible housing economies but also architecturally valuable models for owning, sharing, and dwelling. Most importantly, they challenge modern preconceptions that form the foundation of how residents relate to housing, land, and each other. While existing architectural scholarship focuses mostly on hierarchically planned housing, grassroots sharing cultures and their spatial imaginaries remain little studied. The research aims to explore this gap by discussing the relationship of the commons with architecture. The thesis consists of two parts that employ different but interconnected methods. The first part establish- es the theoretical and historical context. A historical case study analysis reconstructs a genealogy of hous- ing commons in London. The second part draws on qualitative methods to discuss the Lewisham-based community land trust RUSS and its inaugural housing project, Church Grove. The thesis concludes that housing commons are yet to emerge in London. To achieve autonomy, hous- ing projects need to connect with other realms and scales of commoning. This is addressed by the intro- duction of the term coalitions, which refers to spaces and practices that allow for multiple commoning systems to link up. To support the commons, architectural practitioners and researchers need to embrace more coalitional roles, connecting different actors and local relational networks. Then architectural prac- tice can become a common itself

Herons 2024

Tideway Tunnel commission at Carnwath Road, London SW6. 2 cast bronze herons adorn a kiosk at a new Thameside park