Supporting arts and enterprise skills in communities through creative engagement with the local area

The project proposes a framework and methodology of artistic and creative social intervention that empowers and supports engagement with communities of young people affected by change in their local environment. This is a UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Knowledge Transfer Fellowship aimed at building new and innovative models of creative community engagement and collaboration. The project supports active citizenship among young people by facilitating social capacity building through enterprise structures and transferring the creative lead in socially responsive arts projects to those in need of empowerment. The initial action research project is utilising an arts and enterprise participation model to create self-branded commodities that will give a role to young people within a wider, community driven, gun crime reduction and social cohesion programme. The model seeks to sustain the commitment of those participating by focussing on metrics and benchmarks that young people in the project can own and influence. The blend of creative agendas and enterprise goals provides a breadth of purpose and opportunity, linking outputs to specific environmental and social impacts. The project evidences the role and function of arts media in multi-strand learning and participation projects. As educational policy and practice (14+ age range) in the UK moves more towards action based learning for transferable life skills, the project provides a methodology emphatic of team and collaborative process, individual responsibility and creativity. The process develops ownership and shared responsibility in relation to community initiatives; fostering fresh creativity and a diversity of approach in the exploration of social, physical and racial issues arising from economic disadvantage. The knowledge transfer process is targeting a toolkit relating to multi-agency project working, creative research and action learning, empowerment and applied social arts practices

REdGENERATION: art, enterprise, local knowledge and the curriculum

The theme of this paper is engagement in art as a stimulant to enterprise education with young people. Reflecting on their experiences of initiating and managing the case study outlined, the paper describes a process of arts intervention in a school based enterprise project. Set against the social backdrop of urban renewal, the project outlined effectively establishes a voice for young people that counters the imposition of regeneration initiatives whilst maintaining the imperative of an art that is free from the absolute requirements of function. Education and Teaching Context - Art and enterprise cells in local schools

Three-coordinate iron(II) expanded ring N-heterocyclic carbene complexes

A sterically demanding seven-membered expanded ring N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligand allows access to rare examples of three-coordinate iron(II)-NHC complexes incorporating only halide coligands of the general formula [Fe(NHC)X 2 ] (NHC = 7-DiPP; X = Br (1) Cl (2)). Reducing the steric influence of the ancillary NHC ligand through modulation of the N-aryl substituents leads to either four- or three-coordinate complexes of the general formula [Fe(NHC)Br 2 (THF)] (3) or [Fe(NHC)Br 2 ] (4) (NHC = 7-Mes), dependent upon the solvent of recrystallization. The further reduction of NHC steric influence results in four-coordinate geometries at iron in the form of the dimeric species [Fe(NHC)Br(μ-Br)] 2 (5) or [Fe(NHC)Br 2 (THF)] (6) (NHC = SDiPP), again dependent upon the solvent of recrystallization. Compounds 1-6 have been analyzed by 1 H NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystallography, elemental microanalysis, Mössbauer spectroscopy (for 1 and 3-5), and Evans method magnetic susceptibility. In addition to these measurements the three-coordinate species 1 and 4 have been further analyzed by SQUID magnetometry and CASSCF calculations, which show significant magnetic anisotropy that is extremely sensitive to the coordination geometry

Stanislavski training and mindfulness – being in the moment

"I understand that an artist must be capable of stopping time and allowing for spaciousness, but now I realise that to welcome and cultivate stillness and quiet into my work, I must welcome and cultivate stillness and quiet into my own life.” Stanislavsky’s “creation of the life of the human spirit” is an exciting aspect of his work and the underlying spirituality is something that he kept partially hidden in his writing due to the political situation and Soviet ideology that he was living through at the time. It is this sense of spirituality and a meditative approach to the work of the actor that this paper explores. Specifically, an exploration of mindfulness and drama techniques. Mindfulness helps us to increase our awareness. We learn to do this by paying full attention to all our experiences, including our bodies, thoughts, moods, and emotions and to the small changes within them. There are many parallels between mindfulness and Stanislavsky’s thoughts on acting, from the need for an attitude of openness and curiosity and being in the moment through to an awareness of our physical sensations and a control over our attention. Bogart’s ideas of spaciousness also influence this examination of the practice of mindfulness and concentration. This article analyses the calmness that mindfulness can bring through the teaching and learning of Acting and Performance students at London South Bank University, and how we can use it to focus on being grounded in our body and the world around us, going about our everyday business in life and on stage. “Let the tenseness come, he says, if you cannot avoid it. But immediately let your control step in and remove it.

What Trump's election victory may mean for the future of US-China relations

A hallmark of Donald Trump’s first White House term was a confrontational policy towards trade with China. With his victory this week in the 2024 presidential election, Elizabeth Ingleson looks at how US-China relations may unfold in Trump’s second presidential administration. She writes that Trump will likely go back to the trade wars with China he previously stoked, policies which are more likely to hurt than help the US working class