Revisiting the Bonaventure Hotel

Revisiting the Bonaventure Hotel developed from an established body of research that focused on the influence of the media image on urban space. In this publication, a series of video stills (taken from the many films made using the Bonaventure as a backdrop), were contrasted with photographs taken while retracing Fredric Jameson’s seminal account of the hotel. Moving between visual and theoretical references from architectural theory, cinema, cultural theory and philosophy, the book considered how shared social space is experienced as a scripted journey through filmic narratives and embodied architectural affect. The site of the hotel is re-visited through conflicting spatial narratives that, through the form of the photo essay, are represented as an encounter with forceful ideological constructs. This publication was commissioned by Copy Press (editor, Yve Lomax) and was launched at the Architectural Association in 2009. The second edition of the book was launched at Conway Hall in 2013 as part of a new artists’ series, The Common Intellectual. This research into the affect and politics of ‘image space’ in Los Angeles led to invitations to speak at three international conferences including ‘Ecologies of the Image’ at ‘How Do We Look’, MOCA, Los Angeles (2011), ‘The Jerde Masterplan’ at ‘Imploded Action Dissonant Affects’, Spike Island, Bristol (2010) and ‘Image Space’ at CalArts, Los Angeles (2012). Related published articles include: ‘A guide to the casino architecture of wedding’ in Collapse: Philosophical and Research Development (2013); ‘Non-relational regimes of urban modernisation’ in the special issue of the Journal of Visual Art Practice dedicated to anti-humanist curating, launched at Whitechapel Gallery (2011); and ‘Round table discussion: The affects of the abstract image in film and video art’ (with Crone, Danino, RUBEDO and Zoller), in MIRAJ (2012). Related chapters include ‘Dream stuff’ in Sanity Assassin edited by Amanda Beech (Urbanomic, 2010)

Episode: Pleasure and Persuasion in Lens-based Media

The book Episode: Pleasure and Persuasion in Lens-based Media (Artwords, 2008) was edited by the research group Curating Video, founded by Joseph-Lester, Professor Amanda Beech (CalArts, California) and Matthew Poole (independent curator, California). The publication was launched at Tate Britain in 2008 alongside the conference ‘Pleasure and Persuasion in Lens-based Media’, and includes a co-written introduction and essay by Joseph-Lester with commissioned essays from Professor Norman Klein and Dr Sharon Kivland. The conference and book launch were publicised and supported by Tate Britain and Artwords Press. The conference, which was conceived by Joseph-Lester and project partners in the research group Curating Video, brought together an international field of researchers from cultural studies, visual art, psychoanalysis and political philosophy, including Professor Ahuvia Kahane, Dr Uriel Orlow and Dr Graham Harman. The ‘Image-space’ conference panel explored new contexts and issues that are crucial to understanding the experience and meaning of images. Joseph-Lester’s conference panel particularly considered how images are an architectural, physical and embodied constructs and how this experiential and immersive image space produces ideological affects. Curating Video’s partnership with Tate Britain led to a second conference in 2010, ‘The Contingency of Curation’. This served as an opportunity to test questions about the role of the curator working alongside large-scale urban regeneration programmes. The online publication is hosted by AND Publishing. The recent publication ‘RE-TAKING LA’ (Urbanomic, 2013) explored the image structure and site of LA; this project extended work with Curating Video into the politics, affect and materiality of the moving image

The Dallas Pavilion

In 2010 Joseph-Lester was commissioned by the Southern Methodist University (Dallas, Texas) to set up and lead a new city pavilion for Dallas. He worked closely with 23 nominated galleries, museums, project spaces and other arts organisations situated across the city to produce a unique interpretation of the cultural life of a city. The resulting publication – a ‘printed pavilion’ – considers the relation between the pervasive global image of the city and the local art spaces that produce culture and asks how location is embedded in the thinking and creative output of Dallas artists, curators, educators, museum directors and critics. The aim of this long-term international research is to interrogate the process through which local identities are exported as a global brand. The Dallas Pavilion builds on Joseph-Lester’s work of previous city or location-specific interpretations of national pavilions (The Manchester Pavilion, 2003 and The Sheffield Pavilion, 2007) and on various projects that treat the book as an exhibition space (Project Biennale, 2009). The Dallas Pavilion was launched at the Venice Biennale in June 2013. A downloadable PDF of the printed pavilion is available online at the peer-reviewed journal What is a Pavilion? (Open University, 2013: openartsjournal.org). This research was first developed through a cross-institutional pedagogic initiative titled Project Biennale that was shown as part of the 2009 Venice Biennale (St George’s Church). This led to a further invitation to attend the international conference, ‘To Biennale or not to Biennale’ (Bergen, 2009) where ‘Project Biennale’ was exhibited as part of the Wanda Svevo Historical Archive on international biennales

Spirit

‘Spirit’ is a photo-essay combining a fictional text with a series of documentary images of the concrete outdoor projection screen designed for the roof of Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation. The monumentality of the screen was used to explore the capacity video has to move us to agreement, to immerse us and to produce what we understand to be our commonality. This work was underpinned by readings of cinematic space as architectural field, leading to the notion that social life may be figured as cinematic territory. ‘Spirit’ was developed from a conference paper presented at ‘Vicissitudes Histories and Destinies of Psychoanalysis’ (University of London, 2008). The work produced through this research became the catalyst for ‘Brutalist Speculations and Flights of Fancy’, resulting in a further publication and symposium (Site Gallery, 2011). This was followed by an invitation to speak at the symposium ‘British Modern Remade – Style. Design. Glamour. Horror’, organised in conjunction with the exhibition ‘British Modern Remade’ (2012) in Sheffield’s Park Hill Estate, one of Europe’s largest listed modernist buildings. This research project also includes Tegel: Flights of Fancy (2012) and Tegel: Speculations and Propositions (2013), which examined the pending closure of Tegel airport. Here the hexagonal concrete design of the terminal was taken as a case study for artists, curators, and writers for considering new approaches to the problems of urban renewal, regeneration, social organisation, mobility and the legacy of modernist architecture. For this project, Joseph-Lester interviewed Tegel Airport’s architect, Meinhard von Gerkan, co-wrote the publication introduction, selected artists and writers, and contributed a new video work. Other contributors included Dr Peter Abey and Dr Ricarda Vidal, curators Maja Ćirić and Elke Falat; fiction writers Sean Ashton and Norman M. Klein. The publication included a DVD of films selected from ‘Tegel: Flights of Fancy’

How can Educational Psychologists facilitate Youth Participatory Action Research to create change?

Youth participatory action research (YPAR) is an emancipatory approach, based on the belief that children and young people (CYP) can and should participate as researchers in an inquiry-based process, aimed at analysing and taking action against oppression (Buttimer, 2018b). YPAR promotes the robust participation of children and young people at every research stage to ensure their voices are included in decisions that affect their lives. Unlike traditional research approaches that prioritise 'objectivity' in research, YPAR aims to conduct research for the explicit political purpose of taking action to create change (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). Educational Psychologists (EPs) have a responsibility to elicit the voices of CYP in their work. This research represents an important contribution to the field of educational psychology research, as it provides the first account of Educational Psychologists facilitating YPAR within academic literature. This research used a case study design to explore how EPs can facilitate YPAR. The project was conducted over one academic year involving 12 young people in Year 12, and was co- facilitated by a qualified EP and a trainee EP (the author). A range of qualitative sources were used to capture different perspectives and experiences of the project and were triangulated to inform the findings. The findings from the research suggest that YPAR is a complex and challenging process to facilitate. YPAR has the potential to be a democratic, empowering approach that can be brought more widely into the field of educational psychology. However, careful considerations are needed by facilitators to mitigate the challenges of the process. For example, facilitators must consider methods to maximise youth researchers' participation and monitor the extent of their own involvement. Implications are discussed in relation to how YPAR can best be facilitated and who is best positioned to facilitate YPAR in schools

Sky Pool

Sky Pool is a printed series of documents that follows the marketing and building of a Sky Pool in Embassy Gardens, London. This project formed part of a collection of research that investigates, interrogates or analyses a range of socially architectural devices: borders, migrations, regeneration, capitalist urban planning, government policy, barrier materials and adhoc structures. The materials from the artists selected to take part in the show were presented at points inside, upon and adjacent to a new large scale structure built for the gallery at ArtLacuna. The curators, Material Conjectures, approached the exhibition as an architectural diagram for encountering knowledges and data produced through the contributors' research activities. All the contributions share a concern with the ongoing crisis conditions of global capitalism and the disordering effects of these upon spatial relations or constructions

Tegel: Speculations and Propositions

Over a period of eighteen months, a selected group of international artists and writers focused their attention on Tegel airport, they observed how it is used, they engaged in new activities and imagined how the building might function in the future. This book and DVD is the outcome of what might be described as an open-ended enquiry and, as such, embodies new perspectives and approaches to the problem of urban renewal, regeneration, social organisation, mobility and the legacy of modernist architecture. This approach to site is central to imagining how art practice can slow down, re-orientate and redefine the successive cycle of masterplans and regeneration schemes so that we can begin to consider what is at stake in the spaces that we occupy. The publication includes a DVD with a selection of 27 short films

Trigger Point

TRIGGER POINT aims to create new points of interaction between artists and experts from a broad range of disciplines to consider how art can have a role in shaping the future city and how this can be facilitated by new digital platforms for sustainable international discussion across disciplines. The core participants in the workshop were artists and academics in the field contemporary fine art, architecture, urban studies, social anthropology, human and physical geography, territorial engineering, digital communications, politics, futurology and history. The group also comprised of curators and representatives of arts commissioning bodies, participants from local government and cultural organisations as well as representatives from the commercial sector. This range of people shared knowledge and working methods through a series of curated city walks which will lead to an exhibition of city guides that together will provide the basis for a new digital platform