Rural Voices – from Depmore to Shocklach

Highlighting the role of women farm workers in Cheshire

An Artist’s Anthropological Approach to Sustainability

Recent studies of sustainability draw attention to the impact art and culture have on communities. The Earth Charter, which originated in 1968, fostered the idea of ‘a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace’. This article supports the idea that art can make a difference to society and examines four case studies which explore the infra-ordinary within the immensity of social, political, historical and physical non-art places. The stance adopted is that of an artist, anthropologist and storyteller casting light onto a cultural landscape that is so ordinary as to be not noticed at all. Whilst the methodology is slow and often undramatic, this meticulous approach is essential in that it allows the artist to develop a respect for both people and place or, as explained by Kuspit : ‘to recover a sense of human purpose in art making, engaging with the realities of life as it is actually lived’. Whereas All in the Mind was an investigation into the internal and external conflicts and structures within mental institutions and their impact on individual patients’ lives, High Riser questioned central government’s approach to housing asylum seekers in Sighthill flats in Glasgow which depersonalised the individuals involved. Sojourn and Inland Waters illuminated the social demographics of a working shipyard environment. Making Visible the Invisible explores the role as a lead artist, involved in the planning stages of an urban development project, as a creative thinker rather than object maker

The Calling Sheds

Mackinnon-Day’s has been collaborating with female English farmers for seven years. This research interrogates why the wives of farmers were and remain some of the most elusive figures in agrarian history whose labour, on the farm, has been largely unpaid and unrecorded. In The Calling Sheds (2019), Tracing the Landscape (2018) she has been excavating the minutiae of these woman’s lives, specifically, the physical evidence, historical background, psychological effect, social circumstances and political contexts. Tracing the Landscape was a multi-layered digital and mixed media gallery installation. This comprised of an assembled immersive ‘sheds’ or environments that allowed for a communal space for the mapping of new arguments and interpretations that illuminated female agrarian history. The Calling Sheds has extended this research to work with shepherds across the UK and Republic of Ireland: Teleri Fielden, Snowdonia, North Wales; Catherine O'Grady Powers, Louisburgh, Ireland; Lisa Berry, Cartmel Fell, Cumbria and Lisa Gast, Isle of Bute, Scotland. Through discussions and collaboration with this larger demographic she has erected individual sheds in the four farm locations. MacKinnon-Day will work collaboratively with each person to personalise the interior and exterior of the sheds. Poets, musicians and performance artists from each country will also be commissioned to respond to the narratives in the shed of their country alongside Mackinnon-Day who will create a responsive work from her studio. A planned documentary feature-length documentary on the project is currently being discussed with a film maker. The research examines how site intervention and collaborative artworks can offer women working with agriculture a voice, giving them access to national and international forums. This outcome has already enabled the exchange of ideas and working processes between women, embracing social inclusion and environmental sustainability in rural areas. The published work has been shared with a national and international social media network of farm workers and given extensive local and national media coverage

Digital Open

An exhibition featuring artworks from multi-media artists David Cotterrell, Nayan Kulkarni and Patricia MacKinnon-Day.The exhibition is a satellite programme to the Grosvenor Museum's Open Art Exhibition

Origin, Darwin Green

MacKinnon-Day researched Charles Darwin archives, methods and ways of testing theoretical questions. She worked closely with Roger Parsons ( the UK’s leading sweet pea horticulturist) to emulate Darwin’s sweet pea experiment (1855), blending two species into one. The public artworks produced for the Darwin Green housing development are The Darwin Green Sweet Pea, comprising a newly propagated seed made for distribution to incoming tenants and Origin; an etched and printed glass plate permanent light installation, visually critiquing and re-appropriating Darwin’s archival drawings, experiments and his use of phototropism. Darwin Green sweet pea (2019) and Origin (2019) art works have been informed by this rigorous research and archival excavation, focusing on the minutiae within the working processes of Charles Darwin. The two public artworks will embed this Darwinian ethos into the new Darwin Green development. A Welcome Folder illustrating the research process will be distributed to new tenants. The Darwin Green Sweet Pea, once planted throughout the area, will give the new development a distinct visual identity. Having been created using Darwinian research methods this hybrid sweet pea will have been specifically produced for the residents of Darwin Green to enjoy. A publication will capture and record ‘living memories’ of Cambridge residents who maintain an allotment, explaining their different approaches, experiments with regards to self sufficiency and home food production. Also in the Welcome Pack, there will be a publication that offers local knowledge and evidence about Cambridge allotments and their history which dates back to Anglo – Saxon times. This will include the possibility of renting a local allotment , thereby carrying on this tradition and further embedding Darwinian ideas as a contemporary process. This aspect of the project will contextualise this relatively soulless housing estate within a rich cultural layer of social and political history

Artist Teacher Associates Exhibitions, symposiums, residencies and workshop events

Mackinnon-Day was co-Director and co-founder of the Artist Teachers Association, C.I.C. organisation, which operated between 2013- 2017 in partnership with The Whitworth, Manchester; Tate, Liverpool; Curious Minds; Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool; Double Negative, Liverpool; The Atkinson Gallery, Southport and NSEAD. ATA was an experimental research, production and learning initiative that offered new and challenging site interventions for art teachers to inspire their teaching pedagogy and impact on pupils experience within the classroom. The Association offered a forum to develop subject knowledge in response to current issues within a supportive environment. The ATA was set up due to a deficiency of quality engagement with contemporary art in secondary schools and further education, Darren Henley in his review of Cultural Education (2012) proposed that teachers should maintain their practice as artists. There is a lack of high-quality engagement with contemporary art in secondary schools and further education. (Watson and Downing 2004, Ofsted 2008, Ofsted 2011). Research showed that Continuing Professional Development that supports the development of Artist Teachers own contemporary art practice is a significant factor in enhancing the art curriculum, young peoples’ access to contemporary practice and positive role models (Ofsted 2011; Hyde 2005 ). The ATA followed through with both Mackinnon-Day and Heitt’s first-hand experience of delivering the Artist Teacher MA programme at LJMU (2007 – 2013) in collaboration with Tate Liverpool and the National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD). and demonstrated profound and positive impact in Artist Teacher practice and their students experience and performance at external examination and in accessing career pathways in the visual arts. The support provided through the Artist Teacher Associates created a safe environment for experimentation, risk taking and re-validating personal contemporary practice. Members benefited from peer support in addition to specialist arts and education interventions through the online forum, face-to-face meetings, workshops, talks and seminars. In addition to publications and presentations at international conferences in this field, Mackinnon-Day and Heitt created a network, bringing together artists, educators, creative organisations to facilitate critical exchange and engagement with members’ work. The process involved the instigation of an extensive program of artists talks, symposiums and residencies to strengthen the artistic ecology within educational establishments of the North West. These user-generated activities were devised and developed in response to members’ needs and requests

Intimacy and Immensity A Practice-led Explo of People and Place

The core research question is: Can an auto-ethnographic approach to inquiry inform a creative process leading to an addition to knowledge? My five case studies examine my work as an artist, auto-ethnographer and storyteller who, through a range of research processes and creative installations in non-art sites, makes visible cultural landscapes that are ordinarily hidden. These case studies reflect on practitioners such as Georges Perec, Walter Benjamin, the Arte Povera movement, The Artists Placement Group (APG) Cornelia Parker, Jannis Kounellis and Richard Wilson. The aims of my research practice are to: • produce art that brings apparently uneventful and overlooked aspects of lived experience into visibility. • record ordinary lives in their everyday places for people to see now and in the future. • excavate a site-specific place through its physical, historical, psychological, social, and political contexts taking into consideration the aspects of time within the minutiae of everyday life. • interrogate, examine and create ideas for artworks in places where art is not normally practiced or seen. Whilst my methodology of working within a site is often slow and undramatic, a meticulous approach is essential, in that it allows me as an artist to develop a respect for both people and place and to illuminate the realities of everyday experience. I use the word ‘palimpsest’ to describe my process of excavating and investigating multiple layers of a place over a significant period of time. The element of time in my work is crucial regarding the autobiographical; from the historical to the contemporary; researching a place; embedding myself within a place; making the work and writing about the work after it is completed. All these different elements, which I have a strong connection to are important to my work. Time and loss are key concepts in analysing and understanding the subtext of my research and outcomes. The thinking within this text draws upon theoretical sources including Lucy Lippard’s idea of ‘weaving lived experiences’ within the ‘subject of place’ Lippard (1997), Paul Virilio's study of the ‘infra-ordinary’ and Warwick’s reflections on artists engaged with communities and Goffman's ethnographic study of asylums. Certain aspects of my methodology are borrowed from the practice of auto-ethnographers who use personal experience to examine and critique life experiences that confront pressures that exist from both inside and outside standpoints. I also use the term ‘auto-ethnography’ throughout this essay because it is appropriate to how I am either pulled towards a specific place or the way in which I research within a place. My practice involves an on-going process of questioning: the social, how and in what way is a space used? the political, what are the ramifications and political complexities of a place? psychological, how does it makes me feel? the historical, what are the historical traces and their significance? the physical, what can be seen, found and accessed? The conclusion supports the idea that art can illuminate and make visible aspects of lived experience and histories that have been buried or lie hidden. The Case Studies evidence the value and significance of an artist’s examination of the infra-ordinary within complex layers of non-art places. From my research, I am confident that the case studies contained in this essay are not only original but have no real equivalent precedent. Evidence is provided in volume 2 from arts organisations, journals, conferences, and case studies on heritage and public art that clearly demonstrate that my published works have made an original contribution to knowledge. The supporting material also substantiates how various agencies think differently about artists engagement within the public realm and in the field of heritage conservation as a consequence of my work. I believe this is an important legacy of my work above and beyond their value as art projects. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my Director of Studies, Professor Caroline Wilkinson and co-supervisors, Professor Colin Fallows and Professor John Hyatt for their patient guidance, encouragement and advice. Similar gratitude to Sam Ainslie who has been a true friend and dedicated mentor. I am also grateful to my husband Tom for his moral support throughout. With special thanks to all the people with whom I have collaborated during these projects over the last twenty years. Finally, but by no means least, thanks go to my mother, who died 24th January 2017, whose strength of spirit was an inspiration to me. I dedicate this thesis to her

Constructing Connections: Fiction, Art and Life (2017)

Constructing connections: Fiction, Art and Life was a series of art works and public events held in Croxteth Hall. This research was based on an interrogation of Tressell’s 1914 seminal socialist tract, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It investigated and made parallels with current societal inequalities and of the historical period as described in text. MacKinnon-Day engaged daily with the staff and volunteers at Croxteth Hall during this residency. This interaction was a key onsite catalyst for her research and was disseminated through subsequent a blog, seminars, community engagement, exhibitions and a publication. This interrogation of place as seen, through the lens of Tressell’s text, formed the basis from which further academic discussion took place at the Centre for Literature and Cultural History at LJMU. The project extended Mackinnon-Day’s previous research enquiry: An Artist's Anthropological Approach to Sustainability. This was published in The International Journal of Art and Design October 2016. The works produced are now incrementally integrated into the Hall’s permanent public displays. On completion of the exhibition, the imagery and text were circulated nationally in a ‘newspaper’ publication with essays offering a critical review of the exhibition from Tessa Jackson OBE and academic Dr Deaglan O’Donghaile. The onsite research created ideas for artworks in a place where contemporary art is not normally practiced or seen. It extended the contemporary discourse e.g. Lucy Lippard’s idea of ‘weaving lived experiences’ within the ‘subject of place’ The Lure of the Local (1998) and Paul Virilio's study of the ‘infra-ordinary’ The Everyday, Johnston (2008) about bringing the uneventful and overlooked aspects of lived experience into visibility. As planned, the artworks subverted the nostalgic narrative of Edwardian life portrayed in the permanent exhibits and promoted contemporary relevance. The resultant exhibition, blog, schools and public engagement expanded the themes and ideas of the project identified through a series of installations developed in response to the text and site

Population Genomics of the Immune Evasion (var) Genes of Plasmodium falciparum

Var genes encode the major surface antigen (PfEMP1) of the blood stages of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum. Differential expression of up to 60 diverse var genes in each parasite genome underlies immune evasion. We compared the diversity of the DBLα domain of var genes sampled from 30 parasite isolates from a malaria endemic area of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and 59 from widespread geographic origins (global). Overall, we obtained over 8,000 quality-controlled DBLα sequences. Within our sampling frame, the global population had a total of 895 distinct DBLα “types” and negligible overlap among repertoires. This indicated that var gene diversity on a global scale is so immense that many genomes would need to be sequenced to capture its true extent. In contrast, we found a much lower diversity in PNG of 185 DBLα types, with an average of approximately 7% overlap among repertoires. While we identify marked geographic structuring, nearly 40% of types identified in PNG were also found in samples from different countries showing a cosmopolitan distribution for much of the diversity. We also present evidence to suggest that recombination plays a key role in maintaining the unprecedented levels of polymorphism found in these immune evasion genes. This population genomic framework provides a cost effective molecular epidemiological tool to rapidly explore the geographic diversity of var genes

Poverty, social exclusion and dental caries of 12-year-old children: a cross-sectional study in Lima, Peru

Background: Socioeconomic differences in oral health have been reported in many countries. Poverty and social exclusion are two commonly used indicators of socioeconomic position in Latin America. The aim of this study was to explore the associations of poverty and social exclusion with dental caries experience in 12-year-old children. Methods: Ninety families, with a child aged 12 years, were selected from 11 underserved communities in Lima (Peru), using a two-stage cluster sampling. Head of households were interviewed with regard to indicators of poverty and social exclusion and their children were clinically examined for dental caries. The associations of poverty and social exclusion with dental caries prevalence were tested in binary logistic regression models. Results: Among children in the sample, 84.5% lived in poor households and 30.0% in socially excluded families. Out of all the children, 83.3% had dental caries. Poverty and social exclusion were significantly associated with dental caries in the unadjusted models (p = 0.013 and 0.047 respectively). In the adjusted model, poverty remained significantly related to dental caries (p = 0.008), but the association between social exclusion and dental caries was no longer significant (p = 0.077). Children living in poor households were 2.25 times more likely to have dental caries (95% confidence interval: 1.24; 4.09), compared to those living in non-poor households. Conclusion: There was support for an association between poverty and dental caries, but not for an association between social exclusion and dental caries in these children. Some potential explanations for these findings are discussed