Category: Uncategorised

Are you interested in collectively developing and facilitating a workshop for artists, educators and students to explore rights, representation and art education? 

We are inviting 3 students or alumni to collaborate on an APR workshop at the upcoming Rights in Focus Conference – a platform offering radical ways to think differently about art, rights, activism, social justice, care and community.

Building on APR’s work creating space for and collectively re-imagining art and education from an anti-racist and non-hierarchical perspective, we want to open up a conversation and creative space to consider: 

How are rights and representation reflected in our art schools currently?

What could more equitable and just futures for art and education look like?

What values and structures do we need to create a system where art education is possible for all, including those from marginalised and intersectional backgrounds?

We are offering a fee of £200 for each facilitator as well as a free ticket to the 2 day conference, in exchange for working together to develop and facilitate the workshop. You don’t need to have previous experience running workshops, just a connection to the themes we are working with. You will be working collectively with and supported by APR staff members during the process and it’s an opportunity to gain experience and platform your ideas alongside diverse voices from arts, politics, academia, policy, community and campaigning.

If you would like to take part in this opportunity please email aparticularreality@gmail.com with a few lines about your interest in collaboratively creating this workshop, and how it relates to your practice and interests. 

You do not need to have developed any ideas for the workshop at this stage. This opportunity is open to students and alumni from all APR partner universities (Goldsmiths, Kingston, Middlesex and Manchester Metropolitan).

The Rights in Focus conference takes place on 21st and 22nd April 2023 and is organised by Autograph, Camberwell School of Arts and South London Gallery.

A Particular Reality is delighted to invite you to a morning of dialogue and making involving Kingston School of Art, staff, and students from all levels of BA Fine Art, APR members from Goldsmiths University of London, Manchester Metropolitan and Middlesex University. 

When: Wednesday, 29th March 2023, 10am-1pm

Where: KPTK402, 4th floor, Tower Block at Knights Park, Kingston School of Art

Through conversation and making, we hope to unpack the notion of care, and collectively establish the pluralities within what caring may look/feel like to each of us as students and staff within an art school context. 

For the first session, the intentions are to form a dialogue around archiving as care through making of Godhadi (quilt). During this journey of gathering, forming, and stitching, we will be accumulating previous APR posters, comforting textiles, used work/ personal objects, abandoned softness and any materials which may encompass the ‘old you’.

In the later session we will specifically consider the critique in relation to care and consider ways in which this well-established event within art school can become a space in which care is embedded. 

How can we care in multiple ways?

How can we navigate ourselves, our practices and our making within an art school while feeling safe? 

How do these topics connect to ways of practising anti-racism in the art school?

How can the process of archiving be considered to be a caring act?

The sessions will be facilitated by Abhaya Rajani and Alice Gale-Feeny. We will discuss questions around care, act of archiving and collectivity while manifesting Godhadi, which will be part of ‘Archive as Care’ space at Kingston School of Art.

On Sunday 5th of March from 12-3 pm, Warsha Ahmed is hosting a dawat (a celebration around food) where everyone is invited to dress up and bring a dish they really love, that can be shared together. 

This is a part of our “Take Up Space” series in Goldsmiths CCA residency space. 

“Warsha Ahmed is a Kingston School of Art third-year BA Fine Art student. Her work focuses on her South Asian identity, draws attention to some of the problems or experiences she has had, and experiments with how to keep a boundary between her audience and the personal experiences she incorporates into her artwork. She also has spoken on the burdens of being a figure of representation can hold on young people. She strives to create environments where individuals are allowed to be present and exist without having to answer to anything. With this event, she hopes to achieve a comfortable environment to eat and converse as is often achieved within APR.”

*

On Sunday 5th of March from 3-6 pm, the Thursday Club – a Mexican Korean collective that discusses the intersections between art, technology, philosophy and fashion.

They will be discussing Kate Bautista’s manifesto. This workshop will be led by Dabin Kim, a goldsmiths alumni and Alejndro Escobar 

An Excerpt from the text to be discussed on Sunday… 

“Imaginaries for the Business of Fashion is an exploration and exercise in the possibilities for the economic developments of fashion. In this project fashion is imagined and explored through fictional alternatives while brushing with different economic systems, corresponding to the ideology of each economic order. Instead of being inspired superficially by a culture, reference or author – I want to imagine the ways fashion engages with this ideology.”

We hope to see many of you there.

Join us for REIMAGINING CRITS WORKSHOP SERIES PART TWO

Workshop 2

When: Wednesday 1st March, 2-5PM

Where: Goldsmiths CCA Resident’s Space for the 2nd part in our ‘Reimagining Crits’ workshop series. 

In this session we will be expanding on thoughts that emerged from conversations in our first workshop – to develop some plans, ideas and practical guidelines on how to approach crits through an anti-racist, non-hierarchical and collective lens.

All are welcome – whether you have been to an APR session before or not – across all undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Goldsmiths, Kingston, Manchester & Middlesex.

APR invites students, staff and alumni to join us in reimagining the ‘crit’ through an anti-racist and collective lens. How can we envision these models differently by challenging the individualist and singular positioning that crits often assume? What could a non-hierarchical and caring crit look like? How can we make conversations about art more open and accessible to those who are marginalised by the conventional forms these often take within art education? 

Facilitated by APR members, we will use this workshop to collectively decide how to approach the upcoming ‘alternative crit’ sessions and what new possibilities for feedback and sharing about practice are opened up. We will construct proposals for how presenting, facilitating, observing and participating in crits can be more nurturing and inclusive. We encourage students to take an active role in discussing the place of ‘critique’ in developing their practices, and will work together to imagine ways of embedding anti-racist approaches within these key aspects of art and practice-based learning. 

The final workshop in this series will be taking place on 15th March at Goldsmiths CCA.

Join us for REIMAGINING CRITS WORKSHOP SERIES

Workshop 1:

When: Wednesday 15th February, 2-5PM,

Where: Goldsmiths Student’s Union first floor lounge (former cafe)

With ongoing industrial action at universities across the UK, and 18 days of strike likely to affect many prescribed points of presentation and feedback across arts courses, APR will be holding a series of workshops to reimagine what form crits could take outside the institution. 

For the first workshop, APR invites students, staff and alumni to join us in reimagining the ‘crit’ through an anti-racist and collective lens. How can we envision these models differently by challenging the individualist and singular positioning that crits often assume? What could a non-hierarchical and caring crit look like? How can we make conversations about art more open and accessible to those who are marginalised by the conventional forms these often take within art education? 

Facilitated by APR members, we will use this workshop to collectively decide how to approach the upcoming ‘alternative crit’ sessions and what new possibilities for feedback and sharing about practice are opened up. We will construct proposals for how presenting, facilitating, observing and participating in crits can be more nurturing and inclusive. We encourage students to take an active role in discussing the place of ‘critique’ in developing their practices, and will work together to imagine ways of embedding anti-racist approaches within these key aspects of art and practice-based learning. 

All are welcome – whether you have been to an APR session before or not – across all undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Goldsmiths, Kingston, Manchester & Middlesex.

WORKSHOP DATES:

15/02/2023 – How can we re-imagine crits? @ Goldsmiths Student’s Union

01/03/2023 – Alternative Crit 1 @ Goldsmiths CCA Resident’s Space

15/03/2023 – Alternative Crit 2 @ Goldsmiths CCA Resident’s Space

Join us on Wednesday 8th of February for A Particular Reality visit to Cubitt Gallery. We will meet at the gallery at 2:45pm to view the moving image work in the Cubitt 30 Screening Room : “Abundance in Togetherness” curated by the artist and filmmaker Kadeem Oak, who will be joining us for a tour and talk of his curatorial practice. 

When: 8th of February, from 2:45 – 5.00 pm | Where: Cubitt Gallery, 8 Angel Mews, London N1 9HH                                                                                                                

Please note: if you would like to see the films beforehand please come an hour earlier to engage with the entire show.

The work presented in the show features “A selection of artist’s moving image works exploring collective practices and cooperative methods of art making that centre the work of contemporary black British women artists and their artist testimonies; presented in the form of mediatheque and multi-screen installation, these works showcase methods and tools for self-organisation, resistance, reflection, healing and togetherness, backdropped by a landscape of social adversity, uprooting and isolation. “

In addition to our conversation with Kadeem, we will also be joined by Alison Jones who is one of Cubitt galleries 32 studio artists – she will be giving us a tour of her studio!

The gallery itself has a rich history of being one of London’s oldest artist-led cooperatives. Since the moving image work engages with themes along the lines of collectivity, self organisation and anti racist practice – in the spirit of how we do things in APR, this will be a great way to see this show together!

We hope to see many of you there! 

This invitation is open to all students, tutors and alumni who are a part of the APR network from Goldsmiths, Kingston, Middlesex and Manchester School of Art

PLEASE JOIN US on Wednesday, 25th January 2023 from 10.00 – 11.30am for the prof skills talk hosted by Alice Gale-Feeny and will take place on the below Teams link in the form of a Q&A.

Feel free to bring questions to contribute

Date: Wednesday, 25th January 2023

Time: 10am-11.30am

ONLINE –  Click here to join the meeting

Seke Chimutengwende is a choreographer, performer, movement director and teacher. 

Seke uses choreography to experiment with collectivity and alternative approaches to authorship and governance; playing with form to shift and question hierarchies.

His new work It begins in darkness premiered in September 2022, a group choreography looking at ghosts and haunted houses as metaphors for how histories of slavery and colonialism haunt the present. Seke has also recently choreographed a group work for Candoco Dance Company, In Worlds Unknown, which premiered in October 2022.

Seke has been practicing completely improvised performance, using movement and text, since 2006. He has performed over 70 solo improvisations internationally and has performed ensemble improvisation with numerous dancers, actors and musicians. He is currently exploring long solo improvisation performances of 50 to 60 minutes.

Seke studied dance at Lewisham College 1999 – 2001 and London Contemporary Dance School 2001 – 2004 and went on to train extensively in improvisation with a variety of practitioners and with Andrew Morrish in particular.

www.sekechimutengwende.com

JOIN US to the Symposium event – ‘Out of View’ on 16th November, 2.00 – 4.30pm. Main Lecture Theatre (MLT), Knights Park Campus, Kingston School of Art. 

Ali Eisa, Francesca Telling and Liaba Raja will be travelling with Goldsmiths students to Kingston to join the event on site. The event will be accessible live online for students from MMU, Goldsmiths, and Middlesex.

In this event, APR artists Warsha Ahmed, Lucy Carter and Judith Gao (current students and alumni from BA Fine Art) will be considering: What is peripheral? How do we experience the periphery? What is ‘out of view’ in the broader context of the art world or art school? They invite you to join a series of presentations, readings and conversations.  

“My concern on beauty standards was out of the view of my artistic practice, but it was a bodily concern in my everyday life that I wasn’t ready to open up and discuss. I had no idea it would become an inspiration for my artwork”. – Judith Gao

“In my practice I have started to talk about structure/architecture that links to social housing. Using different objects that have meanings in the household that people live in which can be overlooked by most people. The intention of talking about this is for creating an open discussion on what urban planning is for individuals.”  – Lucy Carter

“This assumption of representation holds a heavy burden over students and teachers alike and having to become accustomed to it from such a young age is so damaging to POC individuals that are already so disadvantaged with discrimination in most aspects of our lives.” – Warsha Ahmed

Warm tea will be shared with love and care, we will be thrilled to have you all there!

Join us on Wednesday 6th April for a full day of APR activities to close off this term. Students will also be able to join online via zoom, if they are unable to make it in person.

In the morning we will be screening the new ‘A Particular Reality: Art, Learning, Antiracism’ film, made by Alice, Francesca and Amrit in collaboration with APR students, alumni and staff.

Students at Kingston will be meeting for a screening in the Main Lecture Theatre at 10AM, with Alice, Amrit and artist Abhaya Rajani.

Students at Goldsmiths will be meeting for a screening in the Goldsmiths CCA Residency Space at 12PM, with Francesca.

In the afternoon, Alice and Abhaya will travel with Kingston students to Goldsmiths CCA, to come together for a regrouping session and workshop starting at 2PM in the Residency space.

During this session we will be introducing to you all a proposal for a dissertation based research project and symposium, happening in the summer term. Following this Abhaya Rajani will be leading a Squiggle Drawing exercise inspired by D.W. Winnicot, to help us work towards thinking collaboratively and loosening the academic barriers around research and writing based work. The rest of the session will be spent exploring collaborative opportunities between students’ dissertation research, and working towards the development of research proposals.

Final year students will have the opportunity to discuss their dissertation projects, and find opportunities to work collaboratively with other students in producing a presentation of their research for a symposium, in conversation with artists within the APR network.

For second years, this is a great opportunity for you to hear about students’ dissertation projects, and workshop your own ideas as you start thinking towards writing dissertations next year.

During this conversation first year students will form a separate group with the intention of welcoming you into APR, holding conversation about APR so far this year, and discussing how we can support you for the rest of your studies.

In March Tara White (Goldsmiths alumni and APR contributor) spoke alongside Kabir Jhala, Harriet Cooper and Dr Rachel Warriner as part of a debate initiated by MA Curating students at The Courtauld, investigating the contemporary conditions of collective practices in art.

You can watch a recording of the debate via the link below.