News & Events October 2009

Emerging Researcher receives grant from Janet Arnold Trust

Sally Grant has recently been awarded a grant from the Janet Arnold Trust for a new research project which analyses of the pattern-cutting and manufacturing techniques used by the designer Ossie Clark, in his collaboration with the clothing manufacturer, Radley from 1968 -1977.

Although Clark's designs drew heavily upon ‘old Hollywood films' (Birtwell, 2008), it was his ability to transform ‘ideas from the past' (Waddell, 2007) and make them commercially viable that made him part of the ‘ready to wear revolution'. (Ibid, 2007). Clark's special talent was in his translation of ideas into cut and construction of garments that women wanted to buy and wear, in the transitional period of the late 60s to the beginning of the 70s. In his cut of clothing he expressed an innate understanding of form, balance and embodiment that he translated into feminine and commercial clothing lines for Radley. By examining the sample garments and ‘specs' from the Radley archive and comparing them and the manufacturing techniques used, to Clark's more exclusive range for Quoram and his own label (Ossie Clark of London) it will be possible to document the translation of the clothing into the ready-to-wear market, (through the cut and construction) a phenomenon that was spear-headed by British designers like Clark and Jean Muir.

The hierarchy that exists within the subject areas of art and design history has often tended to marginalise the social history of fashion, preferring the canons of Haute Couture, something resembling the art exhibit. This tendency, particularly in the staging of exhibitions has automatically precluded the contribution of manufacturing processes and its contribution to the cultural significance of British Fashion and style.

Follow Dr Canavan's Research

Currently on extended research leave, Keireine Canavan is in Kuwait conducting research on The Patterns and Symbolism of Bedouin Al Sadu Weaving in Kuwait. Keep up-to-date with her progress via her research blog.

Canavan is researching the Bedouin Al Sadu weaving patterns and traditional symbolism at the National Museum of Kuwait: Sadu House, in collaboration with Sheikha Altaf Salem Al Ali Al Sabah, researcher and writer on cultural and traditional arts in Kuwait, and patron to the AlSadu Cooperative Society. The focus of the research is on the shajarah or tent divide; the woven panel that divides the men's quarters from the women's, in the traditional Bedouin desert tent.

In less than half a century, the discovery of oil in Kuwait resulted in an astonishing and rapid transformation of the country, when many cultural traditions were altered, diminished or lost. This once small community of seafaring men, pearl divers, tradesmen and nomads, with associated traditional skills and artforms, was significantly changed and were seen by the younger generation as out of date and unnecessary. Consequently, artforms such as Al Sadu weaving and the meaning of patterns and designs are in danger of being lost forever.

In its widest linguistic application, Al Sadu means to extend or to stretch and spread. As used by the Bedu tribespeople of Kuwait, it means the process of wool weaving, the actual woven objects, as well as the ground loom itself. Al Sadu refers to the rhythm of the long and gentle pace of the camel's stride, the rhythmical extension of the hands when weaving, and the traditional artform of Arab poetry.

The most important woven item to the nomadic tribespeople is the tent or Bayt al Sha'ar; the Bedu home or ‘black hair tent' made from sheep's wool, goat and camel hair. The shajarah or tent divide is an ornate screen that incorporates many coloured patterns and designs, derived from the surrounding desert environment and reflects the instinctive Bedu awareness of the natural beauty of the desert.

Research Updates

Dr Cathy Treadaway, Reader in Creative Practice

At the Cutting Edge: Impact Print Conference in Bristol September 16th -19th 2009. Dr Cathy Treadaway and Charlotte Hodes presented their paper ‘At the Cutting Edge' that was developed during the AHRC funded project ‘a collaborative investigation into the role of the handcraft and digital processes within creative practice'. The presentation included images of the intricate papercut artworks made by Hodes and the research DVD made by Treadaway to document the making of the artworks for the exhibition ‘Drawing Skirts', held at the Baring Wing University Gallery, University of Northumbria in April 2008.

Research collaboration with Australia: Kris Smith, Photomedia Coordinator and lecturer from the School of Drama, Fine Art and Music at The University of Newcastle NSW, Australia visited Cardiff School of Art and Design on September 10th to meet Treadaway, and learn more about her ‘Shorelines' research project. Kris visited Contemporary Textile Practice to see the Mimaki digital ink-jet printer and examples of the Shorelines artwork being printed. He also visited Product Design where Pete Hathaway, demonstrated use of the 3D digital printer and Kris was able to have hands on experience of using a haptic input device. This research visit came as a result of Cathy's conference presentation at the ArtsHealth Conference held at Newcastle University, NSW last October.

Kris also met with Dr. Steve Gill, Director of Research and was able to discuss ideas for future collaborative projects with UWIC and the University of Newcastle NSW.

Shorelines: Residency at Brisons Veor: Treadaway, and Scottish Textile Artist Alison F. Bell used their Artists' Residency at Brisons Veor Women's Artspace in Cornwall in July/August to continue their Shorelines research project which is investigating collaboration in digital creative practice. The two week residency enabled both artists to extend their individual art practice as well as initiate new collaborative digital work which will be developed over the coming months in preparation for the Shorelines exhibition in 2010. The research is investigating creative processes including hand use, drawing and crafting and the influences of physicality and materiality on digital idea development.

Roger Wooster

September 8th-10th. Presented a paper entitled TIE: More than Just a Message at the "Inspiring Transformations" conference, Northampton University on Applied Arts and Health. The three day conference consisted of looking at a variety of ways in which the arts are used in various therapies for social and health outcomes. TIE: More than Just a Message focussed on the current state of Theatre in Education which is increasing being used to convey health messages.

July 12th-19th. I attended the International Federation for Theatre Research conference in Lisbon where I presented a paper on ‘Semiotics, Celebrity and the Audience'. This was part of my RSS grant for 2008-9 which started with a production of the Restoration Comedy "The Man of Mode" in November 2008. This research production looked at the nature of Restoration use of gesture on stage and, by relocating the acting to the 21st century in Act II, posited the notion that today's gestures as used by the young and fashionable have a similar genesis, cause and motive. These ideas were written up for a paper delivered at Lisbon and are now being expanded for publication.

Spring 2009. Article on an inclusive theatre project for Research in Drama Education. Vol 14 No.1. This looked at the work of Odyssey theatre, an inclusive community theatre company based in Cardiff. Through an analysis of a particular project the article consider issues of inclusion within the creative arts.

Glynn Stockton at the International Conference on Engineering & Product Design Education

10 & 11 september 2009
university of brighton, uk

The E&PDE conference brought together representatives from education and industry that have an interest in developing new approaches and directions in design education. The conference provided a forum for educators and researchers from product development, engineering and industrial design, together with industry and government representatives to discuss current educational issues and to identify new approaches, new challenges and new directions for development.

The 11th IEP&D conference focussed on the topic of ‘Creating a Better World' reflecting the increasing emphasis on the importance of design in addressing such issues as sustainability, old-age and inclusiveness, etc.

Stockton's paper STIGMA: Addressing negative associations in product design focussed the negative association in Inclusive Design, specifically the issue of artefacts employed by users outside of mainstream society carrying a negative association independently of the user. This can result in mainstream users rejecting the product, which can in turn become a signifier of the stigmatised condition leading to further discrimination.

The paper details methods identified for addressing negative associations that products can carry when employed by stigmatised user groups. Research was conducted and several methods were identified where products had become successfully disassociated from the stigmatised user, meaning that the product itself was free from any negative association. These methods were then taxonomised and evaluated for effectiveness for creating artefacts free of negative association.

It was found that it is possible to create artefacts that are free from negative association and although it may not have been the intention to address the stigma of the user, this may occur as a benefit.

Paul Cabuts - Outlook: Contemporary Photographs and Collective Memories

Photography, Archive and Memory Symposium
Centre for Research in Film and Audio Visual Cultures, Roehampton University, London.
Friday 5th June 2009.

Recent debates about photography and the archive are currently being reformulated in relation to ‘memory' resulting in a critical challenge to more traditional formulations of the history of photography and notions of ‘archive'. This one-day symposium aimed to map the emerging body of work from practitioners, theorists, historians and curators and critically reflect on the theoretical and methodological implications of the use of ‘memory' as a conceptual category within photography.

Cabuts's paper Outlook: Contemporary Photographs and Collective Memories examines the trajectory of the historical photographs through the spheres in which they were commissioned, presented and collected, and how the reappropriation of images can challenge a seemingly stereotyped and mythologized collective memory.

Using a collection of photographic albums relating to the building of roads in the 1920s, designed to improve cross-valley communications, offer an example of how the currency of photographs can shift as they move between private, commercial and public spheres. Not least these albums, now held in the National Museum Wales collections, provide a pertinent example of how certain photographic documents can be excluded from a largely stereotyped collective memory.

The contemporary photographic work ‘Outlook' was developed as a response to the photographic albums of the 1920s. The project not only offered a twenty-first century examination of the terrain documented in the earlier photographs, but also provided an opportunity to examine the ways in which personal memories could modify readings of historical images.

Paul Cabuts has recently completed his PhD at the European Centre for Photographic Research where he examined the factors shaping the development of the photographic arts in Wales during the second-half of the twentieth century.

Russell Roberts - Hidden Country
Photographs of the Free Wales Army 1966-68

Shown in conjunction with Tim Brennan's English Anxieties, Hidden Country draws on the contents of the court files for the Crown Prosecution case against the members of the Free Wales Army (Byddin Rhyddid Cymru); a group of insurgents who looked to establish an independent Welsh republic.

The exhibition forms part of Russell Robert's ongoing enquiry into photography, its institutions and shaping of historical consciousness. It highlights competing investments in photographs as unequivocal documents and crafted fictions and how such images can often exchange their roles and values. The court files, from which the images are drawn, contain police surveillance photographs taken by Dyfed-Powys Constabulary alongside scenes of FWA manoeuvres staged for journalists and film-makers. The exhibition consists of new prints that have been made from digital scans of the deteriorating originals, preserving them at a particular point in time as mortal objects, the chemical and visual deterioration comparable with the processes of memory - human and institutional - as details are forgotten or erased.

As material traces of a particular historical moment some 40 years since the Investiture, the exhibition invites reflection on questions of nationalism and the role of images to both support and undermine it. Hidden Country also draws attention to the ways that archives shape historical consciousness and how exhibitions can offer an antidote to forgetting by suggesting new frames of reference. The question of surveillance and subversion, of dominion over potential threat through the power of images, still holds great contemporary relevance where the consequences of imperialism are ever present.

Hidden Country was held from 7 July - 29 August 2009 at the John Hansard Gallery. The exhibition was curated by Russell Roberts (eCPR), and organised in collaboration with the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.

State of the Estate

Penpont near Brecon, Powys
11 - 18 October 2009

For Stad yr Ystad - State of the Estate, Sue Hunt & Helen Sear are among the nineteen artists have created original work in response to the location and these themes. Working estates such as Penpont were traditionally at the centre of rural life but fell into disrepair during the 20th century due to socio-economic forces. In the early 21st century, Penpont is attempting in its current initiatives to maintain and develop a creative and positive relationship with its locality against the backdrop of economic and environmental uncertainty.

Sue Hunt's work focuses on a visual exploration of botanical forms, whilst Helen Sear's Heroic Vegetables explores the ancient virtues and great figures embodied in both history painting and the concept of heroism that are no longer currency in contemporary art practice.

Sear will also be showing Beyond the View at Hoopers Gallery, London, on 22 October 2009. Beyond the View continues Sear's practice of double-time image making and explores ideas of vision, touch, and the representation of the nature of experience, combining drawing, lens-based media and digital technologies. The work has evolved from previous investigations into the sublime and an engagement with both the retinal and the digital, where the drawn/erased element becomes the interface between formal clichés of both landscape and portraiture, particularly within the northern romantic tradition of painting.

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