News & Events March 2011

Aspects of Our National Heritage purchased by V&A

Two major compendiums of Professor David Ferry's original photomontage have been bought for the national collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in a joint grant bid from the National Art Library and V&A.

North Wales (1999) and Aquariums in English Country Houses in Colour (2010) are part of Ferry's on going series of Artists Books titled Aspects of Our National Heritage that were begun in 1989. This is the second significant sale of his work to important international museum collections in the last year ( Museum of Modern Art ,New York 2010) and follows a significant acquisition from The Art Institute of Chicago in 2001.

The two works will enter into the 'Word and Image' Department at the V&A.

Art of this Place: Women Artists in Cameroon

Florence Ayisi's (International Film School, Wales) documentary film portrait of a group of women artists in Cameroon will be shown in at a number of film festivals in March including; CINEMAFRICA Film Festival, Sweden; FILM AFRIKANA, Norway and IMAGES OF BLACK WOMEN Film Festival, London. The documentary presents an intimate portrait of women artists in Cameroon and rare insights into the rich variety of women's creative expressions in fine art. From wood sculptures to different forms of painting and ceramics, their artwork portrays their visions and passion for their culture and arts. A special exhibition at the National Museum provides a platform for the women to show their talent and their worth as creative artists.

The project is part of Ayisi's practice-based research using documentary films to portray the affirmative aspects of African people, showing how women's work and visions are at the vanguard of socio-cultural and economic development, as well as celebrating the growing emancipation of African women.

Research Update: Wendy Keay-Bright

Wendy Keay-Bright (ReacTICKLES) has been successful in gaining funding from the Rayne Foundation for her latest experimental research project, Multicoloured Magic. The project is a collaboration between Openframeworks software artists, CSAD and Ashgrove School, Penarth. Building on the findings from ReacTickles, the project will create a series of responsive environmental technology applications that react to movement and sound and evaluate their appropriation by children with severe autism conditions to regulate emotions. Keay-Bright is joined by research student, Beverley Winn, from the School of Health Science, bringing some new scientific approaches into the design research. Keay-Bright and Joel Gethin Lewis will be giving a paper about the project at Include 2011, the Royal College of Art in April.

Following from a recent trip to Australia, where she gave a paper at the prestigious PDC2010 conference in Sydney, and ran a workshop for SCOPE Victoria in Melbourne, Keay-Bright has been invited to present at the SCOPE Communicate, Participate, Enjoy Solutions to Inclusion conference through a Skype link and is following up opportunities for a return visit in the autumn. SCOPE therapists have been using ReacTickles with their clients for sometime and welcome the project taking new directions to amplify the abilities of people with movement and coordination disorders.

The ECHOES project is in its final evaluation phase, Keay-Bright and two co-investigators have recently had a paper accepted for the peer-reviewed journal, Co-Design. As the 4th major design paper the team have had accepted, the project looks set to deliver some high impact outcomes.

In early February Keay-Bright was invited to give a guest lecture at Dundee University, which has attracted interest in further collaboration. She was also invited to give a presentation at the National Autistic Society Professional Conference, to talk about ReacTickles, ECHOES and more recent large scale environmental work. The reception and feedback was extremely positive from the audience, who were mostly practitioners and experts in the field of autism. She has since been invited to feature in the NAS journal, Communicate, in the autumn.

Keay-Bright has recently had a paper accepted for the Journal of Ubiquitous and Pervasive Technology, Special Issue on Autism and Technology. She has also just completed her SIP with Martin Price Associates, which led to writing a major funding bid with Autism Cymru and Mudiad Ysgolion Meithrin.

WritingPAD Wales Symposium

Annie Grove-White will host a session with Kirsten Hardie (Bournemouth University) at the WritingPAD Wales Symposium on 1st April at Swansea Metropolitan University. The session focuses on the collaborative work of two UK Graphic Design courses that have created a unique undergraduate research symposium to help students develop and disseminate their final year dissertation. The session considers how the symposium can help to advance and celebrate learning; how it can develop communication skills, confidence and student responsibility and pride in their work.

Professor Andre Stitt: New Territories, New Work

Prof. Stitt (CFAR) will present a keynote introduction at ‘This is Performance Art - Polish Roots' at New Territories International Festival of Live Art, Glasgow on 5th March 2011. The event will investigate and contextualise the origins of Polish Performance art and will include a panel discussion chaired by Stitt with veteran Polish artist and academics Jerzy Beres, Zbigniew Warpechowski, Janusz Baldyga, Artur Tajber and Zbigniew Piotrowski.

Stitt has been awarded a British Council grant to present work in New Zealand during May 2011. Performances and installation exhibitions will take place at Spectral Arc: Vanishing point in St. Paul Gallery, Auckland and Triple AAA, a collaboration with Alastair McLennan and Adrian Hall at Dunedin School of Art gallery.

Stitt's work will also be included in the group exhibition New Work Old Tricks 30 at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, Australia from April - 7 August 2011 and Galerie Lehtinen, Berlin as part of the International group exhbition The DEATHANDDADA of Everyday Life from 29th April - 28th May.