R&D / Major Project. Round-up from the week

As a kind of summary or conclusion to the previous week, I wanted to start off with a note about the symposium was held last Thursday regarding "thought positions in sculpture and the archive".

This was an excellent conference with a very valuable group of speakers, which helped to search out an understanding of how three-dimensional artefacts (not just sculpture), can be thought about in the new millennium. It also touched upon the archive and contemporary art practice. I recall a lecture by Caroline Christoph Bakargiev back in 2014 at the University, and I understood her position following the duration of documenta 13, which was the opposition to the idea of archive. I was really pleased to see that this has become a feed into the work of Dr Alison Rowley, who is now the director for the Centre for sculptural thinking (CST), established in June 2014 and draws the University of Huddersfield art design and architecture school into a memorandum of understanding in collaboration with the Henry Moore Institute and the Hepworth galleries. This has been described as "a rigourous and vibrant research environment".

In a few weeks time, I will be taking part in a bookbinding workshop on Thursday the 25th and Friday, 26 November at the gallery in Huddersfield. On very much looking forward to this.

Whilst I have not been able to attend the "thought bubble" festival in Leeds this year, which is actually a comic art practice festival, I have made a note in my diary for attendance and subsequent years perhaps as there may be some useful ideas to gain from it. As this festival seems to include comic art as its principal subject I wasn't sure if it would be appropriate for my practice at this stage. However from some of the feedback received from other students who have attended, it appears to be a much wider scope than just comic art, as it also includes painting and illustration as a much more open set of genres.

The British Art show is fully underway in Leeds art gallery now, and I am keen to attend the show, particularly over the Christmas holidays as it remains open until 10 January 2016.

There was much discussion this week also about the up-and-coming degree show next year, which will present the full range of works that my year of students, the graduate year, will exhibit.
It was pointed out that the studios have a particular set of "contingencies" with regards to the fact that there is no natural light entering them, so arguably depending on what I need, I need to think about lighting and positioning of my artworks in plenty of time so that this can be arranged through a curatorial team.