The CCW Festival: What is Socially Engaged Practice? is taking place this week throughout Wimbledon, Chelsea and Camberwell campuses. The Fine Art courses have been collaborating to produce an exciting schedule of events across staff and student disciplines. Already this week at Wimbledon we have seen a collection of work from Henry Bradley, a first year Painting student displayed in the Nano Space. Daniel K and Rebecca T, have exhibited Moon Project, an installation and interactive 2D piece in which viewers were invited into the apace to create ‘moon’ inspired work which was exhibited alongside their own. Peter Simpson and Kyle Galloway built a bridge structure whilst limiting their movement to two static points at either side of the room, which was then was filmed and guests were invited to view their creation and watch their film.
Limor Collins, exhibited ‘Taking the stones back to wales’, an exciting mixed media installation exploring film, sculpture and neon sign work that will be shows in three galleries across the UK next year! We were also invited to view an installation by 3rd year Sculpture student, Declan Jenkins whilst Rosie Morris Grove and Sophie Epperlain, two 3rd Painting students, held an exhibition of their work. Alongside this exhibition, Sophia Simensky held a work in progress performance piece using sculpture, film and performance which looked at urban myths and storytelling. Work was also displayed from Addy Goldstein, Mickey Barj, Janine Hall, and Nora Silva with Lucie Nebas, Kat Harvey and Pallavi Dave organising the RELAX ROOM, an interactive performance which has then been left as a social experiment for the rest of the week.
Artist and Curator Barby Asante lead a session designed to explore participatory practices, working with people in non-traditional spaces, residencies and community projects, the definitions of these practices and how different artists approach working in this way. Barby, who has extensive experience in running workshops talks regularly to artists about practices so her insight and attendance was of great relevance. We also heard talks from Jim Brook, the director of a performance company at the university of Gloucestershire, Tom Hunter who spoke about his recent film shown at the Serpantaine Gallery earlier this year, Jessica Voorsanger on her current exhibition at the Peckham Space, Peckham Heroes and Alistair McKinven who gave a Fine Art forum visiting artists talk which discussed Painting practice.
Costume Design students offered tours of their most recent installations, each lasting 5 minutes with only 7 people at a time allowed and the Asylum Dialogues, scripted by award-winning playwright Sonja Linden, was premiered Wednesday afternoon. The concept which was conceived and researched by Christine Bacon, is drawn from real-life conversations and reveals the moving, funny and poignant relationships between British people and refugees who have fled violence and persecution in their own countries. It was launched in collaboration with Refugee Action during Refugee Week 2008 and toured to four UK cities, culminating in a sold-out performance at the Tricycle Theatre.
Jessica Rutherford and Chelsea student Sarah Jones, collaborated exploring the life of a woman in Clapham Junction, who everyday for the past 20 years has taken photographs of strangers from the exact same spot. Jessica and Sarah have conducted a documentary on this lady from the other side of the camera in the form of photographs, film and documentation. Essentially this exhibition delves into the social behaviour and anthropology within art.
Aswell as talks and various exhibitions, students and staff were also invited to the Art Exchange, where they were given the opportunity to swap art work prints, buy unwanted stuff and limited edition zines. The Wimbledon Amateur Society also ran NEW HORIZONS IN POPULAR MUSIC, a festival of music including bands Wood and Welcome to O.C. Bitch.
Running throughout the week is TBMTV, a collaborative T.V. studio broadcasting student performances live and the Tutor/Student Show which contains work by academic and technical staff from Wimbledon, alongside students work. The Private Views which ran on Monday and Wednesday invited a range of people the opportunity to see the work of the college staff and the direct influence they have on the student body. Also Theodora Sutton, who’s Private View ran on Wednesday afternoon, designed an installation about outer space involving countless of LED lights.
Still to come is a collection of wall based colleges by Tara Dickinson, a workshop by Peter Fillingham and Kate Janes at 11am on Friday and a lecture from Wimbledon alumnus Michael Eden, who graduated from BA Fine Art Painting on Psychoanalysis at 2pm. There is also the discussion on the importance of an awareness of socially engaged practice amongst students by Rosalind Davis and Sarah Rowles. This subject is especially targeted for those who are interested in working with people, social, educational or political issues and will run at 3pm on Friday 18th.
