Student Academic Partner programme talks

Since October 2013 I have already become involved in the Student Academic Partnership programme. We have been working in partnership with Eastside Projects – an artist led gallery in Digbeth with Elinor Morgan. 

Myself and two other students organised the SAP talks in which we selected and contacted a variety of artists to visit Eastside projects to deliver talks to students about how they got to where they are and discussions and explanations of their work. We initially drew up our own lists of artists who we were interested in. We met to discuss our initial thoughts and Ellie gave us information of Speakers who were involved last year to give us an idea of the people that were invited.  We initially had approximately 20 suggestions and narrowed these down to 6 with who we thought the students would most enjoy and the best variety of speakers.

My responsibilities included helping to create an email to invite our chosen speakers. I helped provide information to the speakers regarding costs and times of most convenient travel. I introduced two of the speakers and gave a brief outline in front of students about the background of each speaker. I was also responsible for recording the talks using video and sound and editing them for pod-casting. Between the 3 of us we wrote a short bio for each speaker and Megan used Moodle to publish these weekly to allow students to research into the speakers in advance to their talks.

We have had great feedback from students and staff who have attended these talks and each student has found at least one of them helpful in relation to the development of their own practice and ideas of where they can work in the future. The talks will be podcasted and available for student use. 

(30 hours)

Speakers included:

• Kellenberger White

They are a graphic design consultancy specialising in art direction, the design of typefaces, identities, books and exhibitions, as well as campaigns, information graphics and websites for individuals, businesses and cultural institutions. Recent commissions include work for Design Museum, Frieze Foundation, Glasgow International, MIT Press, Royal College of Art, Turner Contemporary, Wellcome Trust and White Cube.

• Paul Purgas

Paul is a London based Curator and Musician. Paul Purgas trained as an architect and graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004. He has since been based in the curatorial department at Arnolfini and curated contemporary art and performance projects for Tate Britain, the De La Warr Pavilion, Spike Island, Frieze Art Fair and Bold Tendencies.

• Samara Scott

Samara is a a London-based artist. Slipping between infusions of nature and artificial imitation, antiquity and plasticity, synthetic import and organic craft class, the materiality mish mashes a trickled down Art History into an interior language of disposable nostalgia and melancholy. There’s a certain slippiness. An uncomfortable eroticism and mastication between textures, products, fashion and style. An associative membrane, a dense scenery or mood board of shapes, smells, forms and materials.

• Isobel whitelegg

Isobel is the Head of Public Programmes being run at the Nottingham Contemporary, which is one of the largest contemporary art centres in the UK.

The Public Programme at Nottingham Contemporary is a platform for the research and critical debate of ideas and practices that are relevant to the Exhibitions that take place here and to contemporary art and its institutions more broadly. It includes lectures, debates, symposia and screening programmes, seminars, reading groups and workshops.

• Stuart Wood (random International)

Stuart Wood, part of the collaborative rAndom International, directs the artistic implementation of technology into Random’s work. The collaborative group compromises of fellow founders,  Flo Ortkrass and Hannes Koch who help in the creative direction of the company. Wood’s background in electronics, engineering and software is fused with an on-going interest in people – their actions and reactions in connection with Random International’s work.

Stuart was the speaker I was most looking forward to. In my first year I visited the Barbican to see Random Internationals 'Rain Room' as research into my project. I was truly inspired and very surprised when he accepted our invitation.

Outline of emails

Below are images of the events and details of where to find the podcasts.

At present the talks can be found at - www.cargocollective/professionalpracticeartanddesign

We were invited to Parkside where we provided a presentation to other Student partners and tutors about how we had used the funding and what we had produced and also what we felt the students had gained from the programme. We explained the organisation and execution of the talks and made a short video to present. We also talked about ways in which the talks could develop further to possibly bigger venues and incorporate other courses.

We did come across problems along the way such as speakers being late, lack of reply to emails, Uninterested students and some speakers arrived unorganised but these we overcame and have taught us good practice for future events. Something I found very difficult was maintaining students attendance especially from our Level 5 Colleagues.This opened our eyes to the difficulties faced by tutors and lack of interest of some students.

Hopefully the talks will continue next year with another rich variety of speakers. It definitely helps to broaden the range of ideas for students wanting to work within creative industries and gives them numerous options of opportunities to think about after University.
I particularly gained experience in filming and voice recording as I used my SLR camera every week becoming more and more confident, this is something I have found difficult in the last 18 months as filming hasn't been a strength of mine however this has thoroughly helped towards me feeling able to do it in the future.
My favourite talk was from Kellenberger-White who really inspired me to think deeper into graphic design and various ways of creating typefaces which I would never have thought of.
 My least favourite was Stuart Wood. Random Internationals work is inspiring but unfortunately to general verdict was that he unfortunately came across as very arrogant.