Rituals of Vision

An exhibition of new work by James Green
Outcasting: Fourth Wall
Queens Arcade
Queen Street
Cardiff

Exhibition open Thursday 6th December to 30th December 2012

Soundings: Thought over Time

Guest performances and seminars
Michael Beiert | Susan Ryland | Helen Thomas

2.00 – 5.00 p.m. Thursday 8 November 2012
CSAD Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff.

Performances and seminars from 2.30 p.m.
Private view from 6.00 p.m.
All welcome

An afternoon of performances and seminars exploring themes from Soundings: thought over time, a nationally touring collaborative exhibition and performance. The work considers how metaphors ‘frame’ our world. Using geological and biological metaphors of sedimentation, accumulation and germination Soundings examines how meaning emerges from visual and sonic material, providing insights into the evolution and meanings of textual and spoken language over time. The exhibition includes sculptural works, prints and drawings, interactive soundwork and projection, live electroacoustic and oboe performances.

Preparatory reading for CSAD students available on Blackboard in Masters module ADX7009 Research Seminars in the Art & Science | Philosophy | Ecologies folder, or for purchase at photocopy rate (24 pages) in the Howard Gardens Print Studio:
Charles Forceville (2009). ‘Metaphor in a cognitivist framework’, in C. Forceville and E. Urios-Aparisi (eds), Multimodal Metaphor. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, selected pages.

Download the poster here.

Research Degrees – Welcome event

4.30pm – 6.00pm
Tuesday 16 October 2012
Rooms S314 and S317, top floor, South Block, Howard Gardens

All – new and current – CSAD research students, and all supervisors, are invited to our Welcome event. It will be a chance:
· To meet research students and supervisors
· To meet CSAD’s new research student representative, Helena Sands
· To discuss facilities, including use of research student offices at Howard Gardens and Llandaff
· To go through the revised CSAD Research Study Guide
· To learn about the new CSAD Postgraduate Teaching Assistant role
· To learn about the new CSAD research environment scholarships
· To discuss your seminar contributions for 2012-13
· For one or two brave souls to offer their current research student year for discussion as guidance towards completing their annual report.

Optional: drink in A Shot in the Dark and a curry to follow.

For further details contact Debbie, Angharad or Clive at csadresdegrees@cardiffmet.ac.uk

Research in Zambia

Clara Watkins has recently returned from a research trip to Zambia with ‘Mothers of Africa’, a Welsh Medical Educational Charity that trains medical staff in Sub-Saharan Africa to care for mothers during pregnancy and childbirth.

Clara’s research, which is a collaboration with the charity, focuses on the development of appropriate methodologies for informing transformative medical product solutions in rural Zambia.

The expedition team visited a number of different locations including the capital Lusaka, Chongwe and the rural Shiyala Village, where the charity performed a number of different tasks, from providing a rural classroom with much needed solar power, to teaching the medical students in both Lusaka’s General Hospital and Chongwe District Hospital. Clara was also able to progress her own work, carrying out extensive ethnographic research to gain an insight into local cultures, politics, people and the difficulties expectant mothers’ face. The trip identified a number of different projects for future development.

Key documents

Now available to download freely from the CSAD Research Degrees website are the following key documents for the new academic year:

(1) MPhil PhD Joining Pack;
(2) Research Study Guide; and
(3) Postgraduate Certificate in Professional and Research Skills Handbook.

Visit the key documents web page to download.

WIRAD / AHRC Studentships

This year’s AHRC studentships have been awarded to Sarah Younan and Jo Barlow. Sarah has been awarded a PhD bursary to investigate the impact 3D scanning and print technology has on our perception of ceramic objects and Jo will be spending her time on the MA Ceramics course to investigate the effects on local communities following the demise of traditional heavy industries in the north of England through her ceramic and digital photographic practice.

WIRAD GRADE Exhibition and Symposium

Past and current Art & Design MPhil/PhD students presented their work as part of WIRAD GRADE. Taking place between the 21st and 27th June at the HG gallery, the exhibition included a one-day symposium which invited researchers to talk about their work, accompanied by a keynote lecture delivered by Daro Montag, Associate Professor of Art and Environment, University College Falmouth. The exhibition and symposium was organised by WIRAD research students, led by CSAD’s James Green and Nigel Hall

Research Student Activities

CSAD Research students will be speaking at a number of conferences over the summer. Gina Deininger presented at the 8th Global Conference – Creative Engagements: thinking with Children, Oxford in June and 5th International Conference on Spatial Cognition, Rome in September. Tim Taylor presented at AIVC-TightVent Conference 2012, in Denmark, David Holmes spoke at July’s iV2012 – 16th International Conference on Information Visualisation in France and Simon Hatherly at the Zero Energy Mass Custom Housing (ZEMCH) International Conference 2012, Glasgow. Finally, Robin Hawes will be presenting at The Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society Annual Conference: Neurophenomenology, Bristol in September

Leah McLaughlin: Video Production

In April, final year PhD student Leah McLaughlin attended a two day video production course run by JISC Digital Media, a service designed to provide advice, guidance and training to the UK’s Further and Higher Education community.

Leah commented: ‘The course provided practical training in methods of video production, which I can apply to my doctoral project. The sessions focused upon capturing and editing interviews and lectures, in addition to ways of disseminating them and some of the implications of ‘online’ research. The workshops were very hands on and I conducted several interviews, was interviewed, made two sequences and a short film. Using the most appropriate and up to date equipment for production and editing, ensured I remained fluent in the use of current technology and take away advice in purchasing more kit.

Its focus on best practice of using video in the recording of scholarly activities provided an opportunity to introduce my own research aims to an academic and filmic focus group. The course co-ordinator Tim O’Riodan was particularly interested in my project and we have set up a meeting to discuss mutual research interests and possible collaborations. I would recommend JISC training to anyone who has similar interests and particularly emerging researchers.’

WIRAD GRADE: Art and design graduate research exhibition

Cardiff, 21–27 June 2012
Exhibition symposium, Cardiff, 25 June 2012

Call for Submissions: MPhil and PhD Research Degree Students and Recent MPhil / PhD Graduates

Submissions of art and design research practice are invited for a Wales Institute of Research in Art and Design Graduate Research exhibition (WIRAD GRADE), to be held at Cardiff School of Art and Design’s Howard Gardens Gallery, 21 – 27 June 2012. Finished works, works-in-progress, or drawings are welcome.

There will be a one-day symposium on Monday 25 June on the exhibition where researchers will be invited to talk about their work. The keynote speaker for the day will be Daro Montag, Associate Professor of Art and Environment, University College Falmouth.

To be eligible to enter, you have either to be a current art or design MPhil / PhD student or to have completed your research degree after June 2011 at one of the following WIRAD partner institutions:

Cardiff Metropolitan University
Centre for Alternative Technology
National Library of Wales
National Museum Wales
Swansea Metropolitan University
University of Wales, Newport
University of Wales Trinity Saint David

The exhibition is not a competition. The Hanging Committee, made up of WIRAD students, will endeavour to install all work submitted.

To enter:
complete and submit this form from your WIRAD institution email account to CSAD research student representatives James Green jagreen@cardiffmet.ac.uk and Nigel Hallett nihallett@cardiffmet.ac.uk by midday Monday 4 June 2012; and
deliver all work in an exhibition-ready form, including all necessary fittings, to Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff Metropolitan Gallery, Cardiff, CF24 0SP between 10.00 a.m. and 4.00 p.m. on Monday 18 June 2012.

Inclusion in the exhibition and participation in the symposium is free. Catering will be provided at the symposium for all participants. If you would like to attend the symposium but do not wish to exhibit, please complete the form to give us an idea of numbers.

Please address all enquiries to CSAD research student representatives James Green jagreen@cardiffmet.ac.uk and Nigel Hallett nihallett@cardiffmet.ac.uk.

New CSAD research studies handbooks

Two research handbooks providing essential information on the research student experience at CSAD have been added to the CSAD Research Degrees website. The handbooks are:

• CSAD Research Study Guide 2011-12
• CSAD Postgraduate Certificate in Professional and Research Skills: Art and Design Programme Handbook 2011-12

Topics covered include:

• Induction
• Research methods and skills training
• Designing, planning and managing your research project
• The format of your thesis
• Reflecting on practice
• A guide to PDP writing
• Exemplar research proposals

The handbooks are freely available to download as PDFs on the Key Documents page.

Call for Presentations – WIRAD emerging researcher event

Wednesday 12th October 6.30-10pm
The Promised Land, Cardiff

WIRAD members are invited to a Pecha Kucha style networking and social event as part of the Cardiff Design Festival 2011. The aim of the evening is to bring together PhD students from across the WIRAD institutions in a relaxed environment. It will be a chance to present your research to like-minded people outside your own institution.

The event is specifically for art and design PhD students to present and discuss their research and the associated challenges. Applications to present are encouraged from research students across the WIRAD partnership and at all levels of PhD study.

Schedule
· 6.30pm Arrive
· 6.45pm Introduction to WIRAD
· 7pm Pecha Kucha style presentations
· 8.30pm Buffet & networking
· 10pm Finish

The event is free to attend, but places are limited and registration is required. The deadline for registration is 5th October 2011. To register to present, please use either of the email addresses below and include a short statement about your research. To register to attend, please use either of the email addresses below and include a short statement about your interest in the event.

For more information contact:
Jo Hare: jhare@pdronline.co.uk
Anna Whicher: awhicher@designwales.org

WIRAD/AHRC Postgraduate Studentship Awards

The AHRC has awarded WIRAD 5 Research Studentships, via the Capacity Building Route: Block Grant Partnership. The studentships will be allocated over a three year period. Applications have been received for 2011‐2012’s MA in Applied Arts & Crafts and a call for 2012/2013 applications for a Doctoral Award in Applied Arts & Crafts and a Research Preparation MA in Film Digital & Media Production will be issued in the new year. Further information, including the timetable of awards, is available from http://www.wirad.ac.uk/researchtraining/wirad‐studentships/

1st Ecological Built Environment Research Symposium

1st September 2011
Cardiff School of Art and Design

Organised jointly between the EBERE group at UWIC and the Graduate School for the Environment at the Centre for Alternative Technology, the 1st EBER Symposium is open to current and prospective research students, supervisors and industrial partners working and supporting research in the ecological built environment field based at UWIC and at CAT.

The symposium will give all students an opportunity to exchange ideas with colleagues engaged in research in related fields and explore issues of methodology, practice their presentation techniques and gain further exposure to research skills. For more information contact Dr John Littlewood.

Stimuli: a one-day graduate research symposium on how art and design research stimulates debate

Please Note: This event has been postponed until Autumn 2011

This symposium invites art and design research students in Wales to consider how their theses stimulate debate.
• How does your work contribute to or challenge contemporary understanding?

• How does the difference you are claiming stand in relation to existing literature? and

• How do you generate interest in a wider audience, e.g. non-specialists, undergraduates?

One of the qualities expected of doctoral researchers is their ability to present new, specialist knowledge in a clear and accessible fashion, and to be able to set out why this new knowledge is significant – why and how it makes a difference – to a non-specialist audience. This one-day symposium is an opportunity for art and design research students in Wales to focus on their abilities to generate discussion and to present and write clear, engaging commentary.

WIRAD is also committed to promoting links between research and teaching, and there will be interest from postgraduate and undergraduate subject leaders in how the graduate research projects presented on the day might inform student learning.

To take part and reserve a place, please email a single, thought-provoking statement central to your research, with your name and School or department, to csadresdegrees@cardiffmet.ac.uk. On the day, you should be prepared to speak for ten minutes around your statement, addressing the bullet-points above. After which there will be a fifteen minute Q&A session on your presentation to support and develop the points you raise. Please make the subject line of your email ‘Stimuli contribution’.

For further details, contact csadresdegrees@cardiffmet.ac.uk.

Laura Gray: ‘The Space In Between: The transgressive nature of ceramics’, Boundaries? New Histories of Art, Architecture and Design, RX-Research Exchange in History of Art Network Postgraduate Conference, University of Bristol.

In April 2011 Laura Gray delivered a paper at the University of Bristol that addressed the transgressive nature of ceramics, particularly those transgressions that sees those artists who work in the medium of clay trespass across the boundaries of fine art. Examining whether or not the vessel form can be considered as having crossed the boundary from craft to sculpture, this paper considered, can a pot be art? Can potters be artists? Or must vessels, which attempt to transgress or ignore the established limits of ceramics, exist instead in a liminal space, suspended between art and craft? This paper argued that it is through aligning ceramics with sculpture rather than craft that contemporary ceramics practice can be fully understood.

Laura Gray: ‘No Place Like Home: Curating Ceramics in a Domestic Context’, NCECA 2011, Florida

In April 2011 Laura Gray delivered a paper at NCECA’s 2011 conference. This paper addressed how the distinctive hybrid domestic-museum environment has become of particular interest to certain potters as a context in which to exhibit their work. Some take this engagement further. For some potters the museum is also the medium, and so this paper also examined how the engagement between contemporary ceramics and curatorial practice is emerging as an important area of study.

A timely appraisal of a highly engaging area of contemporary ceramics practice in which traditional vessel forms can enter into a meaningful dialogue with historic settings, this paper has led to the publication of two articles ‘No Place Like Home: Curating Ceramics in House Museums’, National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Journal, vol. 32 and ‘Re-articulating Domestic Space in Contemporary Ceramics’, Interpreting Ceramics, Issue 13.

The Interest of Others – Art and Design Research Ethics Symposium

Tuesday 18 January 2011,
1.00 – 4.30 p.m.
Room E101,
Cardiff School of Art and Design,
UWIC Llandaff campus,
Western Avenue,
Cardiff,
CF5 2YB

• What should artists and designers be doing today?

• What relationship should they have with others locally and globally?

• Are they entitled to exceed social, legal or ethical norms?

• If so, on what grounds? And will their plans make it through a research ethics committee?

Art and design research raises a wide range of ethical questions. As subjects which aim to affect how we live and to create new possibilities in the world, they often confront accepted ways of doing things and oblige us to assess whether any limits are being crossed. Yet the institutional context of research embodies codes of conduct which demand compliance. What conflicts arise between creativity and compliance, and how might they be resolved?

This half-day symposium explores some of the practical and theoretical complexities in the ethics of art and design research, and in securing ethics approval for an art and design research proposal.

Topics include:

• The ethics of art and design research

• Working with blood, guts and children

• Case study 1: Teresa Margolles, ‘¿De qué otra cosa podríamos hablar?’ (What else could we talk about?)

• Case study 2: Krzysztof Wodiczko, ‘Designing for the city of strangers’.

• Securing institutional ethics approval

Speakers:

Dr Clive Cazeaux, Reader in Aesthetics, Cardiff School of Art and Design

Wendy Keay Bright, Reader in Inclusive Design, Chair CSAD Research Ethics Committee

Dr Steve Thompson, Director of Learning and Teaching, Cardiff School of Art and Design

The symposium is open to all research students and supervisors in art and design university schools or departments in Wales. The event is free. However, places are limited so please register in advance by emailing Angharad Jones or Cinzia Mutigli, Research Administrators, at csadresdegrees@cardiffmet.ac.uk.

From factory to studio: the changing artistic and cultural contexts of the female potter’, Women and Producers in History, West of England & South Wales Womens History Network 16th Annual Conference, Sarum College, Salisbury, 10 July 2010

Women and Producers in History, the annual conference of the West of England and South Wales Women’s History Network considered women on both sides of commerce, in all historical periods. Presenting a paper in the ‘Women and Art’ strand of the conference Laura Gray, PhD student at the UWIC Centre for Ceramics Research, spoke about the development of the role of women in relation to factory and studio ceramics.

This paper, titled From factory to Studio: The changing artistic and cultural contexts of the female potter’, argued for the importance of women to the development of ceramics, and the importance of ceramics to British art through an investigation into the role women as producers of pottery during the twentieth century. Rachel Worth, Professor of Fashion History at the Arts University College, Bournemouth gave the keynote lecture on Fashion for the People: A History of Clothing at Marks & Spencer while other papers covered the possessions and activities of women in manufacturing, crafts and trades, shops and markets.