Liverpool Art & Design Academy (ADA)

Archive for the ‘Collaboration’ Category

LJMU and Shanghai University are pleased to announce the launch of the John Moores Critics Award in the UK, which recognises emerging new talent in critical writing about contemporary art.

The Awards in Shanghai and Liverpool will provide an international platform for budding critics in both countries to connect with their audiences and arts communities.

The UK John Moores Critics Award runs parallel to the John Moores Painting Prize as part of this year’s Liverpool Biennial at the Walker Art Gallery (National Museums Liverpool). Judging has already started on the Award in China as the panel is set the task of whittling down the entries of critical writing, focusing on the John Moores Painting Prize China held earlier this year in Shanghai.

In the UK, entrants will have to focus their critical eye on this year’s John Moores Painting Prize shortlist.

The UK Award closes on 28 October and winners will be announced publicly at the Walker Art Gallery (Liverpool) on Friday 16 November 2012.
Professor Juan Cruz, artist and Director of the LJMU School of Art and Design commented: “Critical writing about art, and art itself – like all forms of independent thinking – are constantly under threat from the pressure to conform exerted by social, political and consumer forces, whether in China or the UK. This new award is an important way to bring those pressures to mind and to resist
them, as well as to share experience between two significant art schools in the two countries.”

Professor Wang Dawei, Dean of the College of Fine Arts at Shanghai University said: “Our responsibility as scholarly and socially engaged organisations is to develop critical thinking about art and the importance of international cultural exchanges. This is particularly important as Liverpool and Shanghai are twinned cities and have a breadth of shared history and contemporary alliances.”

Two winners, one from the UK and one from China, will be selected by an esteemed panel of judges.

• Marjorie Allthorpe-Guyton, UK President of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA)
• David Batchelor, artist and writer
• Sam Thorne, Associate Editor, Frieze Magazine.

Each will receive £2,000, plus the opportunity to complete a three week exchange visit to either the UK or Shanghai, as guests of either LJMU or Shanghai University. The winner from this year’s Award in China will be visiting Liverpool during the Biennial.

Four further awards of £1,000 will be presented to two highly commended entrants to the competition in each country.

Winning entries will also be published on a new dual language John Moores Critics Award website and published in a bilingual publication, alongside the winners of the John Moores Painting Prize. This will be jointly edited by LJMU’s School of Art and Design and the University of Shanghai.

How to enter

Critics of all ages and abilities are welcome to enter. Although the Painting Prize exhibition is open till 6 January, the Critics Award is open until Sunday 28 October. Entries received after this date will not be considered so please bear this in mind if you would like to enter.

Once you have visited the show at the Walker Art Gallery, consider what you have seen and think about how it has inspired you or otherwise. We encourage you to read the details in the official Painting Prize catalogue and online, then write your response piece, aiming for between 750-1000 words or equivalent in Chinese characters. Each piece will be judged anonymously and the winners’ names will only be revealed to the judging panel once a unanimous decision is arrived at.

All works should be electronic rather than paper-based, and emailed to: jmca@ljmu.ac.uk before the closing date.

The Liverpool School of Art and Design is currently hosting four artists from China, who are prizewinners from the last John Moores Painting Prize which, for the first time, was also run in China. The artists’ work was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in 2010 but this is the first time they have visited the UK.

The residency is co-hosted between the Liverpool School of Art and Design, The University of Shanghai and the John Moores Exhibition Trust, with participation by all Liverpool’s most significant arts organisations. The School of Art and Design has been developing a programme of staff exchange with the Faculty of Art and Design at the University of Shanghai that was initiated following an introduction from the Liverpool Biennial. So far Peter Appleton, Reader in Creative Technology and Patricia Mackinnon Day, Reader in Environmental Art have been to Shanghai and there have been return visits from the Shanghai Faculty. We are also developing research projects with the university and devising further exchange possibilities. This is a really good example of the work the school is doing to engage with local creative industries such as the Biennial and the John Moores Exhibition Trust in order to develop projects of International quality and global reach. Read the rest of this entry »

Graphic Arts Lecturer, Mike O’Shaughnessy (who has always had an eye for a good looking bird) has been instrumental in organising an exhibition in support of Birdlife International’s ‘Preventing Extinction Programme’.

The Project, ‘Ghosts of Gone Birds’, involves up to 60 contemporary artists, sculptors, writers and musicians to use their creative talents to bring extinct birds back to life.  Read the rest of this entry »

Today sees the final day for the Four Corners Community Arts Exhibition hosted in the Public Exhibition Space of the ADA.
The show was curated by the ADA’s POD team in conjunction with 3rd Year HAMS Student Emma Ashman.
Emma did a fantastic job of tying together the 6 contributors visual work as well as performance pieces and a 70 strong debate event for the Private View evening.

The exhibition is a showcase of Young Merseyside and what they can achieve when they aren’t pressured by stereotypes – much of the work has an inter-generational theme as Community Arts aims to engage the widest possible audience. Grab this last opportunity to take a look!

Work by LJMU Graphics Students.
Opens Thursday 7th April 7.30pm.
The Crypt @ CUC (Contemporary Urban Centre)

http://pornographics.tumblr.com

Next week (April 6th – 12th) sees the Exhibition of the Annual Culture Liverpool Community Arts Programme, Four Corners – this year it is hosted by LJMU’s Art & Design Academy. Download Flier PDF.

Four Corners 2011 is a groundbreaking city wide participatory arts project which continues to push boundaries and open up new ways of seeing across our neighbourhoods. Now in its 6th year, it is a partnership with Neighbourhood Management Services, Liverpool Primary Care Trust and Culture Liverpool (Liverpool City Council).

Four Corners 2011 showcases the talent of young residents of Liverpool and challenges stereotypes and the impact of the arts as a form of communication and expression. ‘An exhibition for young people, by young people’ highlights the diversity of youth today, platforming their work across the city’s neighbourhoods under the direction of six Liverpool based arts organisations (Arts in Regeneration, Aspire Trust, Cut to the Chase Productions, Hope Street Limited, LJMU’s Art & Design Academy and Rotunda). Using an array of media from video to fashion and sculpture, it explores the daily perceptions and misconceptions of youth culture and the positive change it can have on a community.
Read the rest of this entry »

Third year student of History of Art with Museum Studies, Rebecca Leary, is due to appear on BBC East Midlands, as part of her internship with stately home musuem,  Sudbury Hall and the National Trust Museum of Childhood. Rebecca will talk about the new tours available named,  “What’s in Store” and their current exhibition “From Playmobil to Puppy Love – Growing up in the 1970s”.

Sudbury hall is a 17^th century stately home in Derbyshire described as:

“a delight of 17th-century craftsmanship, ..exquisite plasterwork, wood carvings and classical story-based murals”.

The Museum of Childhood explores the childhoods of times gone by and allows visitors to make stories, play with toys and engage in roleplay, showing a range of archive film and interactive displays. The house was used by the BBC as the location for the interiors of Pemberley House in the 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

Rebecca has been working on a number of projects with the musuems for the last few months  that trace developments of the skills the National Trust uses in order to protect and preserve its collection in Sudbury Hall.  Becky is also keen to advertise the museums to  a new audience:

“Through the use of social networking and new media, the project aims to help improve and deliver education in conservation and to communicate our work to new communities.”

Rebecca’s interview will be on Thursday 3rd March at 6:30pm on BBC East Midlands. We look forward to hearing her then!

An Archituectural mini-conference was held in the LJMU Art and Design Academy on Friday 18th February. Students formally Presented their Work on the Healing Haus project to some of the industry’s leading practitioners including Christopher Shaw, Director of MAAP Architects and John Doyle Financial Director of the NHS TIME Project and Graham Lewis & Mike Fry The Autism Centre of Excellence.Healing Haus is a collaboration that began three years ago between the LJMU postgraduate Architecture course and the Mersey Side Care NHS Trust. The healthcare design module allows students to consider design of buildings for mental health, showcasing their final designs in an annual exhibition, ‘Ladders of Collaboration’ which celebrates work alongside two cutting-edge projects, the TIME project and The Centre of Excellence for Autism.

This year, projects ranged from the idea of developing a coffee shop as a healthy environment for mental  by student Anthony Delleur to  ‘Lost in Translation’ by Gavin Watts’, which challenges the stigma of the ‘tower’ in mental healthcare whilst moving towards non conventional methods through growth and production in chinese medicines.

The Sound Agents is an artist led not for profit arts organisation founded by Liverpool School of Art & Design Associate Research Fellow Mr John J Campbell and Artist/PhD Researcher Ms Moira Kenny in 2010. Working with the Chinese community, L1 residents and business sector to highlight and encourage international research, collaborations and development within Chinatowns in London, Paris, New York and San Francisco.

Mr Campbell & Ms Kenny are currently sourcing songs to produce a Chinatown my Chinatown CD of Chinese songs from Traditional Folk, Classic to Pop and working in partnership with the Ming-Ai Institute and Central St Martin’s London to create a major International collaboration and future conference.

Work in progress includes Radio Chinatown based in Liverpool.
As part of this years Chinese New Year celebrations The Sound Work in The Black-E Dome was recorded, developed and produced by Mr Campbell and Ms Kenny using archived audio material of residents of Chinatown and present day recordings, ambient sound of shipping, Chinatown sounds, Buddha Machine and morse code.

www.internationalchinesesoundagency.blogspot.com

A newspaper was also produced as a celebration of the success of the Shanghai Expo and represents a coming together of artists and researchers to offer their personal responses to the oldest Chinese Community in Europe.

The newspaper Chinatown My Chinatown can be downloaded here and was edited, designed and published in Liverpool, by Moira Kenny, John Campbell, Jon Barraclough and Mike Carney.

Special thanks to Liverpool City Council who financially supported this work as a celebration of the success of the Shanghai Expo and to everyone who contributed to the publication in their varying ways. Thanks also to Martin Downie for the publication of the newspaper and Andy Freeney and Graham Gildea for Technical Support.

Chinese New Year,
Liverpool 2011.

Last weekend saw the ADA host Fab Camp Liverpool – a weekend of digital fabrication talks and activities for local industry and creatives.

Around 50 delegates attended the two day event where they engaged with learning workshops about laser cutting and 3D printing (delivered by the POD team), attended talks by fabricators Soner Ozenc (RazorLab), Hayden Insley (Fab Lab Manchester), Ilsa Parry (reThink Things) and Jason Nelson (Dundee University) and created ideas and assets as part of a competition and open working strand.See for yourselves via the Flickr and Twitter streams and download the freebie laser cut box here at thingiverse!

The weekend highlighted the growing culture of rapid prototyping and manufacture via a number of digital routes and the opportunities it can provide for the small business and creative individual. It links into the maker communities of the region and hopes to support them through future opportunities and events. The next happening is ‘Maker Night’ , a monthly Hack Space occurrence for makers at the ADA, which takes place on the 16th Feb 6.30pm – just turn up!

If you’re interested in anything regarding making and the technical facilities at the ADA then please contact the POD team.

The event was co-ordinated by LJMU’s Open Labs in conjunction with the ADA.

NET @ the Academy of St. Francis of Assisi would like to invite you to the premiere of our film documenting the Team’s experiences in New York as part of our Change for Change project.

The evening will start with a talk from last year’s NET (Network and Enterprise Team) giving them an opportunity to thank you all for your support. We will then show the film and have a short question and answer session before introducing this year’s NET and their Change for Communities project. Come along and see how WE can help YOU!

1st February @ FACT – doors 6:30pm film starts at 7:00pm
Please RSVP to Morganm@asfaonline.org alternatively telephone 0151 260 7600

Graphic Arts graduate Emma Symmons has created a series of illustrations for leading Liverpool branding agency Uniform. The beautifully detailed illustrations were used to promote this year’s Christmas play ‘No Wise Men’ at Liverpool’s Everyman Playhouse Theatre was performed by the touring comedy theatre company Peepolykus. There are more illustrations on the way to feature on posters and other media.

Bed Peace at the Bluecoat – The making and screening from Dorothy on Vimeo.

Liverpool collective Dorothy created a digital installation at the Bluecoat Gallery Liverpool to mark the anniversary of what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday and the 30th anniversary of his death in 1980. The project, formed part of the city’s season of events paying tribute to Lennon. Members of the public were invited to get on a bed and show their support for peace. We collected 300 images in 2 hours and over 500 people took part.

A film of the installation was screened on 9th December on Ocean’s media screen (Europe’s largest commercial LED screen), opposite Liverpool Lime Street to coincide with the UK anniversary of Lennon’s death.

View the final installation here:

Bed Peace at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool from Dorothy on Vimeo.

LJMU’s recently launched Shang-Pool Arcadia, in collaboration with the University of Shanghai and involving academics, students and the public has been nominated for a Learning Without Frontiers Award for innovations in Further and Higher Education alongside Oxford University and Emantras, USA.
It is now up to the public to decide the overall award winner, leaving an opportunity to vote for this LJMU project.

The voting page here and the deadline is 4th January 2011.

Peter Appleton, LJMU Reader in Creative Technology Artist and Director of the project explained:

“As the impact of academic research on the public is high on the education agenda at present, this brings out an unexpected collaboration between arts and science academics, students and the public which is effectively using ‘Second Life’ live to share academic knowledge with the community and to impact on regeneration and rebuilding of destroyed cultures.”

Read More at LJMU

Anna Garforth works with recycled and natural media, so far her sustainable artworks have been used for public events, community projects, workshops, campaigns, publications and exhibitions.

Anna ran a one-day workshop with graphic arts and fashion communication students.

Students chose the topic and produced a piece highlighting the environmental damage of plastic bags dumped in the sea to be eventually swallowed by fish with fatal consequences.

Plastic bags were used as the medium and were gently welded together by ironing and then cut and manipulated.

Graphic Arts staff and students are exhibiting work as part of an art and music event co-curated with local design agency ‘Burneverything’. The show will display artwork by international artists created specifically to promote a music event featuring performances by Chris Brokaw & Geoff Farina, McWatt, Black Octagon and Trouble With Books. The show takes place Tuesday 7th December from 6.30pm at Don’t Drop The Dumbells, 24-28 Hardman Street. Entry is free. All welcome.

A selection of the posters created by the Level 2 and Level 3 Graphic Arts students are currently exhibited on the 1st floor of the ADA.

The ADA POD team are about to work with 16 Knowsley schools on ‘Telling Tales’ – a series of story telling and puppet workshops. As part of a project covering the whole borough they will work with primary pupils to create and perform a series of shadow puppet shows based on materials created in earlier sessions with storytellers and dramatists. This Tuesday saw the initial introduction of the project to over 25 teachers who collaborated on a mini version of the project their efforts are visible below…

The project will run between Jan and March 2011 and the results will be posted here on the blog!

During March-April 2011 the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon will be showing Modern Takes on Cromwell. To complement the exhibition the Museum is running an open art competition. Oliver Cromwell’s image has been portrayed in many ways, positively and negatively, over the last 350 years. It has been the source of inspiration for portraits, historical paintings, coins and medals, cartoons and caricatures.The Cromwell Museum was established in 1962 and is housed in the former town grammar school where Cromwell was a pupil. The Museum’s permanent collection includes work by significant 17th century artists, such as Robert Walker, as well as 19th century and later works. The competition invites artists to respond to Cromwell and to submit original work for exhibition. Each entry must be submitted on Friday 15th April and accompanied by a completed entry form. Works cannot be accepted earlier and they must be collected on Monday 18th April. Because of space restrictions two-dimensional works submitted should not measure more than 500mm in any dimension. Three-dimensional works should fit within a cube no larger than 300mm x 300mm x 300mm. Digital works should be capable of being viewed on a standard pc (not Mac format)

The Huntingdon Library and Archive (200m from the Museum) will be the venue for the exhibition of submitted works over the weekend of the 16th and 17th April. The winning works will then be shown in the Museum as part of Modern Takes.The competition has three categories of entry: for young people, schools and colleges and over 18s. Click here for more details.

If anyone is interested in this project and needs to research Cromwell and his image, then there is an important statue of Cromwell in Warrington which History of Art Programme Leader, Emma Roberts has researched for her book on public sculpture. You can email her at E.E.Roberts@ljmu.ac.uk for any of the relevant pages from the book you would like to use.

Wirral based Summer Fields Residential Care Home is asking for volunteers to help with painting the walls with Liverpool/Birkenhead related imagery.
Themes could include The Beatles, John Lennon, The Mersey, Grand National, Liverpool and Everton FC and other Landmarks. The idea is to provide mental stimulation and familiarity for the local residents.

If any students would like to volunteer to help then please contact me for more details.