Three-D Issue 24: News from the network
Joanna Callaghan
University of Sussex
The Practice network is delighted to announce that Inga Burrows has taken on the role of Vice Chair.
Inga Burrows is a Senior Lecturer in Arts and Media at Cardiff School of Creative and Cultural Industries. She is a practicing artist and filmmaker, she specializes in teaching fiction filmmaking and experimental approaches to moving image production. Her research interests include: artist cinema, participatory art, experimental documentary, performance for screen. https://ingaburrows.wordpress.com/ Her recent publication is a body of short films made during an artist residency at Cardiff Market Hall (jmpScreenworks 2012). Her latest practice as research activity is ‘In And Between’ a collaborative research project, with Drama and English colleagues, which creates site-specific creative-critical contexts in which art practice can be theorised in new and different ways.
Prior to taking up a full-time post at Glamorgan Inga worked as a community artist, animator-live action filmmaker, producing commissions for the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and Amnesty International.
Dyfrig Jones
Bangor University
The end of July saw Cyfrwng, the Welsh association for media and film studies, return to Bangor University to celebrate its 10th birthday. Inaugurated in 2004, Cyfrwng has historically sought to bring together those working in the academy and the creative industries, in Wales and beyond. For this year’s conference, the emphasis was on the theme of Creative Industry: Bridging Theory and Practice, and saw many of the speakers grapple with the question of how practice-based and practice-led work produced by academics could be understood within the current research climate.
The opening keynote was given by Huw Jones, Chair of the S4C Authority. While he chose to look at an issue that was, on the surface, particular to his own role overseeing a public broadcaster -the measuring of public value beyond simple numerical metrics – it was a theme that chimed with the academics in the audience, increasingly conscious of the need to prove “impact”.
This was followed by two keynote speeches by acclaimed practitioners, who used their own work as case studies for further discussion of the notion of practice-as-research. Prof. Mike Pearson, of Aberystwyth University, gave an overview of how his theoretical insights into the concept of cynhefin (a Welsh word that very broadly translates as habitat) have been informed by his work as a performer. In contrast Prof. Joram ten Brink, of the University of Westminster, offered a detailed analysis of a single piece of work, the Oscar-nominated documentary film The Act of Killing, and the process and challenges of funding it through an AHRC grant. A second film maker, Prof. Gideon Koppel, again of Aberystwyth University, provided the closing keynote speech of the conference. Drawing upon his own experiences his keynote was a wider-ranging discussion of prevailing trends in research funding, and served as an impassioned critique of institutional attempts to shoe-horn artistic work into the REF.
In addition to these keynotes, the two-day conference saw individual papers presented by a range of scholars, as well as the launch of Bangor University’s own Creative Practice Research Manifesto. Cyfrwng would like to thank MeCCSA Practice Network, as well as S4C, BBC Wales, the National Library of Wales, Cwmni Da, Rondo Media, and the Universities of Bangor, Aberystwyth, South Wales, Trinity St Davids, Swansea for their sponsorship of this event.
Future events
Practitioner-Academics and Higher Education, Ravensbourne, 15 September 2015
A one-day conference that considers the ecology of industry practitioners who have transitioned to Academia. An active day full of practical sessions and problem-solving for practitioners who are either transitioning into Higher Education or working as sessionals for HEIs in the field of Media and Communications.
‘Language and Voice’
Journal of Media Practice and MeCCSA Practice Network Symposium
University of Aberystwyth, Wales.
June 14 2015
This one-day symposium will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss current issues and debates in practice-based research, practice-as-research and theoretically-informed practice.
Mind the Gap!
Queens University Belfast and National College of Art and Design, Dublin
17th April 2015
A one day national workshop for PhD candidates, supervisors and prospective students addressing the challenges of conducting practice based PhD research in the creative, media and visual arts –
If you are interested in hosting an event please get in touch with the network chair:
Joanna Callaghan
j.callaghan@sussex.ac.uk