graduate school directory 2011/12 - Camberwell College of Arts ...

22
fred forest (Mascara,
Algeria, 1933; lives and
works in Paris, france),
White Invades the City, São
Paulo, October 1973;
demonstration with blank
placards; one of a series of
public experiments forming
part of his participation in
the XII Bienal de São Paulo.
© fred forest
MEETING MARGINS
TRANSNATIONAL ART IN EUROPE & LATIN AMERICA 1950–78
This AHRC-funded project concentrates on events, practices and processes
forming critical links across different Latin American countries and
between Latin America and Europe. Incorporating a deliberate shift from
the habitual reliance on New York as the pole of critical art in the post-
war years, we have aimed to research and write away from the centres and
languages more often relied on to narrate post-war art. Our case studies
include peripatetic ideas, artworks and individuals, and temporary formations
– such as critical meetings, exhibitions or projects of political solidarity.
Meeting Margins is an instance of an increasingly prevalent focus on
border-crossing encounter – where exchanges are recovered as a means
to dismantle nationally determined historiographies and schools of art.
The terms according to which this turn is articulated are often pacific
(‘productive dialogue’, ‘meaningful influence’, ‘breaking down of borders’)
and an impetus for the project was observing its benign emergence
within the field of Latin American Art. We wanted to contribute to but also
to question a marked turn from nation to relation. A vital part of this
process has been the creation of critical platforms where emerging research
from across Europe and the Americas can be openly debated, including
the First International Research Forum for Graduate Students and Emerging
Scholars, held in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin in
2009. Research provoked by Meeting Margins has been disseminated by individual
essays and articles and will be published as a book edited by the
project’s core members, Michael Asbury and Isobel Whitelegg (TrAIN, UAL),
and Valerie Fraser and Maria Iñigo Clavo (University of Essex).
MISTRA fUTURE fASHION
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: REBECCA EARLEY
GUEST PROfESSOR AT KONSTfACK AND CO-INVESTIGATOR:
PROf. KAY POLITOWICZ
The research programme ‘Mistra Future Fashion’ is funded by the Swedish
Government via Mistra, the Foundation for Strategic Environmental
Research, to bring about a significant change in the Swedish fashion industry
leading to sustainable development both in the industry and in wider
society. The scale of the project marked it as one of the most comprehensive
studies of market and business models in the fashion industry. Changes
to the key stages in the lifecycle of a product – changes in the supply chain to
the design of clothing, to the materials used, to consumer behaviour
and the influence exerted by government are the subject of multidisciplinary
focus.
The consortium structure integrates eight cross-disciplinary research
projects, including natural, social and political sciences and design, creating
a common research platform. The consortium represents insights from different
theoretical perspectives that will be used to develop new knowledge
concerning systemic change in the Swedish fashion indus try, providing
insights into comparable markets worldwide. This will include how textiles
and garments are designed and produced, how the industry interacts with
consumers and how a sustainable lifecycle is evaluated.
Fashion has a significant environmental impact on climate change and
water. The massive and increasing clothing and textile volumes in society
have become an environmental burden, especially since very little of
the used items are reused or fibre recycled. The fashion industry – and particularly
Sweden-based fashion companies – have a huge potential to contribute
to effective and economic shifts towards more sustainable practice.
In March 2011, TED (Textiles Environment Design research group at CCW)
was awarded £500 000 to address the question, ‘How can sustainable
design processes be created and embedded within companies and gain the
participation of consumers?’. The research will be led by Rebecca Earley
and is designed to contribute to the existing body of knowledge by focusing
on practical changes that will influence the environment for sustainable
fashion. To date there is little scientific knowledge of how coalitions of stakeholders
can induce institutional changes to promote sustainability. The
work will be comprised of close cooperation between TED’s TEN strate gies
for sustainable design and research into synthetic fibres from cellulosic
compounds. The design task is to employ interconnected design thinking in
textiles and fashion to innovate at all stages of the cradle-to-cradle
‘environment’.
23