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

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PREfACE
CCW hosts a vibrant community of visiting scholars and artists. For 2011/12
these include: Fulbright-University of the Arts London Distinguished
Chair, Gasworks Visiting Artist, Schloss Balmoral Visiting Artist, Tate-CCW
Artists’ Books Fellow and The Tokyo Wonder Site Artist Exchange. The
research carried out by our community of external colleagues is an important
part of our outward-looking programme of activities, and feeds
into our events exploring the key themes and issues focused on by Graduate
School researchers. Alongside their contribution, we are also proud to
have a distinguished group of CCW Visiting Professors who help to enhance
and develop our key subject areas. For 2011/12, they are:
> Professor Rosi Braidotti, Chelsea, Feminist Philosophy and Cultural
Studies
> Guy Brett, Camberwell, Art Journalism, Publishing, Curation and History
> Dr Vincent Daniels, Camberwell, Conservation Science
> Michael Knowles, CCW, Furniture and Interior Accessory Design
> Catherine Lampert, Camberwell, Publishing
> Professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis, Wimbledon, Costume Design
> Deanna Petherbridge CBE, Wimbledon, Drawing
> Posy Simmonds MBE, Wimbledon, Drawing.
PROfESSOR HEATHCOTT Joseph
fULBRIGHT-UNIVERSITY Of THE ARTS LONDON DISTINGUISHED CHAIR 2010/11
During the academic year 2011/12, Professor Joseph Heathcott served as the first US
fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of the Arts London, attached to the Research
Centre for Transnational Arts Identity and Nation (TrAIN) at CCW Graduate School. Professor
Heathcott is a writer, curator and educator based in New York City, where he teaches at
the New School. The fulbright-Distinguished Chair Award is the most prestigious award
in the fulbright Programme which aims to promote peace and cultural understanding through
educational exchange. Here he reflects on this experience during his residency.
As the urban critic Lewis Mumford observed, cities constitute our
greatest cultural achievements while reflecting our most profound moral
failures. Cities gather people, concentrate innovation and power the
global economy. But they also amplify poverty, inequality, racial segregation
and ecological collapse. The encounter with cities in a global age forces
us to embrace unsettling (and potentially liberatory) contradictions.
So if the city is one of our greatest cultural achievements, any attempt
to redress its failings – what we might call ‘the struggle for the city’ – should
itself be a creative project. Remaking our cities towards the ends of justice
requires commitment to an open public culture, the free exchange of ideas
and a willingness to think through multiple registers beyond our disciplines.
For six months, I had the rare privilege to live in one of these great
contradictory cities, and to work alongside an extraordinary group of administrative
and teaching staff, artists and scholars, graduate students and
alumni. The experience has had a significant impact on my work and I hope
it has led to a lasting connection between our universities.
To say that I gained a lot from the experience is an understatement.
I had the luxury of observing colleagues in the CCW Graduate School as
they organized brilliant academic programmes. While giving lectures
and masterclasses, I met, listened to and learned from dozens of talented
graduate students. The shared ideas, commitments, and vision among
faculty members and graduate students demonstrated to me that CCW presents
a model of how to build an academic community out of multiple,
often competing strands.
Beyond rewarding personal connections and programme insights,
the most important outcome of the residency for me has been a redoubled
commitment to the role of art and arts research in the interdisciplinary
study of cities. By this, I do not mean that art provides some reductive methodology
to complement research generated from the social sciences and
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