This issue of Reflections is published as part of Making Conversation, the second annual Research Festival hosted by Camberwell MA Fine Art at APT Gallery from 16 to 19 November 2023.
Making Conversation explores questions around contemporary art practice and creative research, such as:
What can artists contribute to critical conversations about the forces shaping society and culture both locally and globally?
What might it mean to think of conversation as another material of art practice—something to be crafted and curated?
How does art make conversation with audiences and communities within and beyond the gallery?
With this selection of audio, video and written essays, Reflections invites readers into this networked conversation around research and practice.
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Installation and Fictioning for Engagement, Social Justice, and Change.
This essay discusses why the ‘artistic interventions’ of installation, and ‘fictioning’ are particularly suitable when the work is underpinned by social justice concerns and has the aim of engaging dialogue for change.
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Women Of The NHS
These podcasts reflect my recent collaboration with Women of the NHS. This podcast is all about celebrating and collaborating with Women of the NHS, from a variety of backgrounds and roles within the NHS. I am excited to be interviewing and working with Women in various stages of their careers and across different sectors of…
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The Transfer of “Self-Consciousness”
This paper focuses on the flow of people’s selves into digital space as the times have moved on, and reflects on the implications of this for millennials’ self-understanding as well as suggesting new ways of thinking about it.
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Limitations and Possibilities in the Dialogue between Art and Gaming
This essay delves into the intricate relationship between art and games, critically examining their intersections, conflicts, and symbiosis in aesthetics, culture, and technology. It seeks to explore additional possibilities through a reflective approach.
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The Fundamentally Flawed Quality of a Painting
Tom is a neo-expressionist painter based in London studying an MA in painting at UAL: Camberwell. In Tom’s essay he will discuss the political economy of the modern art market.
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A Reflection on Industrialism in Photographic Image Production
This essay explores the production process of photographic images influenced by the technological and industrial mechanism, while reflecting on alternatives to deal with the redundancy in image viewing.
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The concept of family equality in modern society
This essay combines author articles, sociological research, and personal experiences with numerous sociological papers to investigate the author’s perspectives on their upbringing.
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Feme Covert
This essay explores the stories of wives eclipsed from history. Documenting how using feminist historiography and storytelling within my practice can make these absent lives visible and provide us with alternative histories.
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The Art of Imagery in Drawing: Landscape of Memory
This essay discusses my research on the art of imagery in the creation of drawings, which is combined with examples of artworks and my personal artistic practice to discuss the influence of landscape, imagery, and picturesque concepts on my creative thinking.
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There is an ocean between you and me
An essay discussing how artists and audiences rely on works of art to complete invisible conversations.
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Engaging, Bridging and Addressing
A wide range of discussion about what and how social documentary is being reflected through the practice of traditional and extended printmaking, which involves the aspects of concept development, critical reflection, technique employment and so on.
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On the Exploration and Development of Contemporary Artists in the Field of Cosmology
I hope that through this essay to let the readers and viewers feel the contemporary art in the field of cosmology shine.
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Unnatural Distinction
This essay explores the decline of ecosystems in the post-human era, outlines the author’s artistic practice during the MA, accessing digital technology to create a series of scenic fragments about ecological crisis.
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We are the same, we are different.
Jing Pu and Meng Xu discuss their family relationships. We explore the different ways in which single-child families and multi-child families handle the same thing and how this affects personality.
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We are the same, we are different.
Meng Xu and Jing Pu discuss their family relationships. We explored the different ways in which single-child families and multi-child families handle the same thing and how this affects personality.
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Split Bodies: The Construction of Women’s Character in Otaku Culture
This paper describes contemporary subcultural traits and reflects on the impact of East Asian otaku culture’s stereotypical construction of the female figure in online animation on the virtual body and the real physical body.
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Self-expression: Revisit narrative landscape painting
The essay traces my artistic evolution from realistic painting under socialist realism to a quest for artistic freedom and primarily explores the possibility of transcending the constraints of national ideology in my personal landscape paintings, aiming for self-expression. It also critically analyzes and attempts to philosophically position my painting practice based on Adorno aesthetic theories.
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On Memory
Exploring the possibility of preserving memory and containing emotion in the face of loss and grief
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Kitkats and Cuppas
A reflection on points of connection in developing practices over the course of the MA and the collaborations that resulted.
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Harmony of Verse and Mind
The study explores into the collaboration between humans and machines, exploring how they creativity come together to make interactive art in the fields of poetry language and neuroscience. By connecting these different areas, the goal is to discover new ways of artistic expression.