International Opportunities in the Arts

Edited by Mary Sherman, MFA New York University

This book is a compilation of papers derived from talks, presented at TransCultural Exchange’s 2018 International Conference on Opportunities in the Arts. The aim of these talks was to inspire artists to think across disciplines and cultures and to suggest other career models beyond the typical studio to gallery/museum model. Much of this content is unique in that it not only addresses the practical needs of artists but, even more importantly, it does so in the context of today’s global reality. As artists have noted on post-Conference surveys, this information is “the missing link in the art world; the bridge between academic and real-world practice; between a local and international career in the arts.” By making this information available long-after the Conference’s end and to those who could not directly participate in the Conference, many more artists will have access to where to find jobs/residency programs and funding for their work, information on how to put together successful residency applications, how to market their work, and other professional development programming. In addition, they (and interested members of the public) will have access to the Conference talks on what leading artists are doing across disciplines, with new technologies, and in the public sphere.

Design School: After Boundaries and Disciplines

Edited by Paul A. Rodgers, University of Strathclyde, UK and Craig Bremner, Charles Sturt University, Australia

By examining the contemporary situation of the Design School from a global perspective, this book explores how the structure of design learning and teaching, research and practice, is being transformed by a number of internal, external, and contextual factors and the implications of these factors for future iterations of the Design School. Exploring contemporary design education, this book asks whether Design Schools are shaping a new type of designer, or if tomorrow’s designers will emerge from other professions such as business, health care, education, and computing, where design ‘thinking’ is now regularly applied. The book is proposed at a time when governments and markets across the world are reshaping education. In a time of rapid and intensive change, it looks internationally at the shape of the Design School of the future. The book has been developed from a series of summits that explored the future of the contemporary Design School informed by international perspectives from high level invited speakers from design education, culture and industry who were asked: * How can a Design School in the age of the Anthropocene best prepare future designers for this complex world? * How can the Design School maximize the potential opportunities suggested by this future, uncertain world at a time of rapid and intensive change? * Having changed the planet how should the Design School react to the planet changing us? The three summits reflect three significant turns in the contemporary Design School. The first focused on the current issues surrounding the Design School from the academic perspective. The second summit examined the increasingly intensive relationship between industry and Design Schools. The third summit focused on the increasingly close relationship between the Design School and the Cultural Sector. The book includes essays from the expanding landscape of the Design School, including educational providers, the design museum sector, the international design festival circuit and influential practitioners engaged in design education. The essays in this book provide a valuable, comprehensive examination of the future of the Design School and render a unique forecast of its probable trajectory.

Theatre & War

Notes from Afar

Nandita Dinesh

In Theatre & War: Notes from the Field (2016, 2018), Dinesh writes about making theatre in zones of conflict. She analyzes practice; she describes various projects that she has undertaken ‘on the ground’; she theorizes strategies that might be useful to other practitioner-researchers who are involved in similar work. In this sequel of sorts, Dinesh chooses to return to the same themes: of theatre, of war. But this time, she intentionally crafts her notes from afar. From somewhere outside the field. From somewhere outside the practice. And yet, a somewhere that is consumed by the field. And the practice. Through writing that seeks to ‘do’, through writing that seeks to ‘perform’, Dinesh use different voices in this book. Voices that come from more traditional archival sources, which are then re-conceptualized as drama. Voices that come from sources that occupy the space between archived and lived experience, which are then shaped into creative vignettes. Voices that come from Dinesh’s repertoire – her own lived experiences – that are then crafted as flash fiction about past/ present/ future collaborators. By weaving together variously positioned experiences and voices through creative (re)interpretations, Theatre & War: Notes from Afar is a book that could be read; it is also a book that could be performed.

Artistic Pedagogical Technologies: A Primer for Educators

Katherine J. Janzen, Mount Royal University, Canada et al.

Research has shown that what students desire most in the post-secondary milieu is engagement. As traditional forms of teaching that include lecture or PowerPoint presentations no longer adequately engage today’s technology adept students, educators may find themselves at a loss for where to locate teaching strategies which both engage students, and are tried and tested in an actual classroom setting. This book does just that. It provides a critical look at not only what is lacking in today’s classrooms to promote engagement, but actual solutions and strategies to help nurse educators as they prepare to teach. Artistic Pedagogical Technologies were first envisioned by Dr. Beth Perry in 2005, while over twelve years of research confirms that these arts-based teaching strategies actually work. As theory-based topics can be among the most difficult to engage students, included in this book are selected lesson plans that have been employed in actual classrooms. In total thirty five strategies are provided that can be utilized in a variety of classroom settings and applied to various nursing topics. Students, as part of the human family, have an innate need to be creative. This creativity can display itself within Artistic Pedagogical Technologies as a melding of technology, edutainment and play. The strategies in Artistic Pedagogical Technologies: A Primer for Educators have changed the classroom life of the authors as educators, and they can change your teaching too.

ANIMAE

The invisible sources of the artwork: talks with today’s artists

Emma Coccioli

Romanticism, the brooding and intensely personal eighteenth-century art and literary movement, takes on a new lease of life in this carefully curated collection of interviews with contemporary artists from around the world. Informed by the writings of the renowned psychoanalyst James Hillman, Romanticism is reconsidered from a twenty-first-century perspective. Moving past a purely formal presentation of the artists’ work, this text strives to uncover the deeper meaning and more pressing issues present in the artworks. All connected by a similar romantic vein, Emma Coccioli explores each artist’s individual practice through a series of carefully selected questions. For Coccioli, discussions of ‘the moral issue’ and the future of the world also form an important part of the interviews. Coccioli acknowledges that artists have often been asked questions about their role in relation to the moral issue and the problem of nihilism. However, even if we have an inherent understanding of the concepts of good and evil, Coccioli argues that there is a need to re-examine the modern-day psyche as it tends to be apathetic and with little emotional resonance on our actions and behaviour. Global overpopulation, climate change, and the planet’s limited resources are also meaningfully discussed in this collection of interviews. In questioning the artists, whose work addresses, even remotely, these topics, Coccioli encourages them to consider what they believe to be the greatest threats to today’s global community and to suggest solutions that might be adopted by future generations. This original and engaging look at contemporary art practice presents a sophisticated discussion of some of the most pressing issues for modern-day society. The interdisciplinary nature of this book means that it will appeal to students, scholars, artists and to anyone with an interest in the fascinating world of contemporary art.