Art & Design
Recent Submissions
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Photographed space and the (no)bodyArchitecture journals present to us new buildings, pioneering ideas and triumphs of creative innovation… yet they are largely deserted. This paper argues against the negative impact of this on design culture and a resultant aspiration to design spaces that are not the territory of the body. A different approach is suggested in which the photographic communication of buildings might evolve to not only portray populated spaces but also to describe human experience – temporal, personal, expressive. The paper explores photographic theory, architectural representation and image psychology but is not limited to written discourse. Instead it reflects an ‘action-research’ series of alternative photographic experiments.
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It's the political economy, stupid: the global financial crisis in art and theoryIt’s the Political Economy, Stupid brings together internationally acclaimed artists and thinkers, including Slavoj Žižek, David Graeber, Judith Butler and Brian Holmes, to focus on the current economic crisis in a sustained and critical manner. In sympathy with the subject matter, the book features powerful original artwork for the cover, and an internal design theme based on the movements of Goldman Sachs stock market values by activist designer Noel Douglas. What emerges is a powerful critique of the current capitalist crisis through an analytical and theoretical response and an aesthetic-cultural rejoinder. By combining artistic responses with the analysis of leading radical theorists, the book expands the boundaries of critique beyond the usual discourse. It’s the Political Economy, Stupid argues that it is time to push back against the dictates of the capitalist logic and, by use of both theoretical and artistic means, launch a rescue of the very notion of the social.
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Learning from design creativity: translating processes from practice to educationThis paper develops reflections on design creativity as a cross-curriculum tool in mainstream formal education at primary/elementary level. Evidence comes from a contemporary UK case study of a series of workshops whereby architectural design professionals introduced design creativity into mainstream primary teaching and learning situations, developed through the UK Creative Partnerships‘ programme. This programme, which until recently was funded through central government, introduced principles of collaborative creativity through targeted programmes of change and enquiry involving pupils, teachers and creative practitioners. Following the processes of designing and delivering a programme to embed creative exploration through design tasks which focus on the learning environment, the authors, both architectural practitioners and educators, undertake further reflection back to the architectural profession and the societal role of collaborative creative design. We propose a hybrid practice in which architects might swap skills with teachers, pupils, teaching assistants and school management. This process reveals new creative concepts to pupils and staff, and unearths latent abilities within pupils as they work collaboratively to develop and provide design services for the built fabric or spatial use of school spaces.