The multi‐disciplinary aspect of the group was a great catalyst for different ways of thinking about a subject in this case the wildness of urban spaces, and was found very useful by many of the OCA participants.
Browsing Category Study visit review
Study visit review: 2018 RCA Textiles summer show
The 2018 MA Textiles summer show at the Royal College of Art was a heady mix of product, experimentation and conceptual thinking. Having curated the show I took the opportunity to invite OCA students to view the work. The aim was to discuss the diversity in order to question the definition of the term ‘textiles’. 15 OCA students attended on a sunny summer Sunday to explore the galleries before meeting for a very lively discussion.
Glasgow International, chicken pox and the D.I.Y study visit
When the OCA tutor’s twins came down with chicken pox, a planned study visit to Glasgow International looked to be inevitably cancelled as cover at short notice was difficult to arrange. The visit went ahead however, with the 4 OCA students from different disciplines meeting up independently.
Study event review: Copenhagen
At the end of April twelve students from seven different countries and two OCA bodies met in Copenhagen for a weekend to look at art and make connections.
Review: New Music Collective
The New Music Collective met at Iklectik in London on 17 March, for a study day based on collaboration. A month before the event, the students were asked to work in pairs to produce new work to be presented on the day. Each student had to take part in the project both as a performer and composer, but they were able to choose how whether to write together or separately.
Study visit review: London group study day
Our practical session was centred on ideas generation and how to generate multiple visual experiments from a single starting point. Taking a crumpled piece of A4 paper as our subject, we first drew its form, then experimented with scale and composition.
Cross-discipline drawing workshop
I began the morning asking students what they thought drawing could be beyond the traditional skills they might have learnt. Some keywords emerged that acted as a guide for the exercises, including drawing as invention, play, process, action, memory, language, non-art, materials and generative.
Study visit review: London trio of galleries
This study visit brought together three very different gallery spaces, each with their own structure and agenda and a variety of work from emerging and established artists. There is value in exploring the many ways that artwork is seen, we can become more aware of the journeys that artists take and the way a practice can develop through public presentation of work.
Study visit review: Hull City of Culture
Lunch and further lively discussions were held in the café before we moved on to Princes Quay and the photographs of the HIP International Photography festival.
Study visit review: Nicola Tyson.
It was to my great delight that the Study Visit to see Nicola Tyson’s show titled Beyond the Trace at The Drawing Room in London was filled to capacity and with a couple of extra students waiting in the wings we had a great few hours interrogating and discussing the works on show, all of which held the common ground of being works on paper.
Study visit review: Kathe Kollwitz
The exhibition as a whole enabled us to see a range of work from the strongly contrasting lino cuts to the super fine cobwebbby weave of some of the lithograph work which had been even further smoothed over and refined with sandpaper and crayon.
Study visit review: OCA music composition workshop
In late July, OCA music students from across the UK and Europe met up at the MAC Birmingham for a day of music making and discussion with music tutor Chris Lawry and saxophonist and publisher Keri Degg. The day was focussed on writing for saxophone with a particular emphasis on composing music for educational and examination purposes. Students got to hear their compositions workshopped and received feedback and advice from tutor and performers, as well as bound scores and recordings to take away for further study.