Newcastle University MFA Exhibition

Newcastle University Fine Art Dept. School of Arts & Cultures, The Quadrangle

The Newcastle University Master of Fine Art Degree Show 2017 featured a dynamic range of work, including painting, sculpture, video and light installations, photography, print and sound. 

The artists exhibiting were Shaney Barton, Hannah Cooper, Meehan Fernando, Elizabeth Green, Peter Hamner, Paul Jex, Hannah Klepacka, Jim Lloyd, Anna MacRae and Gill Shreeve.

The following PhD students also exhibited work: Sabina Sallis, Toby Lloyd, Qi Fang and Kate Stobbard. Julia McKinlay, Bartlett Teaching Fellow in Print also had work in the exhibition.

Work on display addressed a range of themes and ideas including social politics, our connection and relationship with the natural world, investigating the everyday and commonplace, human consciousness and perceptions along with light, space and time.

The following few blog posts will give an insight into some of the work being exhibited.

Here is a selection to whet your appetite.

Film and video production workshop

Cecilia Stenbom lead a film and video production workshop which I attended today. Cecilia is a Newcastle-based artist filmmaker who is currently undertaking a PhD at Newcastle University. 

“My work is focused on media saturated, consumer driven everyday environments and how they affect human response, notions of identity, behaviour and interaction. I examine collective experiences through moving image content by reinterpretation and appropriation, using narrative and plot as tools.I examines anxieties and desires, reinterpreting scenarios within entertainment, mass media, retail, and domestic life. I work predominately with moving image content through film and installation by re-contextualize narrative for the gallery space or adapting it for the cinema screen.”

Cecilia Stenbom

The workshop covered all aspects of film and video production from preproduction, fundraising, casting, legal requirements, through the types of equipment (video cameras, microphones, lighting) and to postproduction.



Cecilia began by showing us SYSTEM, a short film shot in a shopping centre featuring two sisters, each with their own neurotic responses to everyday life. Through the experiences of these two characters, SYSTEM explores collective anxieties, irrational behaviour and the quest for control in public space. The plot is loosely based on a number of one-to-one interviews that Stenbom conducted with people about everyday behaviours and habits in communal spaces.

Throughout the workshop we referred back to the SYSTEM footage to demonstrate how certain results were achieved, or to explain a concept or technique when put in practice.

When we were discussing how to achieve the kind of image desired, Cecilia showed us a very useful diagram to illustrate the relationship between the ISO, the aperture and the shutter speed.

For more information about Cecila's practice visit 

http://www.ceciliastenbom.se/index.asp

https://systemthefilm.wordpress.com



Artist Films 2014 - Cecilia Stenbom from CVAN, North East on Vimeo.

Interview with Fiona Millar - Exploration of Career Management Practices of Creative Individuals (CI-CMP)

This afternoon I had a very interesting telephone interview with Fiona Millar, a PhD student at the University of Stirling regarding her Exploration of Career Management Practices of Creative Individuals (CI-CMP).

 

This is how Fiona explains her research:

“I am a PhD Student at the University of Stirling, conducting research that explores the career management practices of creative individuals from Fine Arts and Digital Media backgrounds.  The project aims to explore how creative individuals manage their careers by identifying the issues that affect an individuals’ ability to manage their career and the steps an individual takes to make themselves more employable.  Through my research I am hoping to explore how creative individuals manage such traditionally unconventional careers and deal with the obstacles that they face in achieving their career goals. I have currently enjoyed informal chats with three Fine Artists and Four Digital Media Workers in Scotland hearing about their career journeys and educational backgrounds, discussing career decisions and interplays throughout their careers. It’s been really exciting exploring such wonderful and varied careers and the passion from each participant about their career has been overwhelming and truly enjoyable! The data collected is currently being analysed and will lead into a bigger study that hopes to commence in late November this year (2013). 

 

In a first step, CI-CMP seeks to identify the influences that affect an individual’s ability to manage their career and support their employability. In a second step, CI-CMP will then identify the career strategies that individuals utilise in order to positively support the management of their own careers.  This research endeavours to generate avenues for future research in this field and it is also hoped that valuable data and information on the career management practises of creative individuals will be generated which may enable change in policy or support provisions."

 

You can follow bites of Fiona's research on Twitter @Fiona_Millar or by following the hashtag #CMgtinCI where she regularly give snippets of her research. She would like to actively engage with persons who have views on this subject.