AGENDAS, AGENDAS, AGENDAS: “The Female Artist’s Voice in South Africa”
Wednesday, 10th June 2009
3.30pm – 5.30pm
Theatre Royal Stratford East, Gerry Raffles Square, Stratford, London, E15 1BN

University of the Arts Wimbledon in conjunction with The Africa Consortium presents the South African performance poet Lebo Mashile

Lebo Mashile is an award winning poet, performer, actress, presenter and producer. She sprang into notoriety as a spoken word artist in 2002, through her own blend of hip-hop inspired poetry. Her lyrical and gutsy poems focus on the issues of gender, identity, love, spirituality, sexuality and the socio-political condition in South Africa. By combining performance poetry with hip-hop, house and R&B, Lebo speaks with a sense of urgency, rawness and humour about life in the new South Africa. www.lebomashile.com.

Lebo is being interviewed by the actor, writer, teacher, director and producer Mojisola Adebayo. Mojisola is an artist who specialises in Theatre of the Oppressed in areas of conflict and crisis. She collaborates with international artists from a variety of disciplines to create new storytelling theatre arising from her own writing, which works within a broad African aesthetic, exploring contemporary issues. Her recent independent productions include Moj of the Antarctic: An African Odyssey and Muhammad Ali and Me.

This is the third in a series of ‘Agendas’ conversations that look at contemporary performance in South Africa.
Previous Agendas have featured Jon Kani at the National Theatre, London and Brett Bailey at the Edinburgh Festival.

This ‘Agendas’ session will be introduced by Jane Collins Reader in Theatre at Wimbledon College of Art

This event is FREE, but booking is essential. Please contact us at either info@africaconsortium.co.uk or 020 7193 4577 to reserve your place(s).

There will also be a chance to network with fellow artists, producers and international colleagues engaged or interested in the African contemporary arts scene, to share experiences, ask questions and to find out more about the Africa Consortium and how to get involved.

If you would like discounted tickets see Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom’s production ‘Foreplay’ at 7.30pm on 10th June, please quote ‘Africa Consortium’ when booking your tickets
Box office - Theatre Royal Stratford East: 0208534 0310 / www.stratfordeast.com

Agendas, Agendas, Agendas

With Lucy Reynolds, Jordan Baseman, Ben Rivers and Ian White
The Photographers’ Gallery
Wednesday 13th May at 7pm

Click here for more information

For further information or to book a seat, please contact:

Johanna Empson
johanna.empson@photonet.org.uk

Photographers’ Gallery
16 - 18 Ramillies Street
London
W1F 7LW
Tel. 0845 262 1618

SIMONE WEIL : THAT ATTENTION BE A LOOKING
A Symposium

Thursday 28th May 2009 – 2.00pm
Institut Francais – Queensbury Place, South Kensington, SW7

Free admission

To reserve a place, please contact:

Claire Foss
Agendas
Wimbledon College of Art, Merton Hall Road.
c.foss@wimbledon.arts.ac.uk
Tel. 020 7514 9706

Simon Weil Symposium

A Symposium:
‘Art History and the Art School’

Thursday 6th March 2008, 9.30a.m – 4.30p.m
Project Space, Bullingdon Road, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford.

Speakers include:
Frederika Adam, doctoral student, University of Oxford Michael Archer, Head of School, The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art Oxford Professor Mark Nash, Head of Department, Curating Contemporary Art, Royal College of Art, London Dr Malcolm Quinn, Reader in Critical Practice, Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London Dr Katerina Reed-Tsocha, Lecturer in Art History, University of Oxford Professor Alex Seago, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Richmond University London.

This one day 'Agendas' symposium examines the role that art history has played in the development of art education in the UK. Attitudes to art history are revealed in the evolution of practice, pedagogy and research in art schools, and in the development of their public role, from the elevation of taste in the nineteenth century to the challenging of cultural, aesthetic and educational norms in our own era. Grants for vocational art training were proposed only two years after the first government grant for any educational purpose, yet it was not until the first Coldstream report of 1960, that the history of art was studied within all art schools and examined for the diploma. Since Coldstream, art schools have become further integrated into the University sector, while the development of practice-led research has proposed new ways of integrating theory, practice and historical reflection.

An ‘Agendas’ event from Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London in partnership with The Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford.

‘The Africa Consortium/Brett Bailey’ Festival Theatre, Edinburgh 22 August 2007

This event develops themes and ideas raised in the ‘Agendas’ discussion at the National Theatre on 23 March 2007. It will be hosted by Jane Collins, Reader in Theatre at Wimbledon College of Art, and held in association with the Africa Consortium UK, a network of venues, companies and individual artists who are committed to engaging with the performing arts from Africa and the African diaspora.
See: http://www.ukarts.com/africaconsortium

‘Nature’s Great Experiment’ Wellcome Trust 29 May 2007

This event was focused on ‘Nature’s Great Experiment’, three films by Jordan Baseman, Reader in Time-Based Media at Wimbledon College of Art. The films incorporate recorded interviews with behavioural geneticist Professor Terrie Moffitt and her Twin Research Team from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. A screening of the films was followed by discussion with Jordan Baseman, Professor Terrie Moffat and Dr Tom Shakespeare, Research Fellow in Policy Ethics and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle. The event was chaired by Rachel Withers, Senior Lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies at Wimbledon College of Art.

See: http://www.naturesgreatexperiment.com

‘Stages Calling/John Kani’ National Theatre, London 23 March 2007

In March 2007, Jane Collins and Michael Pavelka, Readers in Theatre at Wimbledon College of Art, developed an exhibition at the National Theatre, London of the production photographs of Ruphin Coudyzer to celebrate thirty years of The Market Theatre in Johannesburg. An ‘Agendas’ discussion with the Actor John Kani was held at the National Theatre in Association with this event. See also;

http://www.ejpcollins.info/research.htm
http://www.nt-online.org/Stages%20Calling%3A%20%2022160.twl

‘On Liberty and Art’ Clore Auditorium, Tate Britain 18 October 2006

This one-day symposium was concerned with how artists engage with liberty as an historical concept, an aesthetic practice and a public discourse. While artists continue to be celebrated as icons of creative freedom, critical discourse on liberty through art is often accused of being naive, politically suspect, or socially irrelevant. The Bicentennial of J.S Mill, author of On Liberty (1859) in 2006, was an occasion to re-examine how artists are promoted by the state and media as exemplars of personal liberty, creative individualism and the pursuit of happiness. In contrast, the aesthetic actualisation of a language of liberty by artists can reveal how liberty as a self-evident and universal value is grounded in historical contingency, social pragmatism and cultural prohibitions. The symposium was organised and co-chaired by Dr Malcolm Quinn and Dr Amanda Beech, with contributions from Dave Beech, Pil and Galia Kollectiv, John Russell, Bob and Roberta Smith and Roman Vasseur. The introductory address to this event is available as a download here:

Doc of mquinn intro

See also: http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/eventseducation/coursesworkshops/6273.htm