UAL x OCAD U x CGLAS worked collaboratively to invite 8 students from each institution to work on a two-part international online research practice, that aimed to form a new online community of artists.
Led by artists Cole Swanson (OCADU), Smriti Mehra (CGLAS), and Jacob V Joyce (UAL). Participants were invited to explore new artistic methodologies for engaging local and global community issues in relation to expressions of selfhood, identity, and individual responsibility. Contemporary artistic practice which is often framed as intrinsically embedded and inward was turned outward as a decolonizing principal.
In the context of an ever more complex world, artists are increasingly exploring new territories of collective civic, and global responsibility. Climate emergency, social equality, and decolonization have become dominant questions within contemporary practice. In response to global concerns, the role of the artist is changing from insular prodigy to community-based, socially engaged problem solver. Each institution put forth a professional artist to collaborate with and asked them each to create provocations for the students. Students from each institution listened to the professional artist provocations that focused on social and environmental issues related to climate within their practice and were asked to choose one or a combination of the three provocations and respond to them through their collaborative work online and then present it to the larger group.
This two-part event explored the potential of collective civic responsibility and encourage groups of students to work collaboratively to produce speculative projects for presentation. In the first part, the three selected artists presented their work and provocations to the students and the public. The second part, was a public seminar that focused on showcasing the selected student outcomes of their project exchange. We invited open and experimental approaches to subject and format. Students presented an array of work all uniquely anchored in climate justice from all three university communities as well as had an opportunity for feedback and a robust discussion regarding the proposed ideas and art projects.