The series of 5 workshops each semester aim to lead the students through a creative process:

• experimentation
• reflection
• research

Mae’r gyfres o 5 gweithdy bob semester yn arwain y myfyrwyr drwy broses greadigol:

• arbrofi
• myfyrio
• ymchwilio

The 5 workshops enable the students to witness and ‘get’ for the first time, or ‘get’ again a creative process that can be the foundation of any creative project in any discipline. The students will be encouraged to learn how to apply this process to their own individual self – directed projects and their projects in other practice based modules.

Mae’r 5 gweithdy yn galluogi’r myfyrwyr i weld a ‘deall’ proses greadigol, am y tro cyntaf neu eu deall eto o’r newydd, a all ddarparu sylfaen i unrhyw brosiect creadigol mewn unrhyw ddisgyblaeth. Anogir y myfyrwyr i ddysgu sut i gymhwyso’r broses hon i’w prosiectau hunan-gyfeiriedig unigol eu hunain yn ogystal â’u prosiectau ar fodiwlau eraill sy’n seiliedig ar ymarfer.

This workshop was designed to encourage and enable the group to empathise and understand a topical subject that is central to the theme HOME – displacement.

This workshop aimed to enable the students to stand in solidarity with displaced people all over the world and the sense of displacement they might feel in themselves and their own lives, and to explore issues relating to home that go beyond the self and autobiographical references.

This workshop did not aim to situate any of the students in a political or ideological position, stance, attitude or to make a judgement on this subject . Nor did the workshop aim to politicise the subject or our exploration of it. The workshop did not lead to a public protest, an activist gesture or public event.

It was very poignant that group 2 did this workshop on the day that Russia invaded the Ukraine and began its military attack. The Ukrainian invasion will inevitably lead to a mass migration crisis with estimates of up to 5 million displaced Ukrainian citizens, of which 1 million are estimated to cross the Polish border and seek refuge in Poland, this will impact the lives of several of the students, their families and their friends.

In this workshop with group one they were asked to bounce off a lecture titled “Where Scenography Meets Ecology: Affect, Assemblage and Material Thinking by Liesbeth Groot Nibbleink” This lecture was the 3^rd in the series of research seminars for the Centre for Material Thinking (CMT), a new research centre co- directed by myself and Kim Knowles from TFTS.

The students were asked to explore the materiality of the workshop last week, so see it as a live, vibrant, active, shifting set of materials, assemblages and affects, in order to re- mobilize these materials, assemblages and affects, i.e. the ‘things’ that were active in last weeks workshop in a playful way in this workshop.

The students were asked to consider the studio space, themselves, each other and the materials from a scenographic perspective. So to imagine that themselves stepping onto a stage and into a space that is full of materials, behaviour, humans and more than humans.

The students were asked to imagine themselves stepping into a temporal and relational ‘event’ or ‘object’. In Graham Harman’s book Object – Oriented Ontology, A New Theory of Everything Harman argues that a situation and all of its components is an event and goes on to say that events are objects. This is a much more complex and expansive idea of an object than we usually consider, so for Harman an object is a moment in time with all of the components active and entangled in that moment.

In this workshop the students were asked to see last weeks workshop and this weeks workshop as a new temporal and relational, live, active, vibrant, entangled object.

In the second workshop the students are given the opportunity to reflect on everything they did in the first workshop and during the week. In this workshop they are asked to research and brainstorm in the class to develop their individual proposals for the collaborative workshop in workshop 5, week 9.

The third workshop aims to give students an opportunity to pitch their individual proposals for the collaborative project which will be led by one of them in workshop 5. Their proposals will extend and enhance the activity and material developed in workshops 1 and 2. Students deliver their pitch via a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation. At the end of the presentations each person votes for one proposal to take forward to workshop 5. The person whose proposal is successful will lead workshop 5 under my supervision.

The two winning project proposals:

The fourth workshop gives the students an opportunity to present the research that they have carried out on one concept and one artists’ creative project, from any discipline, that relates to the selected collaborative project. We brainstorm together to think up the related concepts.

The fifth and last workshop aims to give students the opportunity to fully realise a collaborative project that has been conceived, devised and proposed by a student. The project will clarify, refine and define, through a process of experimentation, reflection and research the theme/concept/topic that we started with in Workshop 1. Experiencing the process we have taken together throughout the series of 5 workshops enables students to witness and so hopefully ‘get’ for the first time, or ‘get’ again –  the creative process that is at the heart of the development of any creative project in any discipline.

Paulina brilliantly led the timely and evocative, ‘What do you Pack’ workshop with Group 1

Isaac beautifully led Matthew’s very open and engaging, ‘Won’t you Come in’ workshop with Group 2

I went to the new neighbourhood garden party for displaced people as a non – human; a May (Hawthorn) tree. All of the images below are taken from my stationary and mostly silent perspective while sitting beside May. The students were very unsure of May at first, not considering the tree much or at all in the workshop warm up exercises, but over time many of them began to sit with May, talk to May and offer gifts…

The first workshop is an introduction and starting point to the theme of the workshops 1 – 5. This semester the theme is Journey.

and

A 6 hour playlist of music that references ‘Journey’ the theme for this semester

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0wTqUDwpx5Y0uUkbVRwLMN?si=lyUVXTabS0ain7rHkaMzMA

Now Go Play……

The second workshop aims to give students an opportunity to reflect on everything they did in the first workshop and during the week. In this workshop they will further research, experiment and reflect in the class to develop their individual proposal for the collaborative project in workshop 5. I work with them individually throughout the session to help define and refine their ideas.

The third workshop aims to give students an opportunity to pitch their individual proposals for the collaborative project which will be led by one of them in workshop 5. Their proposals will extend and enhance the activity and material developed in workshops 1 and 2. Students deliver their pitch via a 10 minute Powerpoint presentation. At the end of the presentations each person votes for one proposal to take forward to workshop 5. The person whose proposal is successful will lead workshop 5 under my supervision.

The two winning project proposals:

The fourth workshop gives the students an opportunity to present the research that they have carried out on one concept and one artists’ creative project, from any discipline, that relates to the selected collaborative project. We brainstorm together to think up the related concepts.

Stop Press – Amy’s sweet potato has been sitting in water over the last few weeks, and already its sprouting!

The fifth and last workshop aims to give students the opportunity to fully realise a collaborative project that has been conceived, devised and proposed by a student. The project will clarify, refine and define, through a process of experimentation, reflection and research the theme/concept/topic that we started with in Workshop 1. Experiencing the process we have taken together throughout the series of 5 workshops enables students to witness and so hopefully ‘get’ for the first time, or ‘get’ again –  the creative process that is at the heart of the development of any creative project in any discipline.

Charly Browne brilliantly led the fascinating, fun and freeing ‘Non Sweet Potato Sense’ workshop with Group 1

“This workshop was about creating something out of nothing. Like Null Island as a concept, it was about digging deep into the untapped layers of our creativity and responding intuitively in a way that is logical to us.

This workshop showed us how we make intuitively when faced with something that is highly conceptual. It also showed how ideas snowball and knock on to one another, as you make in a structured rhythm.

Momentum was one of the key words for this workshop, and this momentum was shown by us making in an automatised way, with no opportunity for procrastination or anxiety.

I hope this workshop inspired the others to take this intuitive making into their own projects. I also hope it helped us to realise that you learn the most about yourself and your own practice by just doing“

Charly Browne November 2021

Michael Varney lead the brilliantly bonkers film and theatre workshop inspired by Georges Melies A Trip to the Moon titled ‘Null Island (The Killing of Ignorance)’ with Group 2

“Null island, a place with no rules, no limitations, no law, no boundaries, only a community. A community that has attached itself to the only source of life – the sweet potato. This potato gives life to these people, but like their forefathers and those before them, if something has higher power – will the people cherish it, nurture it or will they let it change them?”