King’s Cultural Institute: Academia, Art and Engagement

(Originally posted 10 May 2013)

The last few weeks have been very busy but very exciting for me. In between writing 11,000 words for my upgrade, I’ve been lucky enough to have been working part time for King’s Cultural Institute. As a passionate believer in the need to bring together academia and the cultural sectors to reach wider audiences, I am really inspired by the work of KCI and their innovation in public engagement.

By first involvement with KCI was as a gallery assistant at the Integrating Knowledge exhibition at Inigo Rooms  The project paired King’s academics and PhD students with MA Communication Design students from Central St Martin’s to create art installations and videos that share academic research in a way that entices the public. Working at the gallery was an amazing opportunity to meet the artists and learn about their work, as well as seeing first hand how visitors appreciated both the artistic and the educational qualities of the works. (See my full blog about the event here).

Then, as of last Friday, I am working on the Arts and the Digital Creative Lab project, taking notes and writing reports. The project is a collaboration between KCI and digital creative agency Caper, which brings together about 50 participants, including academics from across the nine schools and representatives of the cultural sector, from museum curators to theatre company directors.  The first session on 3 May gave participants the chance to discuss their work, find shared challenges and consider opportunities for collaboration. In the next stage, on 23 May, the participants will try to find ways to solve the problems they identified, in the form of collaborative projects, which they can then bid for £2500 of funding for. The winning projects will then be presented on 3 July. I can’t wait to see where all the ideas identified last week lead!

Integrating Knowledge - A King's Cultural Institute and Central St Martin's Collaboration

As a firm believer in the importance of public engagement for academia, I jumped at the chance to be involved in the Integrating Knowledge exhibition, even if only counting visitors and handing out information packs!

  

Integrating Knowledge is a collaboration between King's Cultural Institute and Central St Martin's to present research to the public in innovative and exciting ways. The project, curated by Caroline Sipos, paired students of MA Communication Design with academics and PhD students in Geography, Anatomy, English and Law to find ways to express academic research through videos, installations and interactive presentations. 

The exhibition covers topics as diverse as the Argentine Dirty War to neuroscience, while the theme of place/space runs through the exhibition in pieces about gentrification, regeneration, and the difference between public and private.

One of my favourite pieces is Taco-trification by Eunjung Ahn, Michelle  Dwyer, Ferdinand Freiler and Wenquing Yu, based on the work of Juliet Kahne from the Department of Geography. Through a short stop-motion film, they illustrate the gentrification of Downtown Los Angeles through tacos, which have gone from a cheap staple for local people to an overpriced trend that only the yuppies can afford.

I also loved Handwritten Waves by Mariane Assous-Plunian, Mairead Gillespie, Julia Stubenboeck and Dusan Tomic, inspired by Kate Symondson's deconstruction of Virginia Woolf's The Waves. They covered a whole wall of the gallery with extracts from Woolf's text, each handwritten by a different person, and created six books, collecting the handwritten pieces that represent the subjective experiences of each of the six main characters. Absolutely stunning.

Certainly the most ambitious piece of the whole exhibition is Howbrain by Shesley Crustna, Hoc Ling Duong, Timothy Klofski and Apolline Saillard, presenting research by neuroscientist Prof. Jon Clarke into the functioning of brain cells. Visitors can interact with the piece by stepping on pads on the floor which control the projection, choosing between research on the sub-cellular level, the cellular level and aspirations of future research. 

Overall, the exhibition achieves exactly what is hoped from a collaboration between artists and academics, engaging audiences on both an aesthetic and an intellectual level. In the three days I spent working there, visitors frequently expressed how much they'd learnt from the show, while others just enjoyed the beauty of the installations and videos. I hope to see more collaborations like this soon, as its great to see research inspiring people beyond classrooms and academic journals.

Integrating Knowledge runs until 28 April at Inigo Rooms in the East Wing of Somerset House, and is absolutely free.