Project
The Creative Continuum
85
ways to learn from the past and excel in the future.
The development of the 85th Anniversary
project at NCKU with Charnwood Arts combines the following key elements:
• A cross campus call for collaboration and participation
• An
exhibition and workshop programme that combines the past with
the
present and the future – the exhibition has two phases – a
participatory
build and a ‘public’ run.
• The
interment of a time capsule capped to mark its location
• A web archive containing images, moving image and narratives related
• A web archive containing images, moving image and narratives related
to
what is in the capsule.
• A
simple but high quality sculpture that embodies values and
aspirations
In considering this project one of the
first bridges for us as artists to cross is that of securing participation in a
cultural context that operates differently from that which we may be used to.
The project has now had the benefit of extensive conversations with students from NCKU to begin to address these issues.
The project has now had the benefit of extensive conversations with students from NCKU to begin to address these issues.
It is clear that we must move students,
staff and local residents (if included) from passive bystanders and observers
into active participants. In order to facilitate this we must we must provide:
• Different types of engagement, at different times and in different places
• Different types of engagement, at different times and in different places
demanding
different levels of time commitment.
• Activities
and calls to participate that are more specifically targeted and
relevant
to different groups of people e.g. by subject or schools,
activities
or interests
• Departmental
engagements that ‘pitch’ for participation on the basis of
representation
through past, present and future aspiration - we are sending valuable
information and perspectives to people who will live beyond us.
This
latter factor alone...of taking a simple responsibility to send thoughts,
feelings, narratives, hopes, fears and messages, objects and images - still and
moving, to far off generations not only creates something of great interest for
those who will discover it later but also for us now as participants and
observers. It gives us reflective insight into who and how we are today and
shares this beyond the lines that divide us into so many small groups. The
project aims to unite the body of the University through this project as a
focal point.
