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A PDF-to-print zine as engagement for Creative Arts: Gesa Helms’ A/Folder: an instructive glossary thumb

A PDF-to-print zine as engagement for Creative Arts: Gesa Helms’ A/Folder: an instructive glossary

This blog explores a distributed and self-printed form of engagement in my recently completed Creative Arts practice. A/Folder: an instructive glossary is a downloadable PDF-to-print zine. Each zine offers a prompt, a set of instructions, a method to explore. I want to unpack a little what this form allows for in terms of engagement as key modality of Sustain your Practice, and, should you be interested, invite you along.

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Practice-as-research and Research-as-practice. The Creative Arts work of Stage 3 student Gesa Helms. thumb

Practice-as-research and Research-as-practice. The Creative Arts work of Stage 3 student Gesa Helms.

In May, after concluding Stage 3 of the Creative Arts pathway, tutor Rachel Smith spoke with student Gesa Helms to explore the interweaving between practical and theoretical work in her practice and how practice-as-research methods have informed her three Stage 3 modules. 

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OCA News: Student Fees from August 2022 thumb

OCA News: Student Fees from August 2022

We are announcing today, Tuesday 17th May 2022, the fees which will apply to the next academic year (from 1st August 2022 to 31st July 2023).

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Creative Arts, Part 3: Why are skills so important to becoming a creative artist? thumb

Creative Arts, Part 3: Why are skills so important to becoming a creative artist?

This might seem like an obvious question to answer, and perhaps I wanted to open a discussion on what opportunities there are for developing skills on the creative arts pathway.

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Augmented Reality – what place does this have in art? thumb

Augmented Reality – what place does this have in art?

The primary focus for Artivive, going by their website, appears to be its use in galleries, but I was beginning to see the potential beyond that context. What if artists could add an audio track for people with literacy difficulties? Or a video of themselves talking about the work? Or how about a video comprising photos showing how the finished piece came about? 

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LGBT+ History Month thumb

LGBT+ History Month

February is LGBT+ History Month in the UK, a month-long annual celebration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary history.

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Creative Arts 2021 Showcase ‘Crossing The Boundary’  thumb

Creative Arts 2021 Showcase ‘Crossing The Boundary’ 

For the 2020/21 academic year, I wanted to develop a showcase of student work from across the Creative Arts (CA) programme at any stage of their study. I aspired to offer a view of what CA students are achieving through their interdisciplinary practices and hope to share this more widely with the OCA community and beyond.

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Image-making and image-faking thumb

Image-making and image-faking

How do you balance healthy scepticism (and the urge to debunk) with openness to new information and the desire to believe?  Sometimes, when it comes to image-making and image-faking, all it takes is a few hoax fairy photos to remind you to maintain your sense of wonder…and look a little closer.

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