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Marcia Farquhar confesses to taking places personally. Her site specific tours of UCL addressed schisms, sculpture, memory, pictorial lies, profanity and femininity. Vimeo Widget Placeholderhttps://vimeo.com/67012028 Vimeo Widget Placeholderhttps://vimeo.com/67012027 Vimeo Widget Placeholderhttps://vimeo.com/67011634 Vimeo Widget Placeholderhttps://vimeo.com/67011636Filmed by Tom Chick. Click here to view more video and images. Marcia Farquhar led, or misled, a tour of the newly refurbished Flaxman Gallery and other significant spaces of UCL. 'To find out where you are going you must come', she says.Farquhar has made it a significant aspect of her practice to question and deconstruct the role of the tour guide. Her performance persona in this context is very much herself, the outsider/ insider imbued with the understanding that history is in the process of being made and as such is always 'half made'.Farquhar's method of stitching together the factual and the fictional, critical analysis with myth and personal anecdote is the work of a consummate surrealist composer.Each tour was unique.Marcia Farqhar's approach to site-specificity weaves together conceptual and social strategies that permit us to unravel institutional and personal histories, and explore the complex relations between fictions and truth.Supported by Arts Council England. Curated by Nina Pearlman.

 Exploring gender equality and artistic ambition - past and present.This study day in partnership with the Women’s Library at the London School of Economics and Political Science examined ways in which the position of women in British art education has changed since the first women were admitted to the Slade School of Fine Art on equal terms to men just over a hundred years ago, looking at issues of gender equality, work-life balance, professional development, networks of influence and values within higher education in British art. Supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art.Speakers included Ruth Beale & Amy Feneck (artists, The Alternative School of Economics), Professor Susan Collins (artist, former Director Slade School of Fine Art), Helen Downes (indpendent researcher and curator), Hilary Powell (artist, The Bank Job) and Sarah Rowles (Q-Art)Programme9:30 am: Tea, coffee, registration at the Women’s Library, London School of Economics and view of the Suffrage18 exhibition.10 a.m.: Opening remarks10:30 a.m.: Helen Downes shared Spotlight on the Slade research findings that led to the development of this study day.First thematic session: Different imperativesIn the article 50/50 published in Art Monthly in 2013, Jennifer Thatcher wrote that, in 2016, more than 60% of students in creative arts and design subjects in the UK were female. How are women balancing the cost of rising university fees with potentially variable career opportunities and the demands of potential caring duties? Could art education be instrumental in effecting a necessary cultural change? Are women artists leading the way in producing socially engaged art offering relevant alternatives or complements to formal education, questioning notions of equality and access to information?10:30 a.m.: Artists Amy Feneck and Ruth Beale discussed their collaborative project The Alternative School of Economics, which started in 2012 as a work of art and a framework for critical self-education.11:15 a.m.: Hilary Powell discussed the social function of art, co-production in education and redistribution of authorship with her current collaborative work The Bank Job.12 p.m.: Questions and discussion12:30 p.m.: Move to UCL for lunch. Optional: artist-led walk leading from LSE to UCL highlighting key sites for the history of British art education.1:00 p.m.: Lunch at UCL, viewing of Prize & Prejudice exhibitionSecond thematic session: Influencing Women2 p.m:  Prof Susan Collins, as first female professor of the Slade, addressed the impact of gender on educational leadership. The Slade School of Fine Art is as illustrious for having been the first art college to welcome women as it is for its numerous male professors who have left unmistakably personal legacies behind. For instance, the influence of Henry Tonks is still the object of as many publications and exhibitions. In 2016, women still made up only 24.3% of the professor roles in UK universities.2:30 pm: Sarah Rowles led a discussion on influence and progressing formal and informal art education with a focus on Q-Art, an art education research, publishing, and events organisation she founded that aims to break down the barriers to art education and contemporary art.3:30 pm: Tea and coffee4pm: Plenary discussion    

What does 'likeness' actually mean? How do new technologies shape innovation in the arts and humanities?UCL Museums and Collections was awarded a grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in 2010 to develop a series of three interdisciplinary research workshops to investigate Likeness and Facial Recognition. The representation and interpretation of facial appearance is an important area for research in both the humanities and the biomedical and life sciences. These workshops brought researchers in the arts, humanities, social sciences and life sciences from UCL and other HE institutions together with museum professionals and contemporary artists to investigate the historical context for our understanding of ‘likeness’ in portraiture and medical images of the face, and the potential of new research on facial recognition to inform work in the arts and humanities. The research network investigated the ways in which digital and surgical techniques are creating new models of ‘likeness’ for the 21st-century, the synergies and dissonances of these models with the historical definitions of ‘likeness’ in portraiture, and the ways that contemporary artists are engaging with these ideas and technologies. In addition to these themes, the workshops were also used to explore models of communication between researchers from the fine arts, the humanities and the sciences.This projected enabled the creation of 100 Faces teaching pack. To learn more about get in touch at museums@ucl.ac.ukPROJECT PARTNERSPrincipal investigator: Dr Emma Chambers, UCL Art MuseumResearch project assistant: Krisztina Lackoi, UCL Art MuseumAdvisory Board:Dr Suzannah Biernoff, Department of History of Art and Screen Media, Birkbeck, University of LondonDr Joe Cain, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College LondonDr Simon Chaplin, Wellcome LibraryDr Peter Funnell, National Portrait GalleryFunded by the AHRC through a Research Networking grant. 

Combining real-time projected images and performance, Lisa Gornick Regrets is a combination of off-the-cuff comedy, storytelling and drawing. An academic and artistic comedy investigation into choice and its chaos. Lisa's work delved into the research done by academics at UCL and work from its Art Museum.This project was a collaboration between artist and collection, and shed light on some of the unique work taking place at Art Museum. It was an experiment in how to engage with a stored collection, drawing inspiration from works that aren't usually on public display. The show examined the mental state of regret - its link to depression and neuroscience. It also investigated how it is expressed in art, music and language. Is there a cultural system of regret that also effects whole societies and countries – what happens when we all regret together?Gornick’s first full-length live drawing show was about her Grandma Ray, an East End cockney who sometimes went posh, with whom she shared a family secret. This was performed at The Gilded Balloon, during the Edinburgh Fringe and at the Soho Theatre in London amongst other venues. Find out more about Lisa's work here.This first commission and collaboration with UCL Art Museum, part of UCL Culture, was shown for the first time as part of the Camden Fringe on the 15th and 16th of August 2017. 

Naomi Salaman unpacks the legacy of the life-room as a theoretical aparatus in a visual essay. This installation looked back at an academic model of art education that centred on drawing the male model in classical poses. In the tradition of the visual essay, artist Naomi Salaman puts together photographs of spaces where drawing is still taught alongside historic prints and photocopies from her research archive. Revisiting the academic art curriculum, she explores the process of looking at, making and reading images in relation to institutional forms of knowledge and the technologies of image reproduction.Drawing a nude model after the antique was the apex of an hierarchical course which began with copying from copies of old master prints and plaster casts and lessons in anatomy. This curriculum served as the basis of art education in Europe from the 1600s. In the 1960s art schools in this country moved away from mandatory exams in these subjects.Charting the remnants of a pedagogical system now suspended, Salaman identifies a "curved space of observation" that builds up through a montage of historic life rooms and dissection theatres. Her research path begins with the much-cited painting of The Royal Academicians (1772) by Johann Zoffany and its reproductions in feminist art history texts two hundred years later. Zoffany's group portrait in the life room was contentious as it illustrated the exclusion of women artists from the life room, and therefore from professional advancement. Looking back at this painting, through feminist critiques, to the early ambitions of the life room, Salaman reconsidered the academy life room as a theoretical apparatus that marked the distinction between fine art as an intellectual pursuit and the workshop practices of the guild.Naomi Salaman is a London-based artist and a lecturer at the University of Brighton. Her research-based practice is rooted in the politics of representation and combines photography, installation, curated exhibitions and publications.Co-curated by Nina Pearlman and Naomi Salaman, this exhibition was supported by Arts Council England and the University of Brighton. It drew on research supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and was accompanied by a limited edition artist's print.In conjunction with the exhibition, UCL Art Museum, the Royal Collection and the University of Brighton have organised a conference entitled Art Schools: Invention, Invective and Radical Possibilities.  

Performance-led inquiry into legacies of gender equality in higher educationThis study day explored gender equality at UCL since the 1860s, featuring a re-enactment performance of prospective students’ admissions experience before 1919. Set against the turbulent backdrop of women’s fight for equality in Britain, we invited reflection on the hidden ‘passing-in’ rules still in place for women and minority groups in higher education.This event was co-conceived and produced by Dr Georgina Brewis, UCL Institute of Education and Dr Nina Pearlman, UCL Culture. It was a collaboration between a number of academic modules and was supported by Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL Culture UCL Press, UCL Institute of Education and UCL Special Collections.This is part of UCL Art Museum's family of projects Curating Equality and UCL's Grand Challenge Justice and Equality and coincided with the 2018 publication of the revised edition of The World of UCL and the Disrupters and Innovators exhibition at UCL Octagon Gallery.  This event took place on the 21 November 2018, 'Passing In: An audience with the Lady Superintendent for Women Students' was performed again by inviation at UCL Festival of Culture in June 2018. Please find the programme here.The project is incoporated into a module led by Georgina Brewis at the Institute of Education 'The Worlds of UCL: Critical Histories of Education, Nation and Empire. MediaCentral Widget Placeholderhttps://mediacentral.ucl.ac.uk/Player/g6b1JDDb [[{"fid":"9415","view_mode":"medium","fields":{"height":"1141","width":"1141","class":"media-element file-medium","format":"medium","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Black and white photo of two women ","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"right","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"height":"1141","width":"1141","class":"media-element file-medium","format":"medium","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Black and white photo of two women ","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"right","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"1141","width":"1141","class":"media-element file-medium"}}]]Performance: Passing In: An audience with the Lady Superintendent of Women StudiesDr Kate Vigurs, a professional historical interpreter, took on the role of Miss Rosa Morison, Lady Superintendent of Women students (1883-1912) and, in full costume, led participants on a walking performance of UCL. This re-enactment immersed participants in UCL as it was between 1883 and 1919. All intending female students had to present a reference, in person, acceptable to the Lady Superintendent of Women Students. In 1883, birth control activist Annie Besant famously failed this test and was refused admittance. Intersections of gender with class, race and religion will be explored. During the event, participants had the opportunity to present themselves to Miss Morison, using stories taken from historic student records or by creating their own.Discussion panel: Passing in today? An evening panel followed the afternoon of talks and performances and used the historical notion of ‘passing in’ as a means to discuss what might still be hidden passing-in rules in higher education, in terms of gender but also religion, race, LGBTQ+ identity and other intersections of identity, questioning the role played by networks and other diversity initiatives. Miss Morison (Kate Vigurs) opened the evening . The following speakers took part in the event:Abeni Adeyemi, Women’s Officer, Students’ Union UCL  and undergraduate UCL Neuroscience and JapaneseManya Eversley, UCL Political Science undergraduate involving in making ‘JewCL’ podcast on Jewish student identityProfessor Uta Frith, cognitive neuroscientist; co-founder of UCL Women network; and one of the ‘Female Firsts’ selected to mark #UCLVote100Anne Moore, Co-Chair of the largest staff network at UCL, LGBTQ+ Equality Advisory Group; Business Development Manager, UCL Centre for Languages & International EducationXueyan (Juno) Sun, UCL History PhD student working on representations of China and Chinese people in HollywoodProfesssor Ijeoma Uchegbu, Pro-Vice Provost - Africa and The Middle East; Chair in Pharmaceutical Nanoscience; Provost’s Envoy on Race and Equality.The information provided reflects the students' studies and academics' roles at the time of the event in 2018.Teaching: The Worlds of UCL: Critical Histories of Education, NationThis project is incorporated into the module 'The Worlds of UCL: Critical Histories of Education National and Empire' led by Georgina Brewis at the Institute of Education. This course approaches the study of the history of education through the lens UCL, founded in 1826 and the Institute of Education, founded in 1902. It provides context to the historical evolution of the educational system in the UK and critically examines the close, but often hidden, connections between British education and empire, asking what impact these imperial legacies have today. It aims to provide a general introduction to the history of education, while preparing students to take more specialist history modules in year two and three. The course is structured in a broadly chronological fashion but each week also explores a different method or approach to studying, researching and making history.  Students will be introduced to a range of transferable practical skills that are linked to assessment. It draws on UCL's rich libraries, archives and museum collections and works in collaboration with colleagues in UCL Culture and UCL Libraries, Archives and Special Collections. Read more here.[[{"fid":"9543","view_mode":"large","fields":{"height":"877","width":"3015","class":"media-element file-medium","format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Detail from UCL College Calender detailing regulation for admitting female students","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Detail from UCL College Calendar detailing regulation for admitting female students","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"%3Cp%3EDetail%20from%20UCL%20College%20Calendar%20detailing%20regulation%20for%20admitting%20female%20students%3C%2Fp%3E","field_caption[und][0][format]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"height":"877","width":"3015","class":"media-element file-medium","format":"large","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Detail from UCL College Calender detailing regulation for admitting female students","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"Detail from UCL College Calendar detailing regulation for admitting female students","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"%3Cp%3EDetail%20from%20UCL%20College%20Calendar%20detailing%20regulation%20for%20admitting%20female%20students%3C%2Fp%3E","field_caption[und][0][format]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"left","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"877","width":"3015","class":"media-element file-large"}}]]