Advanced Engineering

For the first Brighton CCA Expanding Dialogues we partnered with the University of Brighton Advanced Engineering. Taking part in this edition of the project are Rachael Champion, (Artist), Savinder Bual (Artist), Marco Marengo (Advanced Engineering), Penny Atkins (Advanced Engineering), Simon Harvey (Advanced Engineering), Ben Roberts (Brighton CCA) and Polly Wright (Brighton CCA).

Beginning in August 2020 we devised a digital programme consisting of three videos, an open sharing session and a second feedback session. This is a fluid research process with undefined outcomes.

This programme is built on examples of ground-breaking collaborations between arts, industry and education such as the Artists’ Placement Group and the seminal 1967 project in New York, Experiments in Art and Technology. In the slideshow above you can watch an introductory film to this first collaboration from the Brighton CCA programme team. Next, to watch below, are the two Studio Visits by each of the participating artists: Savinder Bual and Rachael Champion. Beneath these are the two artist traces from the session, creative responses to coming together to think about our shared dialogue that covered wide ranging subject matter from engineering sound, space travel to how artists approach making work. On the right-hand side we have collated a digital documentation booklet that includes the original project brief and extracts of transcripts from conversations between the artists, staff and students at the University of Brighton.

Savinder Bual introduces her practice and discusses two examples in further depth, The Pineapple Project (2018) and Flying Works (2015 – ongoing). Savinder is an artist whose practice explores the interplay between the moving and the still. She creates works that sit between the pre-cinematic and the digital. Savinder studied painting at Winchester School of Art and photography at the Royal College of Art, London.

Rachael Champion’s has made numerous site-specific installations in a variety of contexts. Her work has been exhibited in several UK institutions including The Whitechapel Gallery, Modern Art Oxford, Camden Arts Centre and the Zabludowicz Collection.  Recent public commissions include Course and Flow (2020), Haringey, Temporary Retention Site for Atmospheric Particles (2020), Berkeley Square / Canary Wharf, and Tower of Varieties (2019), Birmingham.  In 2017 she completed Discoverers of Onkalo, a permanent installation on the island of Sarvisalo, Finland and in 2018 she was an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska.  Rachael is represented by Hales Gallery London / New York.

Artist Traces

Propel. The journey was hard to describe in words. Pictures work better.
Savinder Bual

Expanding Dialogues, Rachael Champion

Expanding Dialogues is a site for cross disciplinary research and collaboration across and beyond the University of Brighton. Expanding Dialogues focuses on facilitating trust and interaction over the long term, creating a framework for learning and dialogue between researchers, students and practicing artists. Expanding Dialogues explores shared research interests, approaches to problem solving and creative collaborations.

Brighton CCA started collaborating with School of Advanced Engineering in July 2020.