Students master the art of new challenges

Every now and again an artwork grabs my attention.

I hear about it, read about it, or see an image of it and feel an overwhelming compulsion to see that work of art in the flesh. Approach it, spend time with it, breath it in.

Like a tease, Viviane Fallah has been drip-feeding images of her work in progress to me for the last few months.

Unsurprisingly Fallah is studying for a Masters Degree in Contemporary Art at Oxford Brookes University. I say unsurprisingly because students on the interdisciplinary arts practices Masters degrees (Social Sculpture, Contemporary Arts, Sonic Arts, and Contemporary Arts and Music) at Brookes seem to be on fire right now.

There is some serious talent being drawn to, nurtured at, and springing out of Headington Hill Campus at the moment; and perhaps most encouragingly, the artists that are coming out of these courses aren’t just good artists (introspectively waiting for galleries to come knocking on their doors, as so many art students do), but proactively interacting with the local, national, and international arts communities through forums such as the Contemporary Arts Research Unit, and actively promoting themselves.

Anyway, back to the tease; Fallah is currently exhibiting a body of work called Birth Of The Universe in Lost/Find, the final degree show and culmination of 12 strands of student works completed by artists studying under Brookes’ interdisciplinary arts practices programme.

Lost/Find opened yesterday in the Richard Hamilton Building on the Headington Hill campus and closes at 6pm this Saturday.

Fallah’s audio visual installation comprises three works inspired by sound, vibration and frequency. Working in collaboration with the Oxford-based sound artist Lee Riley, Fallah’s colourful, large-scale, mesmeric, abstract images are accompanied by experimental compositions. Fallah describes her motivation to create this hypnotic, conceptual work, She said: “I am interested in the connection between man and nature the interconnectedness that merges us as one. By using coded language, the power of repetition, vibration and frequency I have created organic forms that are alive. My desire is to create something magical; to mimic the forces of vibration, frequency and sound.”

Showing alongside the magnetic force that is Fallah’s work are a broad selection of cross-disciplinary artworks and actions that challenge our conception of art and offer a new perspective on contemporary life; from Markus Stefan and Annelinde Kirchgaesser’s ‘analogue apps’ that act as filters on the world, through Kate Abolins’ delicate organic forms, to screenings of a series of documentary shorts and an appearance by The Department for Vocation exploring how a career can define one’s human potential.

Another body of work that I’m looking forward to seeing is that of the untold stories presented in Roxanne Claxton’s Visible Woman; an installation inspired by fashion and pre-Raphaelite women that explores beauty, stereotypes, visibility and the objectification of women.

Through her beautifully composed classically inspired socio-political works Claxton asks if women are to be desired as objects and not for any depth or moral qualities they may have, and if so, how one should respond to these sexualised stereotypes. In doing so, Claxton gives a voice to both the Classical and contemporary women in the work.

Creating a very different kind of socio-political art, Matt Retallick’s oeuvre explores tourism as a capitalist consumer activity.

Looking at DDR ‘attractions’ Retallick’s installation Roll-Up! Roll-Up! Souvenirs at the Death Strip! brings to the fore the hidden realities of consumerism borne out of ‘dark tourism’ and, disquietingly, highlights how this tourism is also closer to home than we think.

Feeling swamped by ideologies and stereotypes that exist within our often superficial society, Beth Martin uses her practice as a means by which to explore her everyday struggle with being a woman and a feminist.

Contrastingly, John Grieve (also known as Student/Customer number 13077669) presents “a number of interesting novelty art objects at very reasonable prices.” and he “would like to thank Oxford Brookes University for selling him a master’s degree.” My guess is that this work is something to do with educational institutions operating (first and foremost, perhaps) as commercial ventures… though without seeing the work I really have no idea! Equally curious is an eight ft square sound laboratory housed within a self-amplifying wall of cardboard tubes by sonic artist Fiona Miller. Miller describes her installation, Sonic Hive, as “a playground for field recordings and manipulated sounds.”

Putting Oxford residents into sharp focus Dympna Irwin has looked at the lives of those living and working in Oxford in her video work In Visible Oxford in which she highlights the utilities that one tends to take for granted as a metaphor for the way that we exist collectively.

I firmly believe that a good degree show should be difficult to curate and even more difficult to name.

A good course shouldn’t generate a ‘house style’ but open doors to routes that best suit individuals... and Lost/Find appears to demonstrate just that. So go bearing in mind that the principle that binds the Lost/Find artists is the exploration of ideas as research, and the use of creative strategies to foster and nurture these ideas to generate highly original work.

Feminism by Beth Martin http://vimeo.com/94885526
Two Minutes of Silence by Fiona Miller http://vimeo.com/95839829
Bubble Plume 1 by Kirsty Limburn http://vimeo.com/64050575

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