Skip to main content

Mary R O'Neill

DeMontfort University Leicester, Fine Art, Faculty Member

Followers

144

Following

27

Public Views

My research is interdisciplinary and focuses on contemporary artworks as a means of discussing significant cultural issues. From an original interest in ephemeral art and notions of mortality and immortality, my research has developed to explore attitudes towards the dead, mourning, loss, bereavement, memory and value.
I have written on a diverse range of subject including boredom, loss, isolation, art education, finding meaning and contemporary art and ethics.

less

Daniel Fountain

University of Exeter

Antoinette Burchill

Independent Researcher

gillian whiteley

Loughborough University

Tal Dingott Alkopher

Hadassah College Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Open University

sarah scuzzarello

University of Sussex

The Open University

Helin SARI ERTEM

Istanbul Medeniyet University

InterestsView All (25)

Uploads

Books by Mary R O'Neill

Foreignhood: The state of being foreign

Re-imagining Citizenship Activity Book, 2019

(Im)permanence: Cultures In/out of Time

Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and Ethics

Abstract In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photogr... more Abstract
In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photographic images of the dead focusing on ‘The Morgue’ (1992), by Andreas Serrano, and ‘Life before Death’ by Walter Schels and Beate Lakotte, exhibited at the Welcome Collection (WC) in 2008. In recent years there have been a number of exhibitions that have presented us with photographs of the dead that have instigated and contributed to discussions concerning the role of art and the appropriateness of photographing the dead, and have highlighted cultural sensitivities concerning the treatment of the corpse. These exhibitions are often discussed in relation to ethical considerations; however, I will posit the argument that the ‘ethical turn’ in discussions of contemporary art is often an avoidance of difficult subjects rather than an engagement with them. To elucidate some of the issues involved in public perceptions of the ethical issues involved in the display of the dead and images of the dead, I will explore two exhibitions that took place in Manchester in 2008. Gunther Von Hagen’s ‘Body Worlds 4’ exhibition took place at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), while at the same time the Manchester Museum (MM) (in the university) covered some of the mummies in their Egyptian display - the unwrapped mummy of Asru and a partially wrapped child mummy - in order to raise issues about the ethics of showing human remains. Both exhibitions had a stated educational purpose though these were framed differently. In the longer version of this chapter I also discuss the appropriation of the dead through a discussion of the funeral in Uppsala Cathedral in 2002 of Fadima Sahindal, a 26 woman of Kurdish decent who was shot by her father because she persisted in a relationship of which he disapproved, exemplifies Durkheim’s assertion that public ritual reinforces common values and social integration. It is precisely the concept of integration that was one of the principle elements of ‘social glue’ that was being preserved in the Swedish establishment’s response to the murder.

Cultural and Ethical Turns

A standard ‘Ethical Approval’ form issued by British Universities asks researchers to consider ‘a... more A standard ‘Ethical Approval’ form issued by British Universities asks researchers to consider ‘a risk assessment of the project based on the vulnerability of participants, the extent to which it is likely to be harmful and whether there will be significant discomfort’.1 This chapter will examine the consequence of imposing a social science model of ethical approval on a practice that is in some cases defined by the vulnerability of participants, be that either the artist or the audience, and the possibility of harm to them if there is an opportunity for ‘significant discomfort’. This jointly authored chapter will explore the discomfort created by performance practice in terms of an ethical sacrifice; in sacrifice something is given up for a greater gain. The chapter will discuss if comfort is sacrificed for the greater gain of the sensuous knowledge offered by performance works that may make the audience feel uncomfortable. In Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, Zygmunt Bauman described humans as fundamentally moral beings, which he distances from the notion of goodness. Rather than being connected to the debate about the ‘essential goodness’ of humans he suggests that to be moral is ‘to exercise one’s freedom of authorship and/or actorship as a choice between good and evil.’ Discomfort can be brought into the reception of performance practice that makes bodily fluids visual and tangible. Art practice that includes the release and transfer of bodily fluids produces anxieties, and raises questions of health and welfare, safety and conduct. This sees the individual experiences what Bataille called ‘impotent horror’ as they negotiate the implied danger of the experience. This summary chapter (a complete version is to be published elsewhere) will make specific reference to Bartram’s performance work, which uses saliva, its relationship to the audience and the impact of its displacement at its core.

Art and Money: Experience Destruction Exposure

In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse a... more In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse as in the art world. The peculiarity of this relationship may be responsible for the appreciative failure of much of contemporary art and in particular conceptual art. If value is attached to ‘intrinsic’ qualities of an object it would be hard to justify the high prices attached to contemporary artwork. This however raises interesting questions as to the extent to which it is possible to separate economic from other values in art. There have been numerous attempts to break the link between art and money - Roger Fry’s Omega Workshop experiment, offered participants a guaranteed minimum income to free them from economic pressure. Commencing with Art and Commerce in 1926 Fry explored this relationship in a series of publication. In 1971, the Art Workers’ Coalition produced a statement of demands which asked for a small measure of what Fry had offered artist fifty years earlier. In the 1960s and 70s, there was a proliferation of highly politicized work challenging the art/commerce relationship, focusing on the dematerialisation of the artwork as a decommodification strategy. In this paper I will explore these strategies, concentrating mainly on the work of three artist:- Lygia Clark, whose ephemeral artwork, made of easily available cheap material, questioned notions of value and the interaction between the object, the spectator and the artist: Hans Haacke whose 1971 exhibition highlighting the hidden relationship between the art world and commerce, was cancelled by the Guggenheim for fear of offending the museum’s patrons: and the auto destructive work of Gustav Metzger. I will analyze the success or failure of the strategies employed by these artists in light of the art world’s tendency to turn anything into a commodity.

Ephemeral art: the art of being lost

How can we speak of grief and mourning? There are things, events, horrors, place of sorrow and lo... more How can we speak of grief and mourning? There are things, events, horrors, place of sorrow and love for which we have no words. Grief, like art, can leave us mute, it can paralyse – there is nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. And yet, grief can be very eloquent and rather than presenting us with a privileged view, which excludes those who have not shared the experience, can provide a vehicle for understanding. Two art works that act as such a vehicle are Untitled (Portrait of Dad)(1991) by Felix Gonzalez Torres and Strange Fruit (for David)(1992-1997) by Zoe Leonard. These works are ephemeral and embody the experience of mourning. Discussing these works risks losing the central experience, because they demand an engagement that does not sit comfortably with the aesthetic detachment and the wariness of deeply felt personal This chapter, written in two sections, the first in a conventional academic form follow by the same territory explored in narrative form, explores this myth of detachment and relate the experiences of these works to my own local knowledge as an artist and as a mourner.

Telling Stories: Criticism and Theory

Papers by Mary R O'Neill

Foreignhood: The state of Being Foreign

THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL CLIMATE REINFORCES THE FEAR OF THE OTHER. THIS IS A NOTICEABLE BUT NOT... more THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL CLIMATE REINFORCES THE FEAR OF THE OTHER. THIS IS A NOTICEABLE BUT NOT NEW POST 9/11 PHENOMENON. THE DISTRUST OF THE OTHER HAS ALWAYS EXISTED – DISTRUST OF PEOPLE FROM THE NEXT VILLAGE, PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES, PEOPLE WITH A DIFFERENT WORLD VIEW OR PEOPLE WHO LOOK DIFFERENT. The twenty first century brought ‘home’ the reality of violence to a generation in the west that had grown accustomed to thinking that war only happened in some other part of the world, with attacks on London, Paris, Nice, Stockholm, New York and elsewhere. In the interests of increased security it has been advantageous for the political elite to exploit this innate fear of the other and to compress in it into a fear of foreigners by reinforcing ideas of nationalism and cultural identity. Catarina Kinvall and Jitka Lindén argue: ‘Categories of us and them, home and away, east and west are constantly being used to defend invisible boundaries and thus create psychological distance be...

The art of fear: the fear of art

Creativity by definition produces something new. In the 20th century this newness was characteris... more Creativity by definition produces something new. In the 20th century this newness was characterised by an art practice that turned on cultural institutions and rather than bolstering their entitlement to power critiqued and in many cases abandoned them. This was an anti taste movement born out of the reactions to a society that had produced major conflicts, for example, the first and second world wars. However, rather than being motivated by negativity the intention was often to revive what was perceived by many of the protagonists as a decadent and meaningless art world. Overwhelmingly, this new enterprise alienated an audience comfortable with art forms that did not confront or disappoint their expectation. The alienation produced a response that shifted from amusement or disinterest to hostility, all to often discussed in the media in term of financial waste. The role of the artist shifted from the romantic to the ousted and reviled individual pushed to the margins of culture and society. Nowhere is this lack of understanding more obvious that in the reaction of audiences to live performance art. The reaction is often that of disavowal, of denying that the experience is more than merely watching, but demands an engagement that deprives the audience of the disassociation that a purely aesthetic experience of art allows. The avant-garde are no longer seen as valuable, and the artist who performs becomes a cultural waste of time. This is apparent in how live events are predominantly scheduled - beyond the accepted domain of exhibiting in established platforms and venues, performance is increasing the preserve of the marginalised and ‘other’ and exists on the fringe, popping up as events for the specifically interested audience who seek it out and want to experience the transient otherness that it offers. This paper will discuss the work of performance artists including Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Coco Fusco who threaten the audience by highlighting forms of discrimination hidden in notion of the exotic and the complicity of cultural institutions in practices such as anthropology and ethnography, and Hugo Ball, whose early performance attempt to find a language of communication that transcended national boundaries

Performance art, audiences and ethics

This jointly authored paper will explore the discomfort created by performance practice in terms ... more This jointly authored paper will explore the discomfort created by performance practice in terms of an ethical sacrifice; in sacrifice something is given up for a greater gain. The paper will discuss if comfort is sacrificed for the greater gain of the sensuous knowledge offered by performance works that may make the audience feel uncomfortable. In Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, Zygmunt Bauman described humans as fundamentally moral beings, which he distances from the notion of goodness. Rather than being connected to the debate about the essential goodness of humans he suggests that to be moral is to exercise one's freedom of authorship and/or actorship as a choice between good and evil. Discomfort can be brought into the reception of performance practice that makes bodily fluids visual and tangible. Art practice that includes the release and transfer of bodily fluids produces anxieties, and raises questions of health and welfare, safety and conduct. This sees the individual experiences what Bataille called impotent horror as they negotiate the implied danger of the experience. This paper will make specific reference to Bartram's performance work and its relationship to the audience, which uses saliva and the impact of its displacement at its core.

A lick: the performances of Angela Bartram

A year of living dangerously: collaborating with undergraduate students

Oral / response

Summary of twenty minute performance: ‘Oral / Response’ A woman crushes a stick of black chalk wi... more Summary of twenty minute performance: ‘Oral / Response’ A woman crushes a stick of black chalk with a pestle and mortar, pinches the ground dust into a pile on the floor, leans down, inhales, exhales and blows the dust across the floor. The process is repeated through a grading spectrum of black to white. A second woman kneels facing the other and writes on the floor in matching tones a record of that taking place before her. They work in synch and in rhythm: one creates a physical action that the other interprets in words. Once the charcoal set is crushed to exhaustion the woman with the now blackened face stands up and walks away. Her documenter follows. The documentation of ‘Oral / Response’ is as live as the performance itself. Each mode informs the other and benefits from the particular requirement imposed by a ‘site’. The site here is not just the physical location, but includes the artist's body, the anticipated audience, the environment, and the atmosphere. Rather than p...

Ephemeral Art the Art of Being Lost

Ashgate, 2009

... She describes how the abject dead body becomes a powerful monument, brought to life by the&am... more ... She describes how the abject dead body becomes a powerful monument, brought to life by the&amp;#x27;...&amp;quot; maternal love ... Ephemeral Art 159 say&amp;#x27;that moment there-that was the last moment of life ... Now there is no chance of a reprieve, no possibility of remission, or of the longed-for plateau ...

Images of the Dead: Ethics and Contemporary Art Practice

Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and Ethics

In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photographic ima... more In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photographic images of the dead focusing on ‘The Morgue’ (1992), by Andreas Serrano, and ‘Life before Death’ by Walter Schels and Beate Lakotte, exhibited at the Welcome Collection (WC) in 2008. In recent years there have been a number of exhibitions that have presented us with photographs of the dead that have instigated and contributed to discussions concerning the role of art and the appropriateness of photographing the dead, and have highlighted cultural sensitivities concerning the treatment of the corpse. These exhibitions are often discussed in relation to ethical considerations; however, I will posit the argument that the ‘ethical turn’ in discussions of contemporary art is often an avoidance of difficult subjects rather than an engagement with them. To elucidate some of the issues involved in public perceptions of the ethical issues involved in the display of the dead and images of the dead, I will explore two exhibitions that took place in Manchester in 2008. Gunther Von Hagen’s ‘Body Worlds 4’ exhibition took place at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), while at the same time the Manchester Museum (MM) (in the university) covered some of the mummies in their Egyptian display - the unwrapped mummy of Asru and a partially wrapped child mummy - in order to raise issues about the ethics of showing human remains. Both exhibitions had a stated educational purpose though these were framed differently. In the longer version of this chapter I also discuss the appropriation of the dead through a discussion of the funeral in Uppsala Cathedral in 2002 of Fadima Sahindal, a 26 woman of Kurdish decent who was shot by her father because she persisted in a relationship of which he disapproved, exemplifies Durkheim’s assertion that public ritual reinforces common values and social integration. It is precisely the concept of integration that was one of the principle elements of ‘social glue’ that was being preserved in the Swedish establishment’s response to the murder.

Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and Ethics

It continues the work that began with the first conference on the same theme in March 2009 and re... more It continues the work that began with the first conference on the same theme in March 2009 and reflects the same international and cross-disciplinary ethos that is characteristic of projects organised by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. In this volume you will find work from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds-philosophy, sociology, political science, architecture, art theory/practice, media studies, international law, international relations, among others-and an emphasis within many of the contributions on actively seeking to open up and explore issues that cut across the boundaries of academic and intellectual specialism. The complex and diverse interfaces of culture, politics and ethics in contemporary life present an apt set of themes to be addressed by an international and interdisciplinary project such as this. The claims of those who insist we live in postmodernity and therefore in transformed times for political debate have challenged the way we look at culture, politics and ethics. The 'cultural turn' has alternately impoverished or enriched (or both) debate around and strategies for political and ethical engagement in the public realm, accompanied by a renewed and critical interest in the relationship between cultural and aesthetic life and political thought and action. Ethics has been retrieved from philosophical formalism and academic marginalia and brought to the forefront of political debate along with claims that it is the 'last grand narrative' and the basis for thinking future formulations of political organisation and public life. At the same time, politics itself appears to have shifted from a traditional focus on institutions and processes in organised systems to a concern with more disparate movement alignments in political representation and expression within the public realm and the changed conditions and circumstances under which they have prominence. In this context, whilst questions of power, resistance, oppression and inclusion are still central, it has also become less justifiable to address them separately from questions of aesthetics, performance, the affective and governance. These are the basic premises under which contributors were invited to participate in the Culture, Politics, Ethics conference, with an emphasis on maintaining as open a space as possible in which the various topics and disciplinary questions that came to be raised by respective chapters could be explored and debated. As such, the intention was that chapters be presented as starting points aimed at provoking questions and generating discussion, and each contribution as it is reproduced in this volume offers a 'snapshot' of the proceedings in this respect by remaining as close as possible to how it was originally presented. The only difference here is that, in order to make the chapters 'speak' to each other more effectively for the reader, they have been organised into

Death, art and mortality awareness: images of the dead in contemporary art

‘Death, Art and Mortality Awareness: Images of the dead in contemporary art’ Death, Dying and Dis... more ‘Death, Art and Mortality Awareness: Images of the dead in contemporary art’ Death, Dying and Disposal Conference, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 2009. Dr. Mary O' Neill University of Lincoln.ac.uk [email protected] The knowledge of love and death can make us whole, it can complete us, or it can overwhelm us. We develop elaborate frameworks and rituals to contain this knowledge, to quieten its voice and to render it manageable. But at times it violently confronts us and we know it in a new way, too urgent, too immediate and physical to be pushed aside. This paper will discuss works of art that represent the moment when information about the death becomes knowledge of death and present the site of knowing - the dead body - not to frighten or shock but to share the knowledge that life experiences offer. Focusing on the work of Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook and the exhibition Life before Death which showed the work of Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels, this paper will explore the risk that the dominant themes in discussions of contemporary art works which show the dead - issues of consent and possible distress to viewers - may be, in Zygmaunt Bauman's terms, overdoing ethics. Ethical concerns can be used in the service not only of death denial but more particularly of the avoidance of the painful emotions inherent in love, bereavement and loss. This suggests a way of viewing the works discussed which goes beyond conceiving of them as what Julia Kristeva calls the abject and which sees mortality awareness as part of love and life.

Performing sorrow: ephemerality and mourning

The endurance of the form of story telling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling ... more The endurance of the form of story telling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra, which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being. We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories. These stories are not just a means of telling but also an attempt to understand. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick describes knowledge as performative i.e. "knowledge does rather than simply is", I would suggest that stories are not just performed but are also performative. Stories 'do' rather than 'are'. Narratives of sorrow and pain do not leave us unchanged, but can, in fact, motivate us to act. In this paper I will look at the stories told by artworks that embody the disruption of the traditional narrative of western art, of durability and immortality. These embody the process of decay that tells a story of existence overshadowed by the knowledge of certain death and the telling of the story as a means of confronting that knowledge. The ephemeral art object often tells a story in circumstance when there are no words, when we have nothing left to say. Given the eventual disappearance of these works, this paper also addresses the challenge of transience in a context where permanence is seen as a prerequisite for success.

Living with the dead: cinematic love and death

In recent years the understanding of grief as a consequence of love and death has developed beyon... more In recent years the understanding of grief as a consequence of love and death has developed beyond the model that suggested that the bereaved would eventually ‘recover’ and be able to replace the loved one. More recently bereavement theories have incorporated the knowledge, which has so often been expressed by the bereaved in the arts, that ‘recovery’ my not in fact be possible or desirable for the bereaved person. In this paper I will discuss two films that explore the consequences of love and death. In Christopher Hampton’s Carrington (1995) we witness the intense love of Dora Carrington for Lytton Strachey which results in her being unable to face a life without him and consequently commits suicide. In Francois Ozon’s Under the Sand (2001) we see a character who is also unable to accommodate the death of her husband and appears to her friends to have ‘gone mad’. My interest in these films lies in the connection between the portrayal of the reactions of the two female characters to the death of their life companions and recent understanding of grieving. Focusing on cinematic temporal devises such as the lingering gaze of the camera and hesitation I will discuss how these devices embody reactions to death and the experiences of mourning. These works exemplify the two characteristics of film that Laura Mulvey identifies in 'Death 24x a Second' as the human fascination with the boundary between life and death and the animation of the inanimate. I will explore the historical parallels between the treatment of death in film and clinical understanding of grief from a sociological and a phenomenological perspective with reference to the history of cinematic portrayal of bereavement. These films will be discussed in relation to the recent work of Colin Murray Parkes and the work of John Bowlby, both of whom have contributed significantly to our understand of the relationship between love and death. I will also explore the unique possibilities that film offers for the treatment of this subject through the stellar time of cinema where we can see what no longer exists.

Art and money: experience, destruction, exposure

In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse a... more In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse as in the art world. The peculiarity of this relationship may be responsible for the appreciative failure of much of contemporary art and in particular conceptual art. If value is attached to ‘intrinsic’ qualities of an object it would be hard to justify the high prices attached to contemporary artwork. This however raises interesting questions as to the extent to which it is possible to separate economic from other values in art. There have been numerous attempts to break the link between art and money - Roger Fry’s Omega Workshop experiment, offered participants a guaranteed minimum income to free them from economic pressure. Commencing with Art and Commerce in 1926 Fry explored this relationship in a series of publication. In 1971, the Art Workers’ Coalition produced a statement of demands which asked for a small measure of what Fry had offered artist fifty years earlier. In the 1960s and 70s, there was a proliferation of highly politicized work challenging the art/commerce relationship, focusing on the dematerialisation of the artwork as a decommodification strategy. In this paper I will explore these strategies, concentrating mainly on the work of three artist:- Lygia Clark, whose ephemeral artwork, made of easily available cheap material, questioned notions of value and the interaction between the object, the spectator and the artist: Hans Haacke whose 1971 exhibition highlighting the hidden relationship between the art world and commerce, was cancelled by the Guggenheim for fear of offending the museum’s patrons: and the auto destructive work of Gustav Metzger. I will analyze the success or failure of the strategies employed by these artists in light of the art world’s tendency to turn anything into a commodity.

Foreignhood: The state of being foreign

Re-imagining Citizenship Activity Book, 2019

(Im)permanence: Cultures In/out of Time

Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and Ethics

Abstract In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photogr... more Abstract
In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photographic images of the dead focusing on ‘The Morgue’ (1992), by Andreas Serrano, and ‘Life before Death’ by Walter Schels and Beate Lakotte, exhibited at the Welcome Collection (WC) in 2008. In recent years there have been a number of exhibitions that have presented us with photographs of the dead that have instigated and contributed to discussions concerning the role of art and the appropriateness of photographing the dead, and have highlighted cultural sensitivities concerning the treatment of the corpse. These exhibitions are often discussed in relation to ethical considerations; however, I will posit the argument that the ‘ethical turn’ in discussions of contemporary art is often an avoidance of difficult subjects rather than an engagement with them. To elucidate some of the issues involved in public perceptions of the ethical issues involved in the display of the dead and images of the dead, I will explore two exhibitions that took place in Manchester in 2008. Gunther Von Hagen’s ‘Body Worlds 4’ exhibition took place at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), while at the same time the Manchester Museum (MM) (in the university) covered some of the mummies in their Egyptian display - the unwrapped mummy of Asru and a partially wrapped child mummy - in order to raise issues about the ethics of showing human remains. Both exhibitions had a stated educational purpose though these were framed differently. In the longer version of this chapter I also discuss the appropriation of the dead through a discussion of the funeral in Uppsala Cathedral in 2002 of Fadima Sahindal, a 26 woman of Kurdish decent who was shot by her father because she persisted in a relationship of which he disapproved, exemplifies Durkheim’s assertion that public ritual reinforces common values and social integration. It is precisely the concept of integration that was one of the principle elements of ‘social glue’ that was being preserved in the Swedish establishment’s response to the murder.

Cultural and Ethical Turns

A standard ‘Ethical Approval’ form issued by British Universities asks researchers to consider ‘a... more A standard ‘Ethical Approval’ form issued by British Universities asks researchers to consider ‘a risk assessment of the project based on the vulnerability of participants, the extent to which it is likely to be harmful and whether there will be significant discomfort’.1 This chapter will examine the consequence of imposing a social science model of ethical approval on a practice that is in some cases defined by the vulnerability of participants, be that either the artist or the audience, and the possibility of harm to them if there is an opportunity for ‘significant discomfort’. This jointly authored chapter will explore the discomfort created by performance practice in terms of an ethical sacrifice; in sacrifice something is given up for a greater gain. The chapter will discuss if comfort is sacrificed for the greater gain of the sensuous knowledge offered by performance works that may make the audience feel uncomfortable. In Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, Zygmunt Bauman described humans as fundamentally moral beings, which he distances from the notion of goodness. Rather than being connected to the debate about the ‘essential goodness’ of humans he suggests that to be moral is ‘to exercise one’s freedom of authorship and/or actorship as a choice between good and evil.’ Discomfort can be brought into the reception of performance practice that makes bodily fluids visual and tangible. Art practice that includes the release and transfer of bodily fluids produces anxieties, and raises questions of health and welfare, safety and conduct. This sees the individual experiences what Bataille called ‘impotent horror’ as they negotiate the implied danger of the experience. This summary chapter (a complete version is to be published elsewhere) will make specific reference to Bartram’s performance work, which uses saliva, its relationship to the audience and the impact of its displacement at its core.

Art and Money: Experience Destruction Exposure

In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse a... more In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse as in the art world. The peculiarity of this relationship may be responsible for the appreciative failure of much of contemporary art and in particular conceptual art. If value is attached to ‘intrinsic’ qualities of an object it would be hard to justify the high prices attached to contemporary artwork. This however raises interesting questions as to the extent to which it is possible to separate economic from other values in art. There have been numerous attempts to break the link between art and money - Roger Fry’s Omega Workshop experiment, offered participants a guaranteed minimum income to free them from economic pressure. Commencing with Art and Commerce in 1926 Fry explored this relationship in a series of publication. In 1971, the Art Workers’ Coalition produced a statement of demands which asked for a small measure of what Fry had offered artist fifty years earlier. In the 1960s and 70s, there was a proliferation of highly politicized work challenging the art/commerce relationship, focusing on the dematerialisation of the artwork as a decommodification strategy. In this paper I will explore these strategies, concentrating mainly on the work of three artist:- Lygia Clark, whose ephemeral artwork, made of easily available cheap material, questioned notions of value and the interaction between the object, the spectator and the artist: Hans Haacke whose 1971 exhibition highlighting the hidden relationship between the art world and commerce, was cancelled by the Guggenheim for fear of offending the museum’s patrons: and the auto destructive work of Gustav Metzger. I will analyze the success or failure of the strategies employed by these artists in light of the art world’s tendency to turn anything into a commodity.

Ephemeral art: the art of being lost

How can we speak of grief and mourning? There are things, events, horrors, place of sorrow and lo... more How can we speak of grief and mourning? There are things, events, horrors, place of sorrow and love for which we have no words. Grief, like art, can leave us mute, it can paralyse – there is nothing more to be said, nothing more to be done. And yet, grief can be very eloquent and rather than presenting us with a privileged view, which excludes those who have not shared the experience, can provide a vehicle for understanding. Two art works that act as such a vehicle are Untitled (Portrait of Dad)(1991) by Felix Gonzalez Torres and Strange Fruit (for David)(1992-1997) by Zoe Leonard. These works are ephemeral and embody the experience of mourning. Discussing these works risks losing the central experience, because they demand an engagement that does not sit comfortably with the aesthetic detachment and the wariness of deeply felt personal This chapter, written in two sections, the first in a conventional academic form follow by the same territory explored in narrative form, explores this myth of detachment and relate the experiences of these works to my own local knowledge as an artist and as a mourner.

Telling Stories: Criticism and Theory

Foreignhood: The state of Being Foreign

THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL CLIMATE REINFORCES THE FEAR OF THE OTHER. THIS IS A NOTICEABLE BUT NOT... more THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL CLIMATE REINFORCES THE FEAR OF THE OTHER. THIS IS A NOTICEABLE BUT NOT NEW POST 9/11 PHENOMENON. THE DISTRUST OF THE OTHER HAS ALWAYS EXISTED – DISTRUST OF PEOPLE FROM THE NEXT VILLAGE, PEOPLE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES, PEOPLE WITH A DIFFERENT WORLD VIEW OR PEOPLE WHO LOOK DIFFERENT. The twenty first century brought ‘home’ the reality of violence to a generation in the west that had grown accustomed to thinking that war only happened in some other part of the world, with attacks on London, Paris, Nice, Stockholm, New York and elsewhere. In the interests of increased security it has been advantageous for the political elite to exploit this innate fear of the other and to compress in it into a fear of foreigners by reinforcing ideas of nationalism and cultural identity. Catarina Kinvall and Jitka Lindén argue: ‘Categories of us and them, home and away, east and west are constantly being used to defend invisible boundaries and thus create psychological distance be...

The art of fear: the fear of art

Creativity by definition produces something new. In the 20th century this newness was characteris... more Creativity by definition produces something new. In the 20th century this newness was characterised by an art practice that turned on cultural institutions and rather than bolstering their entitlement to power critiqued and in many cases abandoned them. This was an anti taste movement born out of the reactions to a society that had produced major conflicts, for example, the first and second world wars. However, rather than being motivated by negativity the intention was often to revive what was perceived by many of the protagonists as a decadent and meaningless art world. Overwhelmingly, this new enterprise alienated an audience comfortable with art forms that did not confront or disappoint their expectation. The alienation produced a response that shifted from amusement or disinterest to hostility, all to often discussed in the media in term of financial waste. The role of the artist shifted from the romantic to the ousted and reviled individual pushed to the margins of culture and society. Nowhere is this lack of understanding more obvious that in the reaction of audiences to live performance art. The reaction is often that of disavowal, of denying that the experience is more than merely watching, but demands an engagement that deprives the audience of the disassociation that a purely aesthetic experience of art allows. The avant-garde are no longer seen as valuable, and the artist who performs becomes a cultural waste of time. This is apparent in how live events are predominantly scheduled - beyond the accepted domain of exhibiting in established platforms and venues, performance is increasing the preserve of the marginalised and ‘other’ and exists on the fringe, popping up as events for the specifically interested audience who seek it out and want to experience the transient otherness that it offers. This paper will discuss the work of performance artists including Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Coco Fusco who threaten the audience by highlighting forms of discrimination hidden in notion of the exotic and the complicity of cultural institutions in practices such as anthropology and ethnography, and Hugo Ball, whose early performance attempt to find a language of communication that transcended national boundaries

Performance art, audiences and ethics

This jointly authored paper will explore the discomfort created by performance practice in terms ... more This jointly authored paper will explore the discomfort created by performance practice in terms of an ethical sacrifice; in sacrifice something is given up for a greater gain. The paper will discuss if comfort is sacrificed for the greater gain of the sensuous knowledge offered by performance works that may make the audience feel uncomfortable. In Life in Fragments: Essays in Postmodern Morality, Zygmunt Bauman described humans as fundamentally moral beings, which he distances from the notion of goodness. Rather than being connected to the debate about the essential goodness of humans he suggests that to be moral is to exercise one's freedom of authorship and/or actorship as a choice between good and evil. Discomfort can be brought into the reception of performance practice that makes bodily fluids visual and tangible. Art practice that includes the release and transfer of bodily fluids produces anxieties, and raises questions of health and welfare, safety and conduct. This sees the individual experiences what Bataille called impotent horror as they negotiate the implied danger of the experience. This paper will make specific reference to Bartram's performance work and its relationship to the audience, which uses saliva and the impact of its displacement at its core.

A lick: the performances of Angela Bartram

A year of living dangerously: collaborating with undergraduate students

Oral / response

Summary of twenty minute performance: ‘Oral / Response’ A woman crushes a stick of black chalk wi... more Summary of twenty minute performance: ‘Oral / Response’ A woman crushes a stick of black chalk with a pestle and mortar, pinches the ground dust into a pile on the floor, leans down, inhales, exhales and blows the dust across the floor. The process is repeated through a grading spectrum of black to white. A second woman kneels facing the other and writes on the floor in matching tones a record of that taking place before her. They work in synch and in rhythm: one creates a physical action that the other interprets in words. Once the charcoal set is crushed to exhaustion the woman with the now blackened face stands up and walks away. Her documenter follows. The documentation of ‘Oral / Response’ is as live as the performance itself. Each mode informs the other and benefits from the particular requirement imposed by a ‘site’. The site here is not just the physical location, but includes the artist's body, the anticipated audience, the environment, and the atmosphere. Rather than p...

Ephemeral Art the Art of Being Lost

Ashgate, 2009

... She describes how the abject dead body becomes a powerful monument, brought to life by the&am... more ... She describes how the abject dead body becomes a powerful monument, brought to life by the&amp;#x27;...&amp;quot; maternal love ... Ephemeral Art 159 say&amp;#x27;that moment there-that was the last moment of life ... Now there is no chance of a reprieve, no possibility of remission, or of the longed-for plateau ...

Images of the Dead: Ethics and Contemporary Art Practice

Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and Ethics

In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photographic ima... more In this chapter I will discuss death in the museum in the form of exhibitions of photographic images of the dead focusing on ‘The Morgue’ (1992), by Andreas Serrano, and ‘Life before Death’ by Walter Schels and Beate Lakotte, exhibited at the Welcome Collection (WC) in 2008. In recent years there have been a number of exhibitions that have presented us with photographs of the dead that have instigated and contributed to discussions concerning the role of art and the appropriateness of photographing the dead, and have highlighted cultural sensitivities concerning the treatment of the corpse. These exhibitions are often discussed in relation to ethical considerations; however, I will posit the argument that the ‘ethical turn’ in discussions of contemporary art is often an avoidance of difficult subjects rather than an engagement with them. To elucidate some of the issues involved in public perceptions of the ethical issues involved in the display of the dead and images of the dead, I will explore two exhibitions that took place in Manchester in 2008. Gunther Von Hagen’s ‘Body Worlds 4’ exhibition took place at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), while at the same time the Manchester Museum (MM) (in the university) covered some of the mummies in their Egyptian display - the unwrapped mummy of Asru and a partially wrapped child mummy - in order to raise issues about the ethics of showing human remains. Both exhibitions had a stated educational purpose though these were framed differently. In the longer version of this chapter I also discuss the appropriation of the dead through a discussion of the funeral in Uppsala Cathedral in 2002 of Fadima Sahindal, a 26 woman of Kurdish decent who was shot by her father because she persisted in a relationship of which he disapproved, exemplifies Durkheim’s assertion that public ritual reinforces common values and social integration. It is precisely the concept of integration that was one of the principle elements of ‘social glue’ that was being preserved in the Swedish establishment’s response to the murder.

Cultural and Ethical Turns: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Culture, Politics and Ethics

It continues the work that began with the first conference on the same theme in March 2009 and re... more It continues the work that began with the first conference on the same theme in March 2009 and reflects the same international and cross-disciplinary ethos that is characteristic of projects organised by Inter-Disciplinary.Net. In this volume you will find work from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds-philosophy, sociology, political science, architecture, art theory/practice, media studies, international law, international relations, among others-and an emphasis within many of the contributions on actively seeking to open up and explore issues that cut across the boundaries of academic and intellectual specialism. The complex and diverse interfaces of culture, politics and ethics in contemporary life present an apt set of themes to be addressed by an international and interdisciplinary project such as this. The claims of those who insist we live in postmodernity and therefore in transformed times for political debate have challenged the way we look at culture, politics and ethics. The 'cultural turn' has alternately impoverished or enriched (or both) debate around and strategies for political and ethical engagement in the public realm, accompanied by a renewed and critical interest in the relationship between cultural and aesthetic life and political thought and action. Ethics has been retrieved from philosophical formalism and academic marginalia and brought to the forefront of political debate along with claims that it is the 'last grand narrative' and the basis for thinking future formulations of political organisation and public life. At the same time, politics itself appears to have shifted from a traditional focus on institutions and processes in organised systems to a concern with more disparate movement alignments in political representation and expression within the public realm and the changed conditions and circumstances under which they have prominence. In this context, whilst questions of power, resistance, oppression and inclusion are still central, it has also become less justifiable to address them separately from questions of aesthetics, performance, the affective and governance. These are the basic premises under which contributors were invited to participate in the Culture, Politics, Ethics conference, with an emphasis on maintaining as open a space as possible in which the various topics and disciplinary questions that came to be raised by respective chapters could be explored and debated. As such, the intention was that chapters be presented as starting points aimed at provoking questions and generating discussion, and each contribution as it is reproduced in this volume offers a 'snapshot' of the proceedings in this respect by remaining as close as possible to how it was originally presented. The only difference here is that, in order to make the chapters 'speak' to each other more effectively for the reader, they have been organised into

Death, art and mortality awareness: images of the dead in contemporary art

‘Death, Art and Mortality Awareness: Images of the dead in contemporary art’ Death, Dying and Dis... more ‘Death, Art and Mortality Awareness: Images of the dead in contemporary art’ Death, Dying and Disposal Conference, Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, 2009. Dr. Mary O' Neill University of Lincoln.ac.uk [email protected] The knowledge of love and death can make us whole, it can complete us, or it can overwhelm us. We develop elaborate frameworks and rituals to contain this knowledge, to quieten its voice and to render it manageable. But at times it violently confronts us and we know it in a new way, too urgent, too immediate and physical to be pushed aside. This paper will discuss works of art that represent the moment when information about the death becomes knowledge of death and present the site of knowing - the dead body - not to frighten or shock but to share the knowledge that life experiences offer. Focusing on the work of Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook and the exhibition Life before Death which showed the work of Journalist Beate Lakotta and photographer Walter Schels, this paper will explore the risk that the dominant themes in discussions of contemporary art works which show the dead - issues of consent and possible distress to viewers - may be, in Zygmaunt Bauman's terms, overdoing ethics. Ethical concerns can be used in the service not only of death denial but more particularly of the avoidance of the painful emotions inherent in love, bereavement and loss. This suggests a way of viewing the works discussed which goes beyond conceiving of them as what Julia Kristeva calls the abject and which sees mortality awareness as part of love and life.

Performing sorrow: ephemerality and mourning

The endurance of the form of story telling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling ... more The endurance of the form of story telling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra, which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being. We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories. These stories are not just a means of telling but also an attempt to understand. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick describes knowledge as performative i.e. "knowledge does rather than simply is", I would suggest that stories are not just performed but are also performative. Stories 'do' rather than 'are'. Narratives of sorrow and pain do not leave us unchanged, but can, in fact, motivate us to act. In this paper I will look at the stories told by artworks that embody the disruption of the traditional narrative of western art, of durability and immortality. These embody the process of decay that tells a story of existence overshadowed by the knowledge of certain death and the telling of the story as a means of confronting that knowledge. The ephemeral art object often tells a story in circumstance when there are no words, when we have nothing left to say. Given the eventual disappearance of these works, this paper also addresses the challenge of transience in a context where permanence is seen as a prerequisite for success.

Living with the dead: cinematic love and death

In recent years the understanding of grief as a consequence of love and death has developed beyon... more In recent years the understanding of grief as a consequence of love and death has developed beyond the model that suggested that the bereaved would eventually ‘recover’ and be able to replace the loved one. More recently bereavement theories have incorporated the knowledge, which has so often been expressed by the bereaved in the arts, that ‘recovery’ my not in fact be possible or desirable for the bereaved person. In this paper I will discuss two films that explore the consequences of love and death. In Christopher Hampton’s Carrington (1995) we witness the intense love of Dora Carrington for Lytton Strachey which results in her being unable to face a life without him and consequently commits suicide. In Francois Ozon’s Under the Sand (2001) we see a character who is also unable to accommodate the death of her husband and appears to her friends to have ‘gone mad’. My interest in these films lies in the connection between the portrayal of the reactions of the two female characters to the death of their life companions and recent understanding of grieving. Focusing on cinematic temporal devises such as the lingering gaze of the camera and hesitation I will discuss how these devices embody reactions to death and the experiences of mourning. These works exemplify the two characteristics of film that Laura Mulvey identifies in 'Death 24x a Second' as the human fascination with the boundary between life and death and the animation of the inanimate. I will explore the historical parallels between the treatment of death in film and clinical understanding of grief from a sociological and a phenomenological perspective with reference to the history of cinematic portrayal of bereavement. These films will be discussed in relation to the recent work of Colin Murray Parkes and the work of John Bowlby, both of whom have contributed significantly to our understand of the relationship between love and death. I will also explore the unique possibilities that film offers for the treatment of this subject through the stellar time of cinema where we can see what no longer exists.

Art and money: experience, destruction, exposure

In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse a... more In no other area of human activity is the relationship between production and money as perverse as in the art world. The peculiarity of this relationship may be responsible for the appreciative failure of much of contemporary art and in particular conceptual art. If value is attached to ‘intrinsic’ qualities of an object it would be hard to justify the high prices attached to contemporary artwork. This however raises interesting questions as to the extent to which it is possible to separate economic from other values in art. There have been numerous attempts to break the link between art and money - Roger Fry’s Omega Workshop experiment, offered participants a guaranteed minimum income to free them from economic pressure. Commencing with Art and Commerce in 1926 Fry explored this relationship in a series of publication. In 1971, the Art Workers’ Coalition produced a statement of demands which asked for a small measure of what Fry had offered artist fifty years earlier. In the 1960s and 70s, there was a proliferation of highly politicized work challenging the art/commerce relationship, focusing on the dematerialisation of the artwork as a decommodification strategy. In this paper I will explore these strategies, concentrating mainly on the work of three artist:- Lygia Clark, whose ephemeral artwork, made of easily available cheap material, questioned notions of value and the interaction between the object, the spectator and the artist: Hans Haacke whose 1971 exhibition highlighting the hidden relationship between the art world and commerce, was cancelled by the Guggenheim for fear of offending the museum’s patrons: and the auto destructive work of Gustav Metzger. I will analyze the success or failure of the strategies employed by these artists in light of the art world’s tendency to turn anything into a commodity.

On the benefit of being bored

... Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper). Keywords: Boredom, Contemporary art, mourning... more

Ephemeral Art: Telling Stories to the Dead

Image and Narrative : Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative, 2011

The endurance of the form of storytelling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling s... more The endurance of the form of storytelling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being. We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories.

Ephemeral art: telling stories to the dead

Abstract: The endurance of the form of storytelling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that... more Abstract: The endurance of the form of storytelling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being. We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories. These stories are not just a means of telling but also an attempt to understand. Stories are performed and performative; they do not leave us unchanged but can in fact motivate us to act. They are not merely about things that have happened, but are about significant events that change us. Through our stories we demonstrate that we have not only had experiences but that those experiences have become part of one’s knowledge. In this essay O’ Neill will explore the potential of objects to tell a story, the object that is both the subje...

Performing Sorrow: Ephemerality and Mourning

Performing Sorrow: Ephemerality and Mourning. Mary O'Neill The endurance of the form of story ... more Performing Sorrow: Ephemerality and Mourning.

Mary O'Neill

The endurance of the form of story telling and the compulsion to tell them suggests that telling stories is not merely an entertainment, an optional extra, which we can chose to engage with or not, but a fundamental aspect of being.

We tell stories to construct and maintain our world. When our sense of reality is damaged through traumatic experiences we attempt to repair our relationship with the world through the repeated telling of our stories. These stories are not just a means of telling but also an attempt to understand. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick describes knowledge as performative i.e. "knowledge does rather than simply is", I would suggest that stories are not just performed but are also performative. Stories 'do' rather than 'are'. Narratives of sorrow and pain do not leave us unchanged, but can, in fact, motivate us to act. In this paper I will look at the stories told by artworks that embody the disruption of the traditional narrative of western art, of durability and immortality.

These embody the process of decay that tells a story of existence overshadowed by the knowledge of certain death and the telling of the story as a means of confronting that knowledge. The ephemeral art object often tells a story in circumstance when there are no words, when we have nothing left to say. Given the eventual disappearance of these works, this paper also addresses the challenge of transience in a context where permanence is seen as a prerequisite for success.

Living with the Dead: cinematic love and death.

In recent years the understanding of grief as a consequence of love and death has developed beyon... more In recent years the understanding of grief as a consequence of love and death has developed beyond the model that suggested that the bereaved would eventually ‘recover’ and be able to replace the loved one. More recently bereavement theories has incorporated the knowledge, which has so often been expressed by the bereaved in the arts, that ‘recovery’ my not in fact be possible or desirable for the bereaved person. In this paper I will discuss two films that explore the consequences of love and death. In Christopher Hampton’s Carrington (1995) we witness the intense love of Dora Carrington for Lytton Strachey which results in her being unable to face a life without him and consequently commits suicide.
In Francois Ozon’s Under the Sand (2001) we also see a character who is also unable to accommodate the death of her husband and appears to her friend to have ‘gone mad’. These films will be discussed in relation to the recent work of Colin Murray Parkes and the work of John Bowly, both of whom have contributed significantly to our understand of the relationship between love and death.

The art of fear: the fear of art

Creativity by definition produces something new. In the 20th century this newness was characteris... more Creativity by definition produces something new. In the 20th century this newness was characterised by an art practice that turned on cultural institutions and rather than bolstering their entitlement to power critiqued and in many cases abandoned them. This was an anti taste movement born out of the reactions to a society that had produced major conflicts, for example, the first and second world wars. However, rather than being motivated by negativity the intention was often to revive what was perceived by many of the protagonists as a decadent and meaningless art world. Overwhelmingly, this new enterprise alienated an audience comfortable with art forms that did not confront or disappoint their expectation. The alienation produced a response that shifted from amusement or disinterest to hostility, all to often discussed in the media in term of financial waste. The role of the artist shifted from the romantic to the ousted and reviled individual pushed to the margins of culture and society. Nowhere is this lack of understanding more obvious that in the reaction of audiences to live performance art. The reaction is often that of disavowal, of denying that the experience is more than merely watching, but demands an engagement that deprives the audience of the disassociation that a purely aesthetic experience of art allows. The avant-garde are no longer seen as valuable, and the artist who performs becomes a cultural waste of time. This is apparent in how live events are predominantly scheduled - beyond the accepted domain of exhibiting in established platforms and venues, performance is increasing the preserve of the marginalised and ‘other’ and exists on the fringe, popping up as events for the specifically interested audience who seek it out and want to experience the transient otherness that it offers.
This paper will discuss the work of performance artists including Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Coco Fusco who threaten the audience by highlighting forms of discrimination hidden in notion of the exotic and the complicity of cultural institutions in practices such as anthropology and ethnography, and Hugo Ball, whose early performance attempt to find a language of communication that transcended national boundaries

A YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY: COLLABORATING WITH UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

This presentation outlines the insights gained from a year of collaborative projects carried out ... more This presentation outlines the insights gained from a year of collaborative projects carried out as part of a Higher Education Academy Art Media and Design Fellowship (UK). The projects required the participants to collaborate across divides – the staff-student divide, the disciplinary divide, and cultural and language divides. Because of the experimental nature of the projects a ‘leap of faith’ was required on behalf of all the participants and the results were often surprising and unexpected. ‘The Lincoln Studio’ was a collaborative project between fine art staff and students that explored the studio as an active element in the production of artworks rather than as a mere place. ‘Lincolnshire Landscape’ was a cross-disciplinary project that involved fine art, creative lens media and journalism students working together on a project where they explored the Lincolnshire countryside, which would be an unfamiliar environment for most of the participants. ‘Belonging’ was a collaborative project between two art and design departments at the University of Lincoln and the fine art department at the Escola de Belas Artes, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. The final project offered undergraduate students an opportunity to work with a member of academic staff on a joint research project that reflected a shared interest. The Deweyan philosophy of these projects emphasised a sharing of authority and responsibility between staff and students and a focus on the experience as a means of creating an enhanced learning environment. This presentation will explore the pedagogic insights drawn from the experience; looking at the students’ response immediately after the project and again several months later to assess the long term impact of these initiatives.