laura@auralab.co.uk | 07793 216 257

Sketchnotes: Afghani culture – Trade School Cardiff

Trade School Cardiff has organised a series of free classes in collaboration with Oasis Cardiff during the Welsh Refugee Week. I went along to the first class to learn about Afghani culture and languages from Anisa, who used to work as a translator for the UN in Afghanistan before having to leave the country after being followed and harassed by the Taliban.

View the rest on my Flickr page >

Trade School Cardiff is a project set up by thinkARK and it’s based on the global Trade School format of bartering for knowledge. They still have classes left for tomorrow and Friday – so book in if you can!

Platform #4: “There is nothing left to photograph”

See below for a link to a Flickr set of the sketchnotes I made from last night’s Platform discussion – this time the guest speaker was photography writer, curator and academic Daniel Blight.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/auralab/sets/72157633810672534/

 

Platform #3: “We will evolve to be photographed”

Platform 3 - 1st image

See below for a link to a Flickr set of the sketchnotes I made from last night’s Platform discussion – this time the guest speaker was curator and writer Bridget Crone.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/auralab/sets/72157633631347754/

 

Platform #2: “The artist is not responsible to anyone”

See below for a slideshow of the sketchnotes I made from last night’s Platform discussion – this time the guest speaker was artist and curator Shaun Featherstone.

Shaun showed us his work around creating an anti-Jubilee newspaper and prompted the debate with examples by other artists such as the Artist Taxi Driver. The discussion revolved strongly around the scale of an active artist; is it enough just to be an artist in order to make a stand? Also the influence of money, selling work and getting public funding, was talked about in the context of controversial projects such as André Stitt’s “White Trash Curry Kick” and Simon Pope’s “Gallery Space Recall“. This with other examples shed light on various views on an artist’s responsibility and morality and where the limit for appropriate art is drawn. The discussion seemed to conclude that the context of art and the viewers’ individual interpretations make it difficult to provide a yes or no answer to the title.

The Platform still has two more discussions to go and they are free but you need to book. For more info and to take part in the online conversation, visit the Platform web page on the Diffusion website.

Platform #1: “Everyone is a photographer now” | Diffusion festival of photography

This May Cardiff is full of exhibitions, events and talks on photography as the international festival of photography, Diffusion takes over the city. The organisers, Ffotogallery, commissioned me to create visual notes of the festival’s Platform series of discussions the first of which took place yesterday at the Fire Island bar.

For each discussion there is a single provocation that can be also commented on online. The first session revolved around the statement “Everyone is a photographer now” with AP news photographer Matt Dunham providing a starting point with iconic photographs such as the naked child running on a path during the Vietnam War. The discussion ranged from defining what professional photography means and how citizen journalists and amateur photographers fit in the picture of present day news publishing and social media always trying to capture the immediacy of the moment.

The Platform still has three more discussions to go and they are free but you need to book. For more info and to take part in the online conversation, visit the Platform web page on the Diffusion website.

Guilty Pleasures at Art Car Bootique 2013

Chapter_FB_stallLast Sunday was time for the annual Art Car Bootique at Chapter Arts Centre, organised by Something Creatives. Chapter Gallery commissioned me to do a stall and work with the idea of ‘Guilty Pleasures’ which I turned into an offer for people to come and confess a guilty pleasure for me to draw.

It was interesting for sure – most people wrote theirs down and hid it in an envelope for me to draw later, but a few brave souls sat down and in confidence and spoke out loud about their guilty pleasures. There were lighthearted ones and darker ones:

  • Eating biscuits in bed
  • Playing Football Manager
  • Peeling skin off your legs and feet
  • Roadhouse
  • Mad baking often at night and drunk
  • Star Trek (“this is how the world should be”)
  • Star Trek vol. 2: Captain Picard’s lines (“Make it so”)
  • Enjoying traumatic and violent nightmares
  • Randy Savage (!)

Even when the weather turned bad for a while people still kept coming… and I got busier and busier…

Chapter_FB_table

In the end I had to stop receiving confessions and just stick to drawing them. Some people collected theirs on their way home but others will be posted to their correct owners in the next week or so.

There is a special magic about providing a space to interact and have a conversation with someone you don’t know very well – sometimes it helps people express opinions and thoughts they couldn’t say out loud in front of family, friends or colleagues. This type of participatory work is something I have done with the Come To Your Senses project and Mearcstapa collective – more details about that soon too. In the meantime do get in touch if you have ideas for a participatory project with visual facilitation or just to say hi.

 

Recent sketchnotes: Archaeology QT and Creative Wales Awards

Just a quick update on some recent sketchnotes I’ve done… I went along to the Creative Wales Awards afternoon of talks in Swansea and made some brief, simple notes there:

Cardiff University commissioned me to record their Archaeology Science Question Time event at the National Museum in Cardiff last night and I really enjoyed it – one of my many dreams when I was younger was to be an archaeologist.

You can see all the notes from the QT event on Flickr.

Safeguarding Children – visual notes from a local gov conference

In January I was commissioned to create graphic recording and visual notes of the Denbighshire County Council’s Local Children’s Safeguarding Board conference, held in St Asaph in March. It was great to be approached by forward thinking people who were already aware of the benefits of visual communication in their organisation.

The day included three key speakers and workshops: the audience heard from senior lecturer Wulf Livingston from Glyndwr University, Di Jerwood from NSPCC and a group working on a multi agency protocol for best practice. The topics also included case studies and how children are affected by their parents’ situation whether it is in relation to domestic abuse, substance misuse or mental health issues.  You can watch all three talks on YouTube – here’s a link to Di Jerwood’s talk.

The audience feedback was great – many people said I managed to capture the key details of the specialised professional subject matter and the recordings became a key focal point during breaks to promote further discussion. LSCB will use these recordings at their training events in the future so they get even more value for their investment in visualisation.

You can view more photos of the event on my Flickr page. And if you would like to discuss a potential project, please don;t hesistate to get in touch.

Rapid Cycling: In conversation with artist Sara Rees

Sara Rees discussion visual

A few weeks ago I started my role as a resident graphic recorder of Rapid Cycling, a programme of artists residencies at the new ATTIC gallery in Roath, Cardiff. The gallery, founded by artists Sara Annwyl and Julia Thomas, is committed to an exploration of how emotional distress, cognitive ‘dysfunction’ and ’madness’ are understood, treated and experienced scientifically, personally and culturally.

The first event was a hosted day of dialogue, with artist Sara Rees and with contributions from the other Rapid Cycling artists, MARGIN, their resident writers group, and their group of responders. Other guests included Gareth Williams, Professor of Sociology from Cardiff University, Rose Thompson, Digital Storyteller and Dr Jamie Lewis a social scientist who works with the Medical Research Council and acts as ATTIC’s academic consultant.

The event started with people looking around Sara’s work and then being divided into two discussion groups thinking about responses to the work and questions to ask from the artist. The thoughts and questions were then shared with the whole group resulting in interesting conversation.

Sara Rees backgrounds

Sara Rees stories

Sara Rees - Lacuna

Sara Rees – ATTIC

For more photos of the graphic recording please visit the Flickr set. There will be more updates with other discussion sessions and at the end of the project I get to create a wall mural of the whole thing inside the gallery. For ATTIC info and updates, keep an eye on the ATTIC blog, ATTIC Facebook page and Twitter!