On Friday, 29th June FLUX will host a specialist talks event centred around Digital Art as Collaborative Community Practice, with a panel of guests speaking on the subject. The FLUX panel discussion invites artist Sara Choudhrey, Lisa Nash (Flourish / ACAVA), Anastasia Dedyukhina (Digital Detox Festival) and artist Fiona Hawthorne to discuss the changing role of Arts in local communities, with a specific focus on the response of Artists in the wake of the Grenfell tragedy. Chaired by Oliver Gingrich - short presentations will be followed by a panel discussion of all speakers.
Register for the free talks event here
Register for the free talks event here
About Sara Choudhrey
The first panelist at this FLUX Talk is also co-curator of the AYAH exhibition, organiser of the community workshops and co-initiator of the project: Sara Choudhrey. Her work is inspired by Islamic Digital Art, a subject she recently completed her Doctorate in. Sara’s hybrid approach to art-making is rooted in geometry, inspired by Islamic visual culture. Combining research interests in digital technology and Islamic art, her artistic practice is a means to communicate theoretical and conceptual themes surrounding space, place, border and order.
www.sarachoudhrey.com
About Dr Anastasia Dedyukhina
The second speaker presenting at FLUX: Community is Dr Anastasia Dedyukhina. Anastasia is a TEDx speaker, author of Homo Distractus, Huffington Post blogger, and organizer of the first art and mindful tech festival Focus Inside. She got rid of her smartphone as well as her senior international career in digital marketing, when she realised how dependent she had become on her gadget. She eventually set up Consciously Digital, a London-based consultancy that helps people develop a healthier relationship with technology, not just get rid of it. She is frequently quoted in the international press talking about tech-life balance and has appeared in The Guardian, BBC, Metro, Channel 4 etc. Anastasia is founder of Focus Inside - a community event concentrating on Digital Detox held at Westminster's Church Street
http://www.focus-inside.com
About Fiona Hawthorne
Well known for her delicate and witty line-and-wash style Hawthorne’s drawings regularly graced the pages of Tatler, capturing the English Season’s polo matches, the Henley Regatta and tearooms of Harrods. She spent a year as the first artist in residence to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, culminating in a solo exhibition at The Royal Festival Hall. Her love of steelpan music led her not only to learn to play the instrument, but she created and produced “One Thousand Pans” a huge musical installation for the closing weekend of the 2012 Olympic Games.
A love of Carnival led Hawthorne to win a National commission to cover a 100 meter wall area in West London with her interpretation of Europe’s largest street festival, Notting Hill Carnival. The exhibition was seen by 3 million people and was extended a further 6 months, the images also reaching many corners of the world as film and TV backdrops.
Hawthorne’s economic line and vibrant sense of colour translated naturally to painting on computer. She is now one of UK’s leading digital artists, often commissioned to draw live at events with screen projected to huge canvas, where audiences share her fast, exciting creative process as she works.
Hawthorne’s digital portrait of Barack Obama hangs in the Library of Congress and she has two public art exhibitions currrently open in London – “Project Ramp” at 300 Ladbroke Grove, and “150 Years of the Market” on world famous Portobello Road.
http://www.fionahawthorne.com
About Lisa Nash
Lisa Nash is a local North Kensington resident, artist, an Assistant Programme Manager for ACAVA and the founder of ACAVA's Flourish programme.
Starting in Spring 2017, Flourish started as a one-off 5 week project for local families with primary school aged children; welcoming families back into ACAVA's Maxilla Walk Studios (formerly the Maxilla Children’s Centre) to get creative and enjoy learning new skills alongside professional artists.
Following the devastating Grenfell Tower fire, the need for a safe, creative and family friendly space for local people to come together was evident. Funding was secured to continue the project through the summer holidays of 2017 and it is currently funded through to October 2018.
For each school holiday artists are invited to respond to a different theme. Past themes have included: Light, Movement, Bloom and Reflection and activities have included screen printing, plastic prayer flag making, creating spinning galaxies and ‘Story Creative’ workshops combining story-time fun and original art techniques to name but a few.
https://www.acava.org/education-and-commun…/project/flourish
Alongside this, Lisa is also responsible for overseeing the Grenfell Memorial Community Mosaic project and the art for wellbeing programmes being delivered at The Curve, a local community centre set up for those directly and indirectly affected by Grenfell Tower fire.
Lisa also produced an on-line archive which documents the history of Maxilla Children's Centre: www.maxillaarchive.com