Yinka Shonibare CBE in conversation with Professor Mark Sealy OBE for UAL Research Season
- Written byCat Cooper
- Published date 15 February 2022
UAL is excited to announce 'Hosting Ideas for Progress’: a live in-conversation online on 14 March with British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare CBE and Professor Mark Sealy OBE, Director of Autograph and core member of UAL's Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC); chaired by Professor Pratāp Rughani, Associate Dean of Research, London College of Communication, UAL.
The talk forms Episode 6 of The Decolonising Lens led by Mark Sealy and PARC, and is the headline event in UAL Research Season, a free season of in-person and online public events and content during March exploring the theme Earth and Equity: integrating environmental and racial justice.
The annual programme is led by academics from UAL’s Colleges and Institutes and overseen by UAL’s Research Professoriate. It continues our exploration of the same theme in 2021, inviting the public to engage with how our academics and students are tackling major global challenges.
Yinka's ideas for progress
Yinka’s international multi-disciplinary practice explores colonialism and post-colonialism within the context of globalisation. In 2019 he set up the Yinka Shonibare Foundation; a UK registered charity dedicated to facilitating international cultural exchange and supporting creative practices through residencies, collaborations and education projects. It provides a platform for creative development and knowledge sharing between established and emerging practitioners, and supports international partnerships between artists, designers, curators, collectors, architects, agriculturists and ecologists.
Yinka’s vision behind the Foundation is to support the development of new work and ideas, to foster mutual understanding of cultural differences as we break down traditional barriers of privilege and wealth, to build access and create new pathways to education, to forge new networks and a resilient cultural infrastructure that will enable the next generation to thrive, not just survive. His new artist residency spaces in Lagos and Ijebu, Nigeria will open in 2022.
Practice Research Futures with PRAG UK
The Season will kick off on 3 March with a panel event with members of PRAG UK (Practice Research Advisory UK) discussing practice research with panellists from UAL and Ozden Sahin & James Bulley authors: An independent advisory body dedicated to how practice research should be funded and supported, to formally recognise the importance of the field, enabling its growth and enhancing the understanding of its benefits to society.
Their 2 new reports 'What is practice research?' and 'How can practice research be shared?' have been hailed as a “seminal contribution” for the way they explore the fundamentals of practice research to provide insights and recommendations into the future of the field.
The reports find that practice research enriches not just higher education, but learning and knowledge creation and sharing in other settings across a wide range of areas, from medicine and engineering to art and music. And they say that there is now an opportunity to formally recognise practice research and put into place frameworks will help galvanise understanding of the field, bringing widespread benefits for society.
With Prof Oriana Baddely, Ozden Sahin & James Bulley (co-authors of the reports) with UAL academics: Prof susan pui san lok, Prof Judith Clark, Prof Tom Corby, Prof Alison Prendiville. Chaired by Prof Pratāp Rughani.
Book now
- RS Keynote: Hosting Ideas for Progress: Yinka Shonibare CBE in conversation with Professor Mark Sealy OBE, Monday 14 March, 5.30pm online
- RS Launch event: Practice Research Futures panel with PRAG UK, Thursday 3 March, 5.30-7pm, London College of Communication Lecture Theatre C
Browse all UAL Research Season events
More Season highlights
- Decolonising Decarbonisation: Interventions and possibilities in Higher Education in Art and Design, with the Council for Higher Education in Art and Design (CHEAD).
- MAI-DAY: Textile Elements: A Series of Conversations, CCW Design School
- Helen Frankenthaler: Radical Beauty Symposium, Camberwell College of Arts x Dulwich Picture Gallery.
- Wild and Cultivated: Fashioning the Rose. In-person lecture, London College of Fashion, with Amy de la Haye
- The Art of Neurodiversity
- Digital Transformation and the Public Good
- Transnational Fashion and its challenges
- Actors Touring Company performance of RICE by Michelle Lee, directed by Matthew Xia - Contesting Globalisation: Performance, Earth and Equity: Live performance at Wimbledon College of Arts theatre
Booking for these events and more will come on line during February, so check back soon at: arts.ac.uk/researchseason
Yinka Shonibare biography
Yinka Shonibare CBE RA (b. 1962) in London, UK, studied Fine Art at Byam Shaw School of Art, London (1989) (now Central Saint Martins, UAL) and received his MFA from Goldsmiths, University of London (1991).
His interdisciplinary practice uses citations of Western art history and literature to question the validity of contemporary cultural and national identities within the context of globalization. Through examining race, class and the construction of cultural identity, his works comment on the tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe, and their respective economic and political histories.
In 2004, he was nominated for the Turner Prize and in 2008, his mid-career survey began at Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, travelling in 2009 to the Brooklyn Museum, New York and the Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C. In 2010, his first public art commission ‘Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle’ was displayed on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London and is in the permanent collection of the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
In 2013, he was elected a Royal Academician and was awarded the honour of ‘Commander of the Order of the British Empire’ in 2019. His installation ‘The British Library’ was acquired by Tate in 2019 and is currently on display at Tate Modern, London.
Last year, Shonibare was awarded the prestigious Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon Award. A major retrospective of his work opened at the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg in May 2021 followed by his co-ordination of The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London which opened in September 2021.
Shonibare’s works are in notable museum collections internationally, including the Tate Collection, London; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome and VandenBroek Foundation, The Netherlands.
Professor Mark Sealy biography
Mark Sealy OBE is Professor of Photography – Rights and Representation, core member of Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC), UAL and Executive Director of the photographic arts charity Autograph ABP. In 2019 Mark was awarded the Outstanding Service to Photography Award by the Royal Photographic Society. He is particularly interested in the relationship between photography and social change, identity politics, race and human rights.
Mark’s series The Decolonising Lens brings guests from across the creative sectors together to discuss and challenge the Eurocentric, phallocentric and hetero-centric control of traditional academic and cultural canons. Presented by Mark, the series takes its name from his seminal book, Decolonising the Camera: Photography in Racial Time (2019). His latest book Photography: Race Rights and Representation publishes on 15 March 2022.