Seeking all creative change-makers for life on Earth.
Between 21 - 25 September the UAL Climate Emergency Network is hosting an online 5-day festival to share knowledge from our creative frontline.
The festival is open to all current UAL students at foundation, undergraduate or postgraduate level, as well as UAL offer-holders about to enter study in 2020/ 2021. Staff are also warmly invited to attend.
From 2020 onwards, we all must contribute to the decarbonisation, decolonisation, and de-extinction imperatives. Five Days. Ten Years. One Planet. offers an opportunity for us to energise our thoughts and stimulate debate ahead of the academic year in October.
Programme highlights include:
- Contributions from key research and technical staff across UAL
- Talks from current students, recent graduates and alumni
- Workshops facilitated by the UAL Climate Emergency Network
- Representation from across UAL’s Institutes and Research Centres
You can attend as many sessions as you would like. In the spirit of the Climate Emergency Assemblies, which took place across our Colleges last year, we're also inviting all participants to come together on the final day for a session to discuss some key objectives for change over the next 5 years in our lives as artists, designers, researchers and citizens.
Monday 21 September
Welcome to Five Days, Ten Years, One Planet
When: 11am - 11.15am
With Professor Jeremy Till and the Climate Emergency Network
Please join us for a brief 15 minute welcome to the programme and content of Five Days, Ten Years, One Planet, with Jeremy Till Pro Vice-Chancellor at CSM and members of the UAL Climate Emergency Network.
Decolonising the Arts Curriculum: Perspectives in Higher Education
When: 11.15am - 12pm
Speakers: Rahul Patel and Anita Waithira Israel
What does it mean to decolonise arts education? How can we challenge colonial legacies and disrupt ways of seeing, hearing, thinking and making in our practice? Rahul Patel from the UAL Teaching and Learning Exchange and Anita Waithira Israel, former Arts SU Education officer, join us to facilitate critical dialogue on how we might drive forward social, cultural and institutional change, with a focus on zines 1 and 2.
Countdown to 2050: Centre for Circular Design and World Circular Textiles Day
When: 1pm - 2.45pm (with break)
Speakers: Dr Kate Goldsworthy and Professor Rebecca Earley
Countdown to 2050: Centre for Circular Design and World Circular Textiles Day
This event is a series of three sessions, hosted by Centre for Circular Design (CCD) for UAL staff and students. We will explore key issues around the future of textiles and materials, through the lens of circular design, focusing on the upcoming launch of the first World Circular Textiles Day on 8 October 2020.
Materials & Systems
1.00-1.45pm
CCD Co-Director Dr Kate Goldsworthy presents a vision of the year 2050 where materials, textiles and products have been transformed through new resource use and reuse and technological innovation.
1.45-2.00pm
Break
People & Power
2.00-2.45pm
CCD Co-Director Professor Rebecca Earley presents a vision of how global and local health and wealth issues will have been radically progressed through the strategic evolution of circular systems, services and flows for fashion and textiles by 2050.
World Circular Textiles Day is being launched by Worn Again Technologies (UK), in collaboration with Circle Economy (Netherlands) and the Centre for Circular Design (London), and Supported by Industry, with Founding Signatories already signed up including, Accelerating Circularity, Bank & Vogue, Common Objective, Evrnu, Fashion For Good, H&M, i:co, Kering, Recover, Reverse Resources and Texaid, to name a few.
It will be a day where brand/retailers, value chain producers, textile collectors/sorters, innovators, industry organisations and local authorities, as well as individuals, are encouraged to collectively promote and participate in a simple vision, that full circularity by 2050 can be achieved with increased collaboration and engagement across all stakeholders.
Our people. Our planet.
When: 3.15pm - 4pm
With 2020 graduates and the Climate Emergency Network
We have 10 years to save our planet. So what does it mean to graduate in 2020? Our People. Our Planet. invites you to meet with a group of recent UAL graduates whose work has a strong affiliation with the climate, ecological and social justice crises. Together we'll look back on the experiences, challenges and learnings of their time at UAL and ask how they plan to continue to work in response to the needs of both our people and our planet.
Tuesday 22 September
Planetary Health (with panel)
When: 11am - 12.45pm (with break)
Speakers: David Cross with panel including Professor Carole Collet and guests
Published as a manifesto in 2014 by Richard Horton and colleagues, Planetary Health celebrates the interdependence between human and ecological systems and connects ecological health to physical and mental health. In this session, we will explore how artists and designers might develop Planetary Health through creative and critical cultural practices.
After a short break (from 11.45am-12.00pm), we join speaker David Cross with a panel including Professor Carole Collet and guests from around UAL to debate and expand upon the notion of Planetary Health, and its potential application in our practices.
How do we introduce the Climate Emergency?
When: 1:45pm - 2:30pm
Last October, a group of staff and students with a shared ambition met through the UAL Climate Assemblies. They wanted to create an introduction to the Climate Emergency which would ensure all new students had a baseline level of understanding around the scientific, geopolitical and social implications of the climate and ecological crisis at the very start of their time at UAL. Over the past year, an interactive introduction to the Climate Emergency has been developed, which will be made available to all students during this year's Welcome period. Join us to learn more about how this dynamic learning tool was co-created and produced against the odds through lockdown.
Creative Adaptations: UAL Climate Network responds to COVID-19
When: 3pm - 3.45pm
With the Climate Emergency Network
As a leading centre of creative education, practice and research with a prominent international profile, UAL has a unique part to play in addressing the climate and ecological emergency. The UAL Climate Network is a growing community of concerned students and staff who have been coming together over recent months with the shared belief that urgent collective action is needed. Check-in on the status of some of our co-created projects and reflect on the need for creative adaptation in the face of COVID-19.
Wednesday 23 September
Decolonising Arts Institute: Environmental Justice
When: 11am - 11.30am
Speakers: Professor susan pui san lok, Dr Khairani Barokka and Dr Ileena Selejan
This session offers a brief introduction to the emerging Decolonising Arts Institute by Professor susan pui san lok, artist, academic and Institute Director, followed by a conversation on how environmental justice relates to the creative and scholarly research practices of Dr Khairani Barokka and Dr Ileana Selejan, Institute Research Fellows.
Living Systems Lab, CSM
When: 11.45am - 12.30pm
Speakers: Professor Carole Collet, Heather Barnett, Nancy Diniz, Professor Rob Kesseler and Alice Taylor
How can biodesign and bioart be a powerful force for change in the context of climate and biodiversity emergency?
A brief presentation from our researchers who explore the inherent properties of biological living systems to develop new knowledge in the field of ecology via creative practices in art, design and architecture.
Climate Emergency and the Curriculum
When: 1:30pm - 2:15pm
Staff and students from LCC's Design School share insights into embedding social and environmental sustainability into the curriculum and the creation of a new course MA Design for Social Innovation and Sustainable Futures.
Reflections from Za'atari Refugee Camp
When: 2.30pm - 3.15pm
Speakers: Professor Helen Storey, Laura Baker and Anna Fitzpatrick
Za’atari Refugee Camp on the Jordan/Syria border has much to teach us about all our futures. As UNHCR Designer in residence there, Professor Helen Storey shares some of these insights and will be joined by Anna Fitzpatrick and Laura Baker who will also reflect on how Za’atari manifests in their practice.
Design after Design
When: 3.30pm - 4pm
Speakers: Professor Jeremy Till
The climate emergency questions many of the values on which the modern project of design was founded. This talk will ask what happens to design when the presumptions of endless growth, consumption, desire and extraction which design has depended on are no longer acceptable. Drawing on lessons learnt during the COVID pandemic, Jeremy Till (Pro-Vice Chancellor, CSM) will propose alternative values and methods which might inform design.
Thursday 24 September
Black by Popular Demand
When: 11am - 11.45am
With Terrayne Brown and 2020 Graduates
Terrayne Brown, CSM graduate teaching assistant and curator of the 2020 Graduate Showcase's Black by Popular Demand collection, is joined by graduates to discuss their work, experiences and plans as they embark on the next steps in their creative careers.
Sustainability at UAL: achievements, challenges, aspirations
When: 12pm - 12.45pm
With Ian Lane (Associate Director of Sustainable Operations) and the Climate Emergency Network
Learn about how sustainability is tackled at UAL, find out what has been achieved so far and plans for the future. Find out about the different ways you can get involved and make an impact as a member of the University Sustainability community.
What is social design? What isn't social design?
When: 1.45pm - 2.15pm
Speakers: Professor Lucy Kimbell, Dr Christian Nold, Dr Patrycja Kaszynska, Jocelyn Bailey
Design is hard enough to define. Add ‘social’ to the name, with hundreds of years of sociological thought aiming to understand society, things become even more complicated. Why has something called ‘social design’ emerged in the last decade or so? Is it actually new? Or is it the case that all designing must be social, aiming to achieve outcomes in a social world? How can we make sense of the different practices that have emerged in the UK in response to austerity, or in Colombia or Sweden, responding to very different circumstances? In this short discussion, members of the Social Design Institute will share some of their perspectives on these questions.
Future (im)perfect
When: 2.30pm - 3pm
Speaker: Professor Ramia Mazé, Professor of Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability
The future is not empty. The future is produced through our everyday and creative practices, our personal and political choices, our visions and worldviews. As the present turns into the future, minute by minute, there is a potential to think and do differently. Which future? Whose? Let’s reflect together about the future(s) that we want. .
Stop Ecocide and Earth Protector Communities
When: 3.15pm - 3.45pm
Speaker: Jozette Khimba (Stop Ecocide)
Until damaging the Earth is criminalised, businesses have economic and political licence to continue with dangerous industrial activity that is destroying ecosystems all around the world. Stop Ecocide has an action plan that will stop the harm at the source. Earth Protector Communities have a mission to begin living the new story that is needed for humanity now. Jozette Khimba from Stop Ecocide will lead a talk hoping to encourage everyone to recognise that we have the capacity to be part of the solution right now, whatever our circumstances.
Friday 25 September
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion / Anti-Racism at UAL
When: 11am - 11.30am
Speakers: Naina Patel, Isabella Chan
Meet Naina Patel, UAL's newly appointed Race Champion and Isabella Chan, Head of Diversity and Inclusion, to find out about how UAL is working towards becoming an anti-racist university.
World Circular Textiles Day
When: 11.45am -12.30pm
Speakers: Prof Rebecca Earley (chair) with Cyndi Rhoades (Worn Again Technologies), Dr Kate Goldsworthy (Centre for Circular Design), Circle Economy (Amsterdam)
This is the third session continuing on from the previous sessions on Monday from Centre for Circular Design.
Friday 25 September 11.45am-12.30pm
This session brings together the founders of World Circular Textiles Day in a panel discussion chaired by CCD Co-Director Professor Rebecca Earley. Guests include Cyndi Rhoades (Worn Again Technologies); Dr Kate Goldsworthy (Centre for Circular Design); and Circle Economy (Amsterdam). (Questions for this panel discussion can be sent in advance to r.l.earley@arts.ac.uk).
World Circular Textiles Day is being launched by Worn Again Technologies (UK), in collaboration with Circle Economy (Netherlands) and the Centre for Circular Design (London), and Supported by Industry, with Founding Signatories already signed up including, Accelerating Circularity, Bank & Vogue, Common Objective, Evrnu, Fashion For Good, H&M, i:co, Kering, Recover, Reverse Resources and Texaid, to name a few. It will be a day where brand/retailers, value chain producers, textile collectors/sorters, innovators, industry organisations and local authorities, as well as individuals, are encouraged to collectively promote and participate in a simple vision, that full circularity by 2050 can be achieved with increased collaboration and engagement across all stakeholders.
Fashion Futures 2030: Imagining New Worlds through Fashion as Culture and Attire
When: 12:45pm - 1.30pm
Speaker: Prof Dilys Williams and Anna Fitzpatrick
We are part of the biggest change that humans have ever instigated. Now is the time for human ingenuity to create ways in which we can live well together, in nature. Fashion Futures 2030 draws on practical experimentation, action research and the collation of extensive experience of contributors to create four possible future scenarios that act as provocations for projective design. Join us with professor Dilys Williams and Anna Fitzpatrick to consider these scenarios as a springboard for studies in designing with nature and equity in mind.
Closing Assembly: The Next 10 Years
When: 3:00pm - 4.15pm
With the Climate Emergency Network
What next? How can we take forward and apply what we have learned as individuals, as creatives, as a higher education community and as a sector? Join us with the Climate Emergency Network for a closing assembly, for a chance to reflect on this week's learning and debates as we embark on the new academic year together.