We introduce a new cohort of collaborations between Somerset House Studios and King’s College London, exploring critical new perspectives on contemporary culture and society.
The research & development scheme sees new collaborations between King’s researchers from across the Arts & Sciences faculties and our Studios’ residents, comprising artists, designers and thinkers.
Aimed at addressing pressing contemporary issues and enhancing public knowledge and understanding through interdisciplinary work, the programme offers artist-researcher teams the opportunity to connect and develop ideas, exploring critical new perspectives on contemporary culture and society.
The collaborations explore themes as varied as the post-pandemic world, climate change, activism, algorithmic justice, im/migration, and identity.
Studios resident, artist and filmmaker Manu Luksch and Dr Srilata Sircar, Lecturer in the King’s India Institute (Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy) seek to explore how archives can become a place of solidarity for local(ised) acts of resistance against global(ised) forms of oppression.
Artist, writer and Studios resident Sonya Dyer collaborates with Dr Jeffrey Grube, Lecturer in the Department of Physics (Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences) to examine the intersection of scientific labour and discovery with artistic labour and storytelling.
Visual artist, filmmaker and Studios artist Sam Williams, alongside Dr Sarah Lewis, Senior Lecturer in the Department of English (Faculty of Arts & Humanities), explore how, why and to what effect the concept of kairos - the moment of opportunity - is evoked in response to states of precarity, using the climate crisis as a prototype subject.
Andy Merritt of Something & Son, an artistic practice duo in residence at the Studios, joins forces with Dr Anna Dubiel, Lecturer in the Department of Marketing (King’s Business School) to address social and environmental issues of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) related risks though an experimental micro-insurance game.
Vivienne Griffin, who works across antidisciplinary practice including electronic noise, one-to-one performances, objects (found and made) and drawings will worth together with Cari Hyde-Vaamonde, PhD Candidate in The Dickson Poon School of Law. The project, taking the form of a visually enticing video game, will explore the role of AI and algorithms in judicial systems.
Gary Zhexi Zhang, visual artist, writer and Studios resident partners with Dr. Lucrezia Canzutti, Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of War Studies (Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy) to explore the role of data in migrants’ asylum claims.
In collaboration with
Lead image: Vivienne Griffin, still from The Fake Haven, 2021, [Digital video, sound, 16.30]
