Click & Collect Sculpture Exhibition

Learning and teaching in lockdown sometimes requires a willingness to go with the flow and discover possibilities in new methods.

Senior Lecturer James Charlton has been working with second and third year sculpture students to put together Click & Collect, a live, socially distanced exhibition opening online on Friday 8 October from 4 – 6 pm. The exhibition runs through to 30 October.

Dr Charlton says that lockdown has been especially challenge for Visual Arts students: “These are artists who normally work hands on with physical materials; casting, cutting, welding and firing in our 3D labs. So, coming to grips with digital tools and working online has been the ultimate challenge for them as access to materials and facilities has been pretty limited. But each within the limits of their own circumstance has managed to develop new artworks. This exhibition is not only a way of them sharing their work but also of connecting to people again – visitors can chat with the artists via their virtual avatars as they walk around in an opening like hubbub. Without that sort of dialogue making art can seem a little futile.”

But this online exhibition is not quite what you might expect: Each student is setting up a physical exhibition in their home. For some that might simply mean arranging objects on a table, or in the corner of a room. For others it means taking over their parents' garage. Some are even doing performance art works.

For the opening each student has set up a live YouTube stream of their work. This is presented on the video monitors in the Virtual Gallery. Visitors can walk around, watch a stream while having a glass of chardonnay from the comfort of their own couch. Join the opening live.