The University of Exeter launched its new Arts and Culture strategy in an event held at Exeter Castle on Tuesday 16 October. The strategy aims to enable creative activity throughout the South West region by encouraging collaboration between students and staff at the university, as well as people in the city. It was launched following a consultation process and will be in place until 2021.
the strategy aims to “get as many people as possible to engage in the university and show off their creativity.”
Vice-Chancellor Sir Steve Smith introduced the event’s speakers: Stephen Hodge, the university’s director of Arts and Culture, and Janice Kay, Provost and Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the university, who said that the strategy aims to “get as many people as possible to engage in the university and show off their creativity.”
The event itself saw numerous organisations within the Arts and Culture network showcase their projects across three main rooms. Displays included Exeter Whisper, an auditory work which featured primary school children whispering a phrase devised by poet and novelist Michael Rosen to each other; Understanding Everyday Participation, a research project into cultural participation by Jane Milling of the Drama Department which highlights “informal, voluntary, amateur, everyday things that [people] do that make their creative lives”; and The Hudson Transparencies, a set of illuminated prints of microorganisms under a microscope.
Other displays included paintings by the university’s Art Society, replicas of moving-image artefacts provided by the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, Hindu Society, Hong Kong Public Affairs Society, multimedia artist Duncan Speakman, and Double Elephant Print Workshop, but this list is not exhaustive.
The Arts and Culture strategy launches in Cornwall on 24 October.
