Centre for Creative and Cultural Practice (CCP)
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Centre for Creative and Cultural Practice (CCP)
Overview
CCP brings together practitioners and researchers in art, moving image, photography, performing and digital arts, architecture, fashion, journalism and creative writing.
It supports creative practices, social engagement and academic research projects situated at the intersections of:
- environment: our generation's most urgent challenge
- empire: for a sense of history punctuated by colonialism and its legacies
- materiality: process, resources and labour in the creative industries.
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We are located in London's vibrant and most diverse area. Our roots are in UEL's long history of public engagement and service to its local and global communities. We opened in 2022, building on the activities of the Moving Image Research Centre and in recognition of the continued influence of the Centre for Narrative Research.
The Centre for Creative and Cultural Practice:
- promotes critical, social engagement
- encourages interdisciplinary collaborations between practice and theory
- connects creatives within the university and with the larger community
- sees creative and narrative practices as playing a part in working towards the UN SDGs and shaping future goals.
We offer artist residencies and visiting fellowships for individual and collaborative projects.
CCP's international and local networks include:
- Nunnery Gallery (Bow Arts), Whitechapel Gallery, and Way Out East Gallery, London
- Close-Up Film Centre, BFI London Film Festival, and discover.film, London
- Centre for Social Science Research, Dhaka
- Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art, New Delhi
- Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies, Vilnius
- Memory Studies Association, Memory and Arts Working Group
On a Wing and a Prayer (2016), installation by Alia Syed, artist-in-residence 2016-17
Who we are
Co-directors
- Sharone Lifschitz: artist/ filmmaker and academic. Works in moving image, urban interventions and text-based objects, focusing on the interaction of personal experience, memory, chance encounters and conversations; the concreteness of architecture, networks and public space.
- Valentina Vitali: researches the intersection of economics, history and film aesthetics from a comparative perspective. Areas of expertise include film historiography, comparative film theory, South Asian cinemas, and women's moving image.
Members
- Alan Chandler: specialist in collaborative practice with expertise in the fields of fabric-formed concrete development and the politicisation of architectural heritage.
- Alex Thomas
- Alison Lowe
- Andrew John Brown: artist, researcher and educator; Emeritus Professor of Education and Society at UCL and Honorary Professor in the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education at the University of Newcastle, NSW. Work explores the impact of changes in the built environment on East London communities. Currently undertaking a Doctorate in Fine Art at UEL on plurality in the arts.
- Antigone Memou: author of Photography and Social Movements (Manchester University Press, 2013). Other work appeared in, among other publications, Third Text, Photographies, Philosophy of Photography and Ephemera.
- Claudia Brazzale
- David Chapman: sound artist, film producer and editor. Areas of interest include sonic art, film production and history.
- Dominic Hingorani: co-artistic director of Brolly Productions CIC: a global majority-led cross-arts company creating new roles in the repertoire for under-represented artists.
- Evi Stamatiou
- Fay Brauer
- Guy Harries: works in electronic sound, interactive performance and multimedia, vocal performance and instrumental composition.
- Johannes Maier
- Laura Robinson
- Lindsay Hallam: works on horror and cult cinema, Australian film, David Lynch, gender, the body and trauma.
- Mihaela Anca Ciupala
- Roberta Garrett: researches creative writing, gender, islamophobia, domestic abuse and the family.
- Sarahleigh Castelyn: areas of expertise include dance, ethics, Africa, gender, race, sexuality, and theatre.
- Sharon Hughes
- Tristan Parkes
- Valentina Signorelli
Advisory Board
- Gareth Evans, Whitechapel Gallery, London
- Tessa Garland, Nunnery Gallery, Bow Arts, London
- John Smith, Professor Emeritus UEL, independent artist and filmmaker
Artist-in-residence
- 2022-2023: Karen Russo
Postgraduate students
Attached PhD or Professional Doctorate candidates:
- Sara Jane Bor
- Anne Eva Isaksson
- Lester Paul Korzilius
- Diana Lengua
- Jacqueline Rana
- Oluwatosin Sanni
The centre welcomes applications for PhDs and Professional Doctorates.
We are interested in cross-disciplinary, practice-based research and creative projects that speak to our research areas.
For information, including bursaries, visit:
Employability is one of UEL's strategic objectives. CCP also welcomes research and practice on the nature of work and the structures that facilitate creative labour.
Illustration by current CCP-based PhD candidate Oluwatosin Sanni, whose research focuses on virtual production and oppositional visual narratives in Nigeria.
Events
- Karen Russo at Way Out East Gallery, London - date to be confirmed.
- Irregular Commas # 3 - 11 May 2023, 5-6:30 pm, Nunnery Gallery Café. With artist Anthony Luvera and Antigone Memou.
- Syntax of a River - 26 April 2023, OTO Café, London. Curated screening featuring The Marsh (David Chapman, 2023)
- States of exchange - 1 April-2 June 2023, 50 Celebration Avenue, Stratford, London.
Exhibition and creative programme curated by CCP’s professional doctorate candidates. An interdisciplinary series of events and space exploring the interactions between place, memory and time, and the relation between cooperation, exchange, inequality and status.
Students and artists at Responses to Visions
- Changing Currents: can we build a better world together? Feb-June 2023, Space, Ilford.
- Irregular Commas # 2 – Thursday 2 February 2023,5:-6-30pm, Nunnery Gallery Café. With artists Zarah Hussain and John Brown.
- Responses to Visions – Thursday 15 December 2022, 6-8 pm, Nunnery Gallery, FREE
Taking cues from the films exhibited in this year’s Visions in the Nunnery, an exclusive screening of a selection of experimental and newly produced films made by current UEL students.
- Film Screening – Thursday 24 November 2022, 6-9 pm, Nunnery Gallery
An evening of boundary-pushing film, with intimate screenings of The Visitor (2019) by Sharone Lifschitz, Art as Problematic Waste (2019) by David Chapman and Aimo Hyvärinen, and a selection of Visions in the Nunnery shorts responding to their themes. Followed by a conversation with Sharone Lifschitz and David Chapman.
Q&A with filmmakers Sharone Liftschitz and David Chapman.
- Irregular Commas #1 – Thursday 3 November 2022, 5-6.30 pm, Nunnery Café. With artists Alice Wilson and Valentina Vitali.
A new, regular reading group is hosted in the Nunnery Gallery café, led by a different artist and theorist each time, who will select a text for discussion. This session will focus on issues around sustainability and the environment.
- Grabbing the World by the Lapels - 14 May 2022, 2-6 pm, Stratford Picturehouse
Screening of short films by South Asian women. Part of AHRC-funded project South Asian Cinema and Video Online Distribution. In collaboration with Tongues on Fire: Asian Film Festival UK.
Irregular Commas # 1 with artist Alice Wilson
Featured project
South Asian Cinema and Video Online Distribution
An AHRC-funded network for collaborative, interdisciplinary research on how the operation of video online distribution platforms is shaping the content and aesthetics of independent cinema in South Asia – and, through it, cinematic representations of South Asian identities, in the region and the diaspora.
Bringing together scholars, independent filmmakers-producers and festival programmers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the network aims to explore the possibilities of regional, transnational dialogue offered by online film distribution.
Members from South Asia attending the first network meeting online
Contact us
For more information, please contact CCP co-directors
Dr Sharone Lifschitz: s.lifschitz@uel.ac.uk, or
Prof Valentina Vitali: v.vitali@uel.ac.uk
