How do you work within virtual spaces to highlight the importance of fair and diverse representation?
How do you work beyond existing structures of power and help others imagine alternate ways of being?
Join the discussion as we host artists and educators Ashley Jane Lewis and Jazmin Morris.
Jazmin Morris is a Creative Computing Artist and Educator based in London. Her personal practise and research explore representation and inclusivity within technology. She uses virtual reality and open-source game development tools to create experiences that highlight issues surrounding gender, race and power; focusing on the complexities within simulating culture and identity. Jazmin also participates in RPG's and Cosplay, extending her Caribbean identity through characters and narratives.
Ashley Jane Lewis is a creative technologist, educator and new media artist with a focus on afrofuturism, bio art, social justice and speculative design. Her artistic practice explores black cultures of the past, present and future through computational and analog mediums including coding and machine learning, data weaving, microorganisms and live performance. Listed in the top 100 Black Women to Watch in Canada, her award winning work on empowered futures for marginalized groups has exhibited in both Canada and the US, most notably featured on the White House website during the Obama presidency. Her practice is tied to science and actively incorporates living organisms like slime mould and food cultures (kombucha and sourdough starters) to explore ways of decentralizing humans and imagine collective, multi species survival.
Quicksand is a series of student run lectures hosted by the design department. With ‘critical design practice’ being either too self-centred to influence or too peripheral to care, Quicksand explores possible strategies for politicality within art & design. Presentations have been given by Joey Holder, Manuel À Marcía, Silvio Lorusso, Emily Segal, Jack Self, Dan Hassler-Forest, Coralie Vogelaar, Chris Lee, amongst others.
