As the University has settled into the rhythm of a new semester, we have settled into the rhythm of one day a week on campus as Artists in Residence. We have become a familiar sight on campus, wearing the ‘Faculty of Taking Notice’ board, walking the neighbourhood and getting to know some of the neighbours.
At the end of September, students heading to and from lectures encountered something unexpected in the familiar setting of the Link Bridge, the busy, pedestrian thoroughfare between Campus Central and the Cottrell Building. It was there that we sited ‘For here & for now’, the second intervention by the ‘Faculty of Taking Notice’.
Standing at each end of this space, we offered students a table tennis ball and suggested that they bounce it as they walked from one end to the other. Those who took up the offer broke into smiles as they began the repetitive action of dropping and catching the ball. The unique percussive sound of the balls bouncing on the floor and the accompanying laughter had a transformative effect on the visual and aural experience of walking the bridge.
With this whimsical intervention, the ‘Faculty of Taking Notice’ intentionally interrupted the flow and routine of the space, encouraging people to be more aware of each other and to be more attentive to the present moment. Eyes were lifted from phones and the pace slowed.
In October the changing colours of a silver maple (acer saccharinum), along Hermitage Road, caught the eye of the ‘Faculty of Taking Notice’. We gathered some of its fallen leaves in preparation for our next intervention. ‘Outside in’ did exactly as the title suggested, intentionally bringing something from the outside, inside. It was a simple act of gentle surprise.
Wearing the ‘Faculty of Taking Notice’ board and carrying the leaves on a tray, we walked around two levels of Campus Central and placed a single leaf on every table, while the building was still quiet.
We returned late in the afternoon to remove the leaves and to photograph the accidental, ephemeral still lifes created by the detritus of student life that had accumulated on the tables.
As a visual postscript to ‘Outside in’, we then slotted the leaves through the slats of an exterior bench in Queen’s Court, creating a very temporary installation ‘Outside in inside out’.
(Steel and wood, 1995)
Since its founding in 1967 the University has commissioned and acquired a significant collection of sculptures, many of which are sited within the environment of the campus landscape. For the next in our series of interventions, ‘Something to see here’, we sought to nurture the practice of taking notice of some of these works. We fabricated a large, 2.2m long, arrow that we carried around campus, pausing for a while beside each of the sculptures, with the arrow pointing towards them.
(Steel, 1969)
We drew attention to works in the Art Collection by Jacqueline Donachie, Joe Ingleby, Hironori Katagiri, Justin Knowles, Diane Maclean, Iain McColl and Kate Thomson.
‘Something to see here’ was a temporary, performative piece, a silent encouragement to linger and look again at the familiar in our neighbourhoods, which we so often take for granted.
(Diabase)
Alongside these interventions, the ‘Faculty of Taking Notice’ was involved in collaborating with staff and students from other faculties. In October we supported Dr Aedín Ni Loingsigh’s outdoor, practised-based class to construct a dead hedge on campus. Then in November we collaborated with Dr Amy McCarron’s ‘story chAIR’, exploring students’ understanding and experience of air quality. Inter-disciplinary collaborations such as these are invaluable, enabling the sharing of ideas and encouraging new applications within existing practice.
