Crick Institute Director and Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse will lead a series of special events intended to challenge how we approach learning and teaching at SHIFT, a festival of creativity, imagination and surprise run by the University, in collaboration with artist Richard Layzell, from 23 March.
The festival, which is the brainchild of artist and curator Layzell, aims to reshape and reframe the way we think about a university. It is the result of his 18-month residency at Kent, immersing himself in the University, talking to staff and students across all departments, to uncover new ways of thinking about what is happening all around us.
The festival showcases the importance of creativity in education, and looks at blending academia and the arts, realised through a series of Flectures (a creative, interactive event) that illuminate the creative qualities embedded within some of the more ‘traditional’ academic subjects such as Law, Natural Sciences and Medicine.
Richard Layzell has described ‘SHIFT: (Reframe Reshape) as a festival of opportunity, to see ourselves, and our physical environment, inside and outside, differently. For example, what happens if you walk into the landscape at night in a group? Where’s the art in science? Where’s the law in landscape? When is a campus a home?
‘Creativity has a place in all our lives,’ he said. ‘And you don’t have to look very far to find it in every discipline within the University, sometimes in unlikely places. We all have ideas, and we can all think differently and intuitively. Universities are amazing places of expertise, talent and learning. Kent’s Canterbury campus has something very special in its relationship to landscape and architecture, which I’m excited to showcase with the events we have on offer during SHIFT.’
SHIFT will open with a Flecture discussing illegal dumping of sewage by Southern Water, with Richard Layzell, Kent Law School and north Kent-based arts organisation Cement Fields working with artists and communities to create new art along the Thames Estuary.
The rest of the programme reflects the incredible diversity of learning opportunities at a university, including ‘The Medical Person’, a music-inspired Flecture with Dr Karen Kearley, a practicing senior GP and musician, who will explore the richness of working as a GP and the necessity to sustain balance and wellbeing.
Sir Paul Nurse will bring science to life with the ‘Creative Thinking in Science and Art’ Flecture. In collaboration with the University’s Division of Natural Sciences, the event will focus on the concept of day science and night science, and the role of intuition, infused with musical performances by Kent’s performance scholars as a part of the event.
Following her successful night walks into the landscape close to the Canterbury campus, for people who identify as female and non-binary, Emma Leach will lead the ‘Landscape and Gender’ Flecture to open up these issues in an interactive and provocative way.
The series of 16 events offers a unique opportunity for students and the public to meet, interact and learn from remarkable individuals from the creative and academic spheres, immersing themselves in an environment where schools, buildings and people are ‘shaken and stirred’.
SHIFT is commissioned by the University’s Institute of Creative and Cultural Industries and supported by Arts Council England. Tickets for most events are free and can be booked at www.thegulbenkian.co.uk.