Latest / The Downing Arts Podcast / ET25.1 Downing: THE Creative Arts College!

Transcript

ET25.1 Downing: THE Creative Arts College! · The Downing Arts Podcast

0:00
Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
0:09
We've already had a bit of a musical start to term with alumnus
0:12
Adrian Choi giving a wonderful cello recital in the chapel last Friday.
0:16
And on Sunday, the chapel was full to bursting with 45
0:20
choir alumni, plus the current choir, all singing evensong
0:23
together in Thanksgiving for 10 years of the new chapel organ
0:27
in, it was very loud. Coming up on the podcast
0:30
today, we'll be hearing from the Master about the creative art strategy and
0:34
also the Leaves editors, who will be talking a bit about the anthology and how
0:38
they've put it all together.
0:45
Now this week is all about the Leaves launch and the creative
0:49
Art strategy launch. And here with me to talk about it is the Master,
0:52
Graham Virgo. Welcome, Graeme. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to
0:56
be with you. Excellent. Well, what is the creative arts
1:00
strategy? So the creative arts
1:03
strategy is something I've been working on with other
1:07
people in Downing for a bit of time to
1:11
really enhance what we are doing already
1:16
in college. Creative arts have been
1:19
very strong at Downing for some time.
1:23
We've got amazing facilities. We are the only
1:26
college, I think, in Oxford and Cambridge that has
1:30
a theater, an art gallery, amazing music and
1:35
strengths in creative art. So we've got
1:38
amazing facilities, amazing people, and I
1:42
want to really ensure that all of that
1:45
is properly supported and we take it to the
1:49
next level. And the strategy,
1:53
and strategy's always one of those words that
1:56
gives me a bit of palpitations. What on
2:00
earth is that going to be? And sometimes you can have a strategy
2:03
that really tries to narrow down and constrain what we're
2:07
doing. The aim is actually to open up and
2:11
free what we're doing to enable more people
2:14
to participate in the creative arts at Downing.
2:19
Fantastic. I mean, we've already got so many student societies.
2:21
There's the Music Society, there's the Dramatic Society,
2:25
there's the English Society, and yeah, there's all sorts.
2:29
I'm sure I've missed some out. So Downing Arts,
2:33
as I understand it, is going to be the overarching framework
2:37
for more creative arts at Downing.
2:40
So the sort of professional things that we organize, so masterclasses,
2:44
workshops, whatever they may be. Yeah, as you say, take it to
2:48
the next level. And what would you really like to see happen in the
2:52
first, say, six months of this strategy being launched?
2:56
So what I would like to see is students
3:01
who are already at Downing feeling that
3:04
they have all the opportunities to participate
3:08
in the creative arts. And of course,
3:11
creative arts is really can be widely defined
3:15
and there are some areas that we don't have societies
3:19
for or I know there are students who are saying, well,
3:23
I'd like to get involved with that, whatever it might be.
3:27
So what I would like to see is students already at Downing
3:31
saying, right here is an opportunity. I'd like to do more,
3:35
I'd like to do different things that aren't here already.
3:39
But also I want Downing to be
3:42
really put on the map. I think
3:45
we are in a position to say that we are the creative
3:50
Arts College. Anybody who's interested
3:54
in creative arts of any kind should
3:59
be thinking about coming to Downing because we will do
4:03
all we can to facilitate and support
4:06
engagement with the creative arts. I think another element
4:11
to this is engaging with alumni of the college as well.
4:15
We have an amazing array of
4:18
people who've gone off to do all sorts of things and
4:23
I'm talking to a lot of them and they want to come back and support
4:27
Downing, engage with Downing. So part of it
4:30
will be to enable that to happen as well.
4:34
Some of it's happening already, but I think we can do more
4:37
of it. Yeah, exactly. And how
4:41
do you see that happening? I mean, what, you know,
4:45
what resources do we need? Okay, so we
4:49
are in a position where we cannot as a college put loads and
4:53
loads and loads of money at this. But certainly
4:57
I want to ensure that we properly resource
5:03
what we are doing in the creative arts.
5:06
And frankly, there is going to be a fundraising element to
5:09
this as well. And going out to our
5:13
alumni and others and say, look, there is
5:16
a real opportunity here to do something very
5:20
exciting. Come and help us.
5:23
For some people that's giving their time. For others,
5:26
hopefully it's giving some money. So we really can make
5:30
sure that we just what we were able
5:34
to provide is exceptional. It is the best it can
5:37
possibly be. Yeah. And I know from the alumni that
5:41
I've invited back to give workshops and masterclasses and so on,
5:45
I know they've said that they've really enjoyed re engaging with the
5:48
college. And actually it's been quite interesting sitting
5:52
in these events and observing what's going on with them and the students and
5:55
seeing that there's this kind of fire that ignites, you know,
5:59
that you can see they really, really sort of feed off the energy from the
6:02
students. And I know the students gain a huge amount from it as well.
6:06
One of the things as director of music that I've really enjoyed so
6:10
far is this kind of cross pollination between disciplines.
6:14
So, you know, or say disciplines between arts, so that, you know, there's music,
6:17
there's drama. So On. And I just think one of the great things about Downing
6:21
is that Steve, our director of drama, can say, we're doing
6:24
this play, we'd like some incidental music. You know, are there some students who would,
6:28
who would be able to do that? And then we can kind of collaborate and,
6:31
you know, make that happen, which for me is very
6:34
exciting. So, so. And I want to see
6:38
more of that. And we, we are not siloed,
6:41
actually. But I know there have been times
6:45
people have come to me to say, is there any way that we can
6:49
facilitate, make it a bit easier to do
6:54
collaborative things, et cetera. And sometimes
6:57
that comes down to finding some help in booking a room,
7:01
whatever. Now, there's much more to it
7:04
than that. But that sense of collaboration,
7:08
interdisciplinary stuff as well, is really important.
7:13
And of course, we are doing other things with creative arts
7:18
that's engaging with other aspects. So a good example
7:22
of that is the Hyung Art Gallery,
7:25
which is developing this program
7:29
to have a dialogue
7:33
between an academic discipline, a research discipline,
7:37
and the visual arts. And I would like to see us doing
7:41
more of that. We could do that with music and with drama and
7:44
with creative writing as well. So it's
7:49
really important that we don't have a
7:53
siloed approach in the sense of here is the creative arts on one
7:57
side and here is the academic stuff in the
8:01
other side of the college. There should be no division like
8:05
that. And actually the science side
8:09
engages brilliantly with the creative arts, and as
8:13
do plenty of other subjects as well.
8:16
And of course, a great example of that is the Magma Rising exhibition.
8:20
Absolutely, that was our first example of that. And it's been a wonderful
8:24
success and has given us loads of confidence that there is
8:28
scope to continue to develop that dialogue, that collaboration.
8:32
And of course, we've had this sort of civic engagement as well, if you like,
8:35
with getting school children in,
8:38
members of the public coming to see the exhibition. And I know that
8:42
some of the events I've been to, like the talks and so on, there've been
8:45
people there from who knows where they're from. I mean, you know, from other
8:48
colleges, from the general public. And it's been really great to see all
8:52
these people discovering Downing. And Downing
8:56
is an open college. And one
8:59
thing I've been really pushing as master is to
9:03
ensure really good engagement between
9:07
the college and the rest of the university and the
9:11
city of Cambridge and beyond, and therefore
9:16
outreach work to schools,
9:19
and we can use the creative arts for that, but also just engaging
9:22
with the wider population who have all sorts
9:26
of perceptions of Cambridge colleges. And if
9:29
we can try and break those misperceptions down
9:33
and say, this is really what we're about, the creative arts
9:36
is a really important way of doing that.
9:40
If you could sum up in a couple of sentences what
9:44
the creative arts strategy is and any kind of message to
9:48
those listening, whether that's the beginning of a fundraising pitch,
9:52
what would you say? So,
9:54
okay, so what I would say first is
9:58
an education at Downing College should be
10:01
defined very widely and every
10:06
student at Downing should have the opportunity
10:10
to engage with all sorts of facilities
10:14
and resources and clubs and societies outside their subject
10:18
and that will benefit their subject and actually,
10:21
therefore encouraging engagement with the creative
10:25
arts is of a real benefit to a student.
10:29
We're a college that's ambitious and we want to
10:33
develop, enhance what we're already
10:37
doing and what we're doing already is exceptional. But I
10:41
know having talked to so many, we can take it to the
10:45
next level and beyond. So the launch
10:49
of the strategy is just the beginning. It's taken a while
10:53
to develop the strategy, but the hard work now
10:56
starts to really make sure that Downing
11:01
is the creative arts college.
11:04
Fantastic. Thank you very much, Graeme. Thank you.
11:13
Very exciting. I have with me in the studio 3 second year English
11:16
students who are the editors of the Leaves. We have Safi Dunn, Jude Hughes
11:20
and Charlotte Payne. Welcome to you all. Thanks,
11:23
Louisa. So perhaps I should start off with asking,
11:26
what is the Leaves? The Leaves is Downing's
11:30
very own creative writing anthology. We're on
11:33
the third edition this year. We work really closely with
11:37
Bonnie Lander Johnson, who is wonderful
11:40
English fellow at Downing. And yeah, it's just for
11:44
every single member of Downing College, whoever wants to submit,
11:47
staff included, to submit anything they've
11:51
written or design work as well.
11:54
It doesn't have to be fiction, it could be non fiction, memoir, script.
11:58
And yeah, we get a beautiful anthology every year.
12:01
Fantastic. So what kind of stuff do you get submitted?
12:05
All sorts. We get lots of photography from.
12:09
We've got a student in Peru at the moment on his year
12:13
abroad and so we've got lots of photos from him that we're publishing.
12:16
We get pieces of art, a lot of poetry,
12:20
a lot of prose and like memoir sort of stuff. Yeah,
12:24
and we haven't had any scripts this year, I don't think, but we have had
12:27
them in the past. So does it all get into
12:30
the final product? I mean, do you have to sort of spend ages sifting
12:33
through everything and choosing what goes in? This year we've had more submissions
12:37
than ever, so we have had to turn away, some simply due to printing
12:41
costs and logistics on that front.
12:45
So. But even then that shows, like, the number of submissions
12:49
and it's growing. That's pretty remarkable. I think, that we've had
12:52
to start turning away stuff. So I
12:56
know there's the Twining Eggington competition that's happening, but apart
12:59
from getting into the magazine, is there any kind of competition related to
13:03
it? I'll talk about. One of the things we do have
13:06
involved is the John Trehearn Prize for Creative Writing.
13:10
So that takes place sort of at the end of Easter
13:14
term, and then the prize winners for that do
13:17
go in the anthology. But there's also, like, a very exciting
13:22
prize, a children's story prize. I don't know if anyone wants
13:25
to talk a bit about that. Yeah, I think it's the.
13:29
My first story prize. I worked on the
13:33
day when all the kids came to Downing and they. And they
13:36
started doing some of the creative writing and they were showing the image. So Quentin
13:40
Blake produces an image that the children get to see and they have
13:43
to, and they can write a short piece of fiction based on the image.
13:48
So this year's winner was Praise Aria, I believe.
13:51
And so she gets published with the image next to it.
13:55
So that's quite exciting. Gosh. And how old are these
13:58
kids? I think praise was 13.
14:02
Yeah, around 13. I'd have to fact check, but, yeah,
14:05
like, fantastically young for the quality of writing that
14:08
is coming out of them. I mean, it's just like a beautiful, beautiful piece.
14:12
And it's really excited because I've just received the first physical
14:16
proof, physical print, like, unbound, and I've just
14:19
seen, like, Praise's work next to the Quentin Blake image, and it's so
14:23
exciting and it's so, so fab. So, yeah, really excited
14:26
about that. I know the first story event is a huge
14:30
thing and I know it's something that Bonnie is very passionate about.
14:33
So are you three of you, are you involved directly sort of on the day
14:36
with that event? I was last year. It was purely because of the
14:39
Ambassador program we have here. And I sort of saw that,
14:43
knew I'd do English anyway and thought I'd get involved.
14:46
But I was the only English student working, so I
14:50
was just like, yeah, I was really impressed with the quality of some of
14:53
the kids writing there. When we were all sat in the chapel and they were
14:57
reading it out and it was quite impactful. Some of the
15:00
stuff that they were writing, especially as some
15:03
of them are from disadvantaged backgrounds and stuff, and they were trying to write about
15:07
Their own lives. That was pretty heavy at points
15:10
in the church, but chapel, but it's really impressive.
15:13
So where do they all come from? Are they just local children? No, they come
15:16
from London. A lot of the time they come from all over the
15:20
place. The kids I worked with were from South London.
15:25
Great. So do any of the three of you
15:28
submit anything to the Leaves?
15:31
Yeah, yeah.
15:34
It was like for me it was the last year was my first getting
15:38
back in touch with like creative writing because I'd put that on the side
15:41
for many years to work on my A levels. And the expectation,
15:45
I thought when you came to Cambridge to do English was not to be
15:48
very creative, was to do all the analysis on the side. So it
15:51
was, it was quite cool that we were encouraged quite
15:55
heavily by Bonnie to start writing again in
15:58
that way. Wow. And is it something, I mean, Jude, do you enjoy
16:02
creative writing? Yeah, I've always enjoyed creative writing. I'm kind of same with Charlotte
16:06
where I didn't realize that. I feel coming at Cambridge to be very focused on
16:09
like doing your essays and stuff, but really greatly. Bonnie really encourages
16:13
us to like engage with our creative side and do
16:16
a lot of writing, which really encourages that aspect as well.
16:20
Yeah. All three of us had creative writing in the series Leaves
16:25
and me and Charlotte were napsters as well. I will also say
16:28
we were all involved in the Festival of New Writing as well at Downing
16:32
this year, which was really exciting. And both Charlotte and Jude had
16:36
like these fantastic 20 minute plays that were put on as
16:39
well. So it's just so rewarding
16:43
to be like. You can see
16:46
the creative nourishment in Downing. It really
16:50
does have the platforms like the anthology and the Festival
16:54
of New Writing for young writers to try
16:57
stuff out and pursue that. And that was like really
17:01
rewarding to see Charlotte and Jude do so well.
17:04
They were so super fantastic.
17:07
And I mean, when you say you sort of, you mean.
17:11
I think Charlotte, you mentioned you'd put creative writing on the side during A levels
17:14
and so on. I mean term time is obviously incredibly busy in
17:17
Cambridge and you've got your essays to do and presumably you
17:21
do a million and one extracurricular things as everyone seems to do.
17:24
I mean, how on earth do you find not necessarily the time,
17:28
but just the headspace for doing anything creative?
17:32
We've been very lucky that Bonnie has organized us creative writing workshops
17:36
with Jen Ashworth and oh my gosh, I forgot her name.
17:41
But yeah, we've had two creative writing workshops over the last couple
17:46
of terms and that's been really helpful.
17:49
Exploring stuff, bringing you work and
17:54
writing in that moment, doing creative writing exercises and stuff.
17:58
So what kind of thing? I mean, when you say exercises, I mean, do you
18:02
get given a stimulus, then you have to write something? We do certain
18:06
things. Like, one thing was to get our minds going. There was
18:09
a game called cricket, which I got excited for because I play cricket.
18:12
But it was essentially just writing.
18:16
Don't think, write. And when someone says a word, you have
18:20
to write that word. And that was really fun. And we did that for about
18:24
10 minutes or so, and it was really playful exercise.
18:27
I really enjoyed that. We also did an exercise where we thought of a
18:31
place that was really familiar to us, and then we put a completely different character
18:34
who was, like, opposite to us in that space and wrote about what they
18:38
would have thought of the space in a way. So certain things like that are
18:41
just, like, ways to get you thinking. And if you created any work you thought
18:45
was fun with that or you wanted to continue, you can. But also
18:48
in general, I find that our supervisors encourage
18:52
creativity sometimes, especially in practical criticism
18:56
with Sarah Kennedy, she often made us do creative
18:59
things like filming. We made short films related to
19:03
silence, which is quite fun. Oh, wow. So creativity is
19:06
really encouraged, especially in downing with
19:10
our supervisors. Silence must be quite hard to come by
19:14
in this environment. Well, thank you for all of that.
19:17
So you've been talking a little bit about your roles as editors.
19:21
Sort of having to go through all the submissions and choose the ones
19:24
that unfortunately don't quite make it. I mean,
19:27
apart from the visual art, do you have to actually kind
19:30
of edit, you know, edit down people's pieces, you know,
19:34
to get them to fit or. I mean, how does that work? We got
19:37
some quite long prose pieces. Saf, do you want to continue?
19:41
Yeah, I was just going to say. So Libby and Asha
19:45
were sort of the second years last year, who did it before.
19:48
And they gave us some, like, really wonderful advice and,
19:52
like, really led us through the editing process. And I think one of the most
19:55
important points they said was it's about really extracting
20:00
what someone is saying. Like, you're, as an editor,
20:03
like, you're working for the writer. You're trying to make what they're
20:07
saying as successful as possible, as poignant.
20:11
And so a lot of it was sort of taking in what people were saying,
20:14
especially in, like, poetry and stuff, like, really extracting those ideas,
20:17
but really, like, serving them. And it was like a bit of a dialogue
20:21
between us, between us and the writers and.
20:25
Yeah. So things like that. And then just also,
20:28
like, concision and spelling and that kind of
20:32
thing as well. I think pretty much the bulk of it is
20:35
done now. We're just kind of, like, good to go, which is terrifying.
20:40
It's a big, big old thick one this year because of all
20:44
the submissions. But I think it's
20:47
been a lengthy process. It's been the whole of this term,
20:52
and it's been a lot of meeting up and saying, oh, would this one fit
20:55
with this one and should this one? Like, this picture needs to
20:59
be beside this one, and, like, coming up with difficulties of them
21:03
running over pages and working, just working out what works together.
21:07
Just a lot of, like, sitting in Ark Cafe on Sidgwick's
21:11
site and really, like, going at it for ages,
21:14
just talking about what would work and what doesn't work.
21:18
Have you had any disagreements? I mean, Jude, how have you found
21:21
this whole process? Well, with doing the layer,
21:25
it was kind of fun because we were really trying to figure out what pieces
21:28
kind of bring out each other's messages and what pieces, because we were
21:31
trying to organize it thematically to some degree. And then we're kind
21:34
of thinking, is there some stages where organizing it thematically is a
21:38
bit too much or maybe it doesn't work. For example,
21:41
we've had a lot of funnier, surreal poems. And one point,
21:44
we kind of had them all together, but then we're like, oh, that's quite a.
21:47
It's like a big chunk together. It's better if we space them out of it.
21:50
So I think with the layout, it has been quite an ongoing thing. Like,
21:53
every week we kind of, like, have new ideas and we're constantly
21:57
kind of refiguring them. Once we got sent the drafts of the actual hard copy,
22:01
then we were, like, figuring out certain pieces that we wanted in certain places.
22:05
Great. And for the leaves launch,
22:09
we've had readings in the past, haven't we? How on earth do you choose
22:13
who reads and what they read? And I think for us,
22:16
I was. For me, I was thinking of people that I've heard,
22:20
like, act before and also getting a diverse range of, like, subjects as people
22:24
who like. So we've invited a natural science
22:28
person to read this year because, well, he wrote an amazing piece,
22:32
and it would also be interesting to see that with other things. But also,
22:36
like, people who I know we know are good speakers, who we
22:40
know would be confident enough because sometimes, like,
22:43
you can be a bit vulnerable. I, for instance, I don't really like reading my
22:46
workout, so I wouldn't volunteer myself to do that. But knowing,
22:49
like, there's also a piece that was very musical. So I wanted that to be
22:53
read aloud because of the musicality of it. I thought it would be
22:56
really nice to hear aloud as well. So certain things like that came into
22:59
the decision, I think. Yeah, great. And how is this whole thing
23:03
funded? I mean, you talked about printing costs. I mean.
23:07
Yeah, it must be quite an undertaking. Yeah,
23:10
it is very costly.
23:14
So we receive a certain amount of money from the
23:18
Downing, like College Pocket at the start of the year when you apply and
23:21
say, oh, I want to do this, get this many speakers in or whatever it
23:24
is that your society is doing. And then you get that pocket of money.
23:28
And then luckily we have some fabulous alumni.
23:32
Like Robert has kindly donated some money who like,
23:36
probably. Well, Robert was an English student at Downing and so
23:40
this is a kind of history student. Sorry, he was
23:43
a history student, but he. Oh, sorry,
23:46
it's Robert Thorogood. Robert Thorogood, yeah,
23:50
but he was involved in the Footlights and he was. He was artsy like that.
23:54
His. You know, he really supports what we're doing,
23:57
which is really fabulous. So luckily we have lots of fabulous
24:01
alumni who sort of really support what we're doing and
24:05
it wouldn't really be possible without them. So big up.
24:08
Thank you. Very generous.
24:11
Yeah. Great. So we're
24:16
out of time, I'm afraid. But thank you for. For talking and chatting
24:20
about the Leaves and. Yeah, see you at the launch, which is
24:24
today the first of May in the Hyung Gallery.
24:27
Yeah, it's from 5:30. There'll be
24:30
readings, there'll be booze, there'll be drinks.
24:33
But there'll also be lots of lovely writers there and
24:37
lots of lovely anthologies. Well, again, thank you very
24:41
much and best of luck with everything this term.
24:44
And yeah, thank you for what I'm sure is a fantastic
24:47
job editing the leaves. Thanks so much for having us,
24:50
Louisa. Thank you. Thank you so much.
24:53
Join me again tomorrow for the second episode in this Creative Arts launch
24:57
Double bill. I'll be announcing the winner of the Twining Eggington
25:00
competition. As well as chatting to the Keeper of the Gallery, Rachel Coombs about
25:04
her role, I'll also be talking volcanoes with Nick and Sarah
25:08
Rawlinson. Stay tuned.