About
“the possibilities are endless – to create emotion and atmosphere.” - young participant from the Tigers Community Group |
Furtherfield Learning and Participation
Furtherfield.org is a non-profit media arts organisation based in North London.
Furtherfield.org provides platforms for creating, viewing, discussing and learning about experimental practices at the intersections of art, technology and social change. Learning, participation and exchange are central to Furtherfield.org’s inclusive outreach work with young people. This work is developed through partnerships with visionary organisations and draws on the expertise of a diverse community of artists, musicians, technologists and educators. Furtherfield.org believes that through creative and critical engagement with practices in art and technology people are inspired and enabled to become active co-creators of their cultures and societies.
Learning with Young People
We regularly work in partnership with other organisations to develop participatory projects with young people (disabled and able bodied) that respond to identified needs or requests within a particular school or group supporting personal expression, creativity and learning in innovative and enjoyable ways. We place a lot of importance on early conversations with partners in order to plan engaging and relevant activities. The projects usually have an artistic outcome, like a film or a performance, that can be enjoyed with family and friends in a social event. These are sometimes distributed on DVD for further educational use or enjoyment by the extended community.
Supporting Artists’ Practice
We support media arts practice at all levels - from students in higher education to established artists - and develop new ways to share, discuss and nurture emerging practices in the field. We are interested in what artists do and how they use digital technology to develop, create, distribute and discuss their ideas and artworks.
Our exhibition programme at HTTP Gallery offers different opportunities for visitors to participate and contribute. Most exhibitions are accompanied by talks and presentations by artists and curators and represent unique educational opportunities for HE students of digital media, media arts, games and related themes to meet with contemporary practitioners and to discuss their work and their concerns.
We currently have a range of projects in development to increase creative and critical engagement with technology. We are planning a new residency programme that will provide artists with the opportunity to create work within an energetic community and to connect to Furtherfield.org’s international networks online and to local artists, curators, theorists and gallerists.
We also run a successful intern programme in partnerships with Solar Associates.
Partners
The Basement, Bruce Grove Youth Media Centre, Chelsea College of Art and Design, Creative Partnerships, Distributed South, Drake Music, Furthernoise.org, Haringey Youth Services, MARCEL Network, Peckham Space, The Point, Science Museum, Solar Associates
About The Team
Co-Director Furtherfield.org Participation and Learning
Ruth is a media artist and educator. As co-founder and co-director of Furtherfield.org media arts organisation and its gallery HTTP Gallery in North London, she works with artists, musicians programmers, writers, activists and thinkers from around the world. Ruth has worked in many community and educational contexts, most recently as artistic director for Connecting Across Difference in partnership with Drake Music. She has worked in Higher Education for over 15 years. As Associate Senior Lecturer in Digital Media at Ravensbourne college she has worked on a series of JISC funded research projects to support e-learning in Design education. She developed pedagogically-led approaches to developing and exploiting new emergent technologies and tools (e.g. social software, pervasive computing) in anticipation of shifts in future professional life within sustainable communities of practice. This research informs her work developing infrastructure for a range of community contexts for participation and learning, offering diverse groups access to stimulating and enjoyable art practices.
Lead artist and film maker for Furtherfield.org education and outreach projects
Michael is an artist, composer and film-maker and lead artist in Furtherfield’s Participation and Learning programme. His work has been exhibited in galleries in Europe, the US and Australia and his short videos have been screened all over the world. His music has been performed in Russia, the United States and the UK, at venues including the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank and Birmingham Symphony Hall, and has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and the World Service. Szpakowski’s work in diverse educational and community contexts helps participants to engage with human and social content though tools, techniques and processes of media arts, often resulting in accessible and genuinely enjoyable works co-created by all participants.
Marc is an artist, writer, musician, educator and Co-founder & Co-director of Furtherfield.org. Emerging in the late 80’s from agit-art tactics of the streets, exploring creativity via unofficial, experimental art platforms such as pirate radio and bulletin boards, he is dedicated to arts and various forms of hacking, social & technological. At Furtherfield.org he is principle editor and coordinates the team of editors, reviewers and interns. He is responsible for research into contemporary net art, media art and cultural context on the Internet and organises workshops in Higher Education. He co-curates HTTP Gallery and educational and participatory events related to the exhibition programme
Lauren is a researcher, curator, writer, and lecturer and is Furtherfield.org Assistant Director. She is finishing up a PhD at the London Consortium on spectatorship and duration in art, and she is a Sessional Lecturer and Academic Advisor on the MA in Arts Policy and Management at Birkbeck, University of London. As co-curator of HTTP Gallery, she oversees and coordinates the exhibition programme and all of the other fun things that happen in the gallery, including the education programme related to exhibitions, and beyond with the developing off-site and touring programme.
