The Widening Participation team and the Faculty of Arts have been awarded over £26,000 by the Research England Enhancing Research Culture Fund to create a Social Mobility Student Research Hub over the next six months. The principal aim of the project is to create a Hub to improve access to, and participation in, research, for students from currently underrepresented groups, including those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, care leavers, and refugees.

To achieve this aim, the project will fund up to twenty students from underrepresented backgrounds to design research projects exploring issues around social mobility, Widening Participation (WP), diversity and inclusion. Undergraduate and postgraduate taught students will be given the opportunity to design these research projects in groups or as individuals, supported by postgraduate research students who will be recruited to act as mentors.

Further details will be available towards the end of the month from Damien Homer. Damien.Homer@warwick.ac.uk

Amphibious Screens: The Sustainable Cultures of Water Seminar Series, hosted by The University of Warwick, begins on January 27th. This online series delves beneath the surface to connect new research ideas from around the world with professionals, practitioners, activists as well as the cultural sector in four online seminars.

You can join one or all of these free seminars to understand more about how the film and TV industries in Miami, Reykjavik, Cornwall and Venice are deeply connected to a watery sense of place, water pollution, water scarcity and water cultures.

For further details and to register click here.

• The Digital Arts Lab - showcasing creative digital practices in the Faculty and beyond, exploring innovations, and dreaming-up innovations;
• Technology-Enhanced Active Learning - supported tools and techniques for teaching, with an emphasis on making learning active and engaging;
• Digital Humanities - showcasing and supporting the use of tech in research in the Faculty.

We will be joined by experts from across the University and beyond, including key people from central services (IT, AV, Space Management, Academic Tech, Library). Our next FAB Digital Wednesday will be #UnboxingTheFAB teaching spaces on 12th January. This will include "space walks" to explore the building, and a drop-in support session. Watch this space for more information.

Click on the link to see the winning entries for this year's Digital Arts Lab Showcase competition on the theme of "storytelling". Congratulations to all of our entrants who produced a wonderful and very diverse set of digital submissions and reflective pieces that truly demonstrate the creative and technical talent and in-depth knowledge and expertise of our Arts undergraduates.

Students from the Warwick Writing Programme in SCAPVC provide their own very personal reflections in poetry on the construction and significance of this landmark building for the Arts at Warwick.

Tying in with the launch of the Resonate Festival, the University of Warwick’s year-long programme of events for City of Culture, and its focus on the idea of Invention throughout the month of May, Dr Richard Wallace (Film and Television Studies) brings us the film ‘Digitalisation and Cinema Projection in the UK’. Rick’s film explores his work on the AHRC funded ‘Projection Project’ and the history of film projection practices, reaching from the earliest days of cinema to the current digital revolution in film exhibition.

Congratulations to Professor Paul Smith from History of Art who has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust for his interdisciplinary project entitled, Unfolding vision: Cezanne’s personal way of seeing.

Dr James Hodkinson (German Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures) delivers a conversation with one of his key collaborators, the artist Mohammed Ali MBE (https://www.soulcityarts.com), explores the relationship between his research into Islam in Germany in the 19th Century and his public engagement projects including the Art of Empathy (2019) and Congregate (2020-), a collaborative livestream of visual art, film, music and conversation. James explores the concepts of kinship and empathy, and the power of art to allow us to view the world from alternate cultural perspectives.

The Faculty of Arts is very pleased to welcome Dr Robert O'Toole as its new Director of Student Experience and Progression - Digital Arts and Humanities from 1 April 2021

Dr Fabienne Viala (Director of the Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies) explains the concept of ‘artivism’ to us, in its Caribbean context, as a fusion of art forms and practices through which artists confront and engage with a range of publics. Fabienne argues that artivism activates the empathetic imagination, and looks at how environmental and racial justice are brought into dialogue through her work with Caribbean artivists.