Vice-Chancellor’s talks

Our VC talks will be continuing throughout Spring and Summer term with a new set of speakers announced.

Summer term

Thursday 20 April – Dr Rathna Ramanathan, Central Saint Martins, UAL

Thursday 11 May – Nina Menkes, independent film maker

Thursday 1 June – speaker TBC

Thursday 22 June – speaker TBC

The vision for the Vice-Chancellor’s talks

To encourage a more ambitious culture of critical creativity across the University, this new series of around 10 talks will take place on selected Thursdays across the academic year 2022/23, starting at 5pm in our DSR Production Theatre.

For the series we have invited outstanding and distinguished practitioners, thought leaders, researchers, and educators to talk to our community of staff and students about their latest experiences and developments in their fields of expertise, to inspire us all. The series will include speakers from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines who will share topical and important ideas and debates and cover many areas of contemporary practice and culture including film, visual art, design, architecture, fashion, creative technologies, philosophy, music, and science.

Simon Ofield-Kerr, Vice Chancellor.

Spring term talks

Thursday 9 March 2023, 5-6pm – Lady Rachel Cooper OBE, Professor of Design Management

In this talk Professor of Design Management, Rachel Cooper OBE, offered her reflections on 30 years of design research applied to cities, health and wellbeing, digital lives, sustainability and more. She explored why designers need to go beyond design, think differently and design radically.

Rachel’s books The Handbook of Design Management and Wellbeing: A Complete Reference Guide (vol II) are available as eBooks in the library.

Thursday 26 January 2023, 5-6pm – Eduardo Kac, Brazilian contemporary artist

From Telepresence to Space Art

Renowned artist Eduardo Kac revisits key highlights in his forty-year career, with emphasis on his current space artworks. Kac is internationally recognised for his ground-breaking work in contemporary art and poetry. His singular and highly influential career spans poetry, performance, drawing, printmaking, photography, artist’s books, early digital and online works, holography, telepresence, bio art, and space art.

Kac’s books and further resources are available via the library.

Information about and recordings of past talks are available