POETIC EXPRESSIONS OF SMART DONATIONS WITH OXFAM
We are exhibiting the works of our three commissioned artists for Telling Tales of Engagement: Poetic Expressions of Smart Donations with Oxfam at Inspace City Screen and online throughout January and February 2022.
Exhibition details
Monday, 10th January to Wednesday 23rd February 2022
open to view at Inspace City Screen at street level on Potterrow from 3pm to 3am
1 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB
Artwork projected onto Inspace City Screen is best viewed after dark. Inspace City Screen will show an excerpt of a full video or piece of one work from an artist each night. The schedule for this is set out below.
You can see the artists’ works at Inspace City Screen on Potterrow in Edinburgh and on the Inspace website.
This is a free exhibition which can be viewed from outside at street level. As these works can be viewed from the pavement at Potterrow, please be aware that there is both pedestrian, cycle and vehicular traffic that will be travelling nearby. Please take care when pausing to view the works and maintain social distancing in line with Scottish Government advice.
Search for #TellingTalesOfEngagement on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
THE PROJECT
Three commissioned researchers cut through the corpus of a major research project that took place between 2019 and 2021: the OxChain Smart Donations project. The OxChain project set out to explore how blockchain technologies could be used to reshape value in the context of international development and the work of Oxfam to reach new audiences.
Our three commissioned artist researchers, using their own unique media forms and methods, are: Bakita Kasadha (poetic inquiry), Martin Glynn (data verbalisation) and Nicky Melville (experimental lyric poetry). They have designed this series of poetic responses to transactional cultures, blockchain and smart donations. Excerpts of their written and performed works have been reimagined for Inspace City Screen by Ray Interactive and you will be able to see and read their full works on the exhibition website from the 10th of January 2022.
Visit Inspace City Screen on Potterrow (at 1 Crichton Street) to experience:
- Martin Glynn’s To be or not to be crypto: A soliloquy to charitable donations, two of his four provocations set as soliloquy (a poem, discourse, or utterance that has the form of a monologue or a series of spoken reflections).
Available to view at Inspace City Screen from Monday, 10th to Sunday, 17th January and Wednesday 2nd to Tuesday 8th February 2022 - Bakita Kasadha’s Informed Giving?, visual-poetic responses, and A new way to connect (found poetry) a written piece.
Available to view at Inspace City Screen from Monday, 17th to Sunday, 23rd January and Wednesday 9th to Tuesday 15th February 2022 - Nicky Melville’s working processes of appropriation (the use of found text to make into poetry) and visual poetry in blockchain sonnets, blockchain letters and blockchain blocks.
Available to view at Inspace City Screen from Monday, 24th to Sunday, 30th January and Wednesday 16th to Tuesday 23rd February 2022
THE ARTISTS & THEIR WORKS
Soliloquy & Provocation
Martin Glynn
“[U]sing a creative way to sift, engage, and immerse myself in the data, I came to some important points of understanding that I could share with the public in a form that was accessible to all.”
Found & Visual Poetry
Bakita Kasadha
Kasadha, in one piece, explores the ways to access knowledge, through novel technology, and how these may serve to empower, inform and detach an individual donor, and in the other, marries poetry and movement as a commentary on the movement between space, time and knowledge created through the blockchain enabled donation tool.
Appropriation & Visual Poetry
Nicky Melville
“These poems build on the idea of connections, in an attempt to mirror associations with blocks and chains and suggest, figuratively and visually, the new way that financial tech flows around the digital world.”
RESOURCES, CREDITS & THANKS
The inspiration for Telling Tales of Engagement: Poetic Expressions of Smart Donations with Oxfam exhibition was designed as a creative response to a major research project that took place between 2019 and 2021: the OxChain Smart Donations project. The OxChain project set out to explore how blockchain technologies could be used to reshape value in the context of international development and the work of Oxfam to reach new audiences.
Learn more about the OxChain Smart Donations project:
www.designinformatics.org/research_project/ox-chain
Watch videos from our OxChain project showcase:
vimeo.com/showcase/7752480
Look behind the scenes of the Oxchain project showcase:
www.flickr.com/photos/124583512@N08/albums/72157716734553623
The project was funded by UK Research and Innovation Research Council UK (RCUK) Digital Economy grant, designed to “engage the public with impacts of digital economy research” and the EPSRC.
- show and share the benefits of the research;
- engage the public in a creative and interactive way;
- involve a diverse audience, including groups underrepresented in the digital economy work; and
- share best practice in research and project partner engagement.
Works by each of our artists was re-imagine for Inspace City Screen by the creative coding skills of Ray Interactive.
Exhibition production by:
- Jessica Armstrong, Research Projects Producer at Design Informatics and Inspace