DreaMFActory 2022 is an interim exhibition of work by students from the MFA Fine Art programme at Oxford Brookes. The show provides an opportunity for these students to test out a range of differing works and projects, some complete and some in progress. Participants in DreaMFActory 2022 come from varying disciplinary and cultural backgrounds and include artists from the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Mexico and Australia. Their work demonstrates a critical engagement with wide ranging concepts and interests. Exploratory personal spaces which give access to diverse perspectives on culture and creativity sit alongside works which explore, through paint, the power of the sub-conscious mind when dreaming. Examinations of the potential of technologies such as AI algorithms lead to seemingly nonsensical narratives where logical connections take on surreal forms. Elsewhere, seemingly benign biological agents meet out archival destruction – telling a story of interspecies as well as international (post-colonial) politics and history. Bodies and spaces are likewise unravelled before our eyes by artists who look for ways to communicate (amongst other things) form/space/colour/light/weight/movement in ways that are ‘embodied’ and go beyond mere representation. All this work evidences the varied challenges of research in practice. This is, in itself, ‘live’ and difficult. It has the power to illuminate and alienate in equal measure, reminding us of the ‘push and pull’ precarity of a contemporary world in which the pace of change (social, political, environmental and technological) make it hard to keep up. However, in spite of such challenges, it is nevertheless important that we try… and that these artists do!
The MFA Fine Art at Brookes is a broad-based programme that includes practice, critical theory and professional studies and supports students to develop their own distinctive artistic practice alongside and integrated into a taught theoretical and professional framework.
The programme provides an inclusive contemporary curriculum that encourages critical engagement, imaginative exploration and creative risk taking. Our students develop and enhance their independent art practice within an environment designed to enable each student to engage with issues relevant to current, critical contexts and debates. They each locate their practice within wider frames of contemporary art and its social, cultural and historical contexts and promote the subject as a versatile and inclusive academic discipline.
Thursday 15 December 2022 – Sunday 18 December 2022
Opening times: 12am-6pm Friday/Saturday, 12-4pm Sunday
Private View: Thursday 15 December 2022, 6-8pm