LIVENESS: The Cass Summer Show 2020 News from the School of Art, Architecture and Design

Annual celebration of student work will see launch of ambitious new online portal and event project.

The Art, Architecture and Design School Summer Show 2020 will take place between 29 June - 10 July as part of an ambitious wider event and project called LIVENESS which will bridge and connect digital and physical exhibitions. Those interested in attending should register for a link and to be sent programme details.

LIVENESS will celebrate the work and successes of the school's students, and showcase how the culture of the school is thriving in new ways while our buildings remain closed during the Covid-19 emergency. It will continue post-lockdown to provide an indexed portal to a wide and diverse network of student outputs, activities, objects, ideas, events, research, publications and more around the University campus, the city, the country and the world.

Just like an on campus show, The Summer Show, from 29 June, will include an opportunity to see and celebrate work by graduating students from the The School of Art, Architecture and Design (formerly known as The Cass) . A programme of subject-specific live online events between the launch and 10 July such as talks, tours and Q & A’s will bring external audiences and the school community together. Unlike a physical exhibition, the timings, frequency and nature of activity will be freed from the constraints of opening hours and wall space. Beyond the exhibition of finished student work or static images and films, LIVENESS will nurture the exchange of ideas and encourage experimentation by students and staff with formats, media, actions and interactions. This networked activity is expected to include anything from websites and microsites through blogs, video and music streams, to activities on social media such as Instagram, Snap Chat or Tik-Tok. What happens and where will be led by the nature of students’ work, their preferred platforms and ingenuity.

Disciplines represented in the show will include Architecture, Fashion, Fine Art, Furniture and Product, Graphic Design, Illustration, Interior Design, Jewellery, Photography and Textiles and more.

LIVENESS will have a life long after the formal summer show period, as a vessel, a network of activities, a directory and archive that can lead visitors into the school’s diverse community of practitioners and their work.

Longer-term, the techniques, technologies and approaches that allow LIVENESS to happen will act as a catalyst to inform and transform the ways the School of Art, Architecture and Design collaborates with its students, shares their work and connects the activities of school to the outside world.

The main hub for this exhibition and wider LIVENESS project will be the Liveness.org.uk website. As in previous years the Summer Show takes place during and as part of the London Festival of Architecture. LIVENESS is currently under development by a team at the school co-ordinated by the Projects Office, the University marketing team,  and Lucidica, an agency based at London Metropolitan University’s Accelerator. It follows the successful TABOO: A Festival of Faux Pas in May which saw the school’s Theatre Arts students livestream their final graduation pieces to an international audience. LIVENESS is also using the #degreeshowsunited along with many other UK art schools to encourage sharing and give graduating students a far wider audience during the lockdown period.

Talking about the show Andy Stone, Head of School, said, “Our Summer Show is the great celebratory moment for our students and staff each year. The lockdown has challenged many of things we do; our students’ work, where they work, the way they work, the materials they work with. The Summer Show is no exception.

It has made us all think and question our practice and the ambition of LIVENESS is about capturing those practices across all our subjects. Presenting, sharing, engaging and exchanging those with many different audiences, LIVENESS is a space to explore, find and get lost amongst the extraordinary things presented. LIVENESS will continue, it will be the host and repository for the ongoing cycle of activity in the school and the opportunity for those inside and outside of the school to be a part of the wonderful things that happen here.”

To attend LIVENESS please register to be sent links and a full programme.

Image: Architecture technology projects at Mudchute Farm, 2020