The Glasgow School of Art

Chris Wainwright, Thomas Joshua Cooper and Roger Wilson
'A Conversation Regarding Journeys' watch video

This open conversation, facilitated by the artist Roger Wilson, provides a unique opportunity to be party to an in-depth discussion between artists about complementary practices involving journeys to remote locations which employ opposing but not conflicting working methods.

Most of Chris Wainwright's journeys are made in the company of others: either with technical assistants for the making of complicated images or with artistic collaborators. In contrast, Thomas Joshua Cooper undertakes arduous journeys during which social contact is either eliminated or, at least, minimized. These artists, however, have a shared approach to what they do. They both say that they 'make' pictures, and that the journey and the specific place/site of the picture making is vital, as is the intensity of engagement with a site. In terms of common journeys they have both travelled to remote and endangered places: The High Arctic and areas of South America, in particular.

What do these extraordinary experiences mean when brought back in to the context of the Art School? How do these experiences register with our current assumptions about the content and purpose of the art school curriculum? Do they pose questions about the social responsibility of the artist and educator? The motivation for making and disseminating their work in the way that they do, and their individual relationships to these wild places will be unfolded through the dialogue and viewing of the very different kinds of pictures that these artists make.

Professor Chris Wainwright is an artist, curator and academic. Formerly Dean of the School of Art at Central Saint Martin's, University of the Arts London, he is currently the Head of Colleges of Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon, University of the Arts London. He is also President of ELIA, (The European League of Institutes of the Arts) and Acting Director of ICFAR (The International Centre for Fine Art Research). His work has been shown extensively worldwide and is currently part of the UK touring exhibition Fleeting Arcadias - Thirty Years of British Landscape Photography from the Arts Council Collection. His work is held in public collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Arts Council of England; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; and the Polaroid Corporation, Boston, USA.

Thomas Joshua Cooper is Professor and Senior Researcher of Fine Art at The Glasgow School of Art, where he has worked for 27 years. This event is the sequel to the Friday Event Lecture that Thomas delivered in 2008 on The World's Edge project, in which he described himself as "a picture maker and a story teller" who began his commitment to the making of photographic pictures in and of the land in 1969. He was recently awarded an American Guggenheim Fellowship for his work.

Professor Roger Wilson is an artist and academic who, until recently, was Head of the Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts London where he is now an Emeritus Professor. Over the last 35 years he has worked in colleges and universities in the UK, America and Europe. He has exhibited extensively over that period and has contributed to international publications on the arts and education.

Hosted by The School of Fine Art, The Friday Event Lecture Series is The Glasgow School of Art's flagship public lecture series, and brings major international speakers (including artists, architects, designers, historians and cultural theorists) to the city of Glasgow.