Research Symposium: Working Within

Research Sympsium: Working Within

I participated in and co-organised the inaugural Research Symposium for Camberwell College of Art’s MA Illustration Programme that was held at Peckham Levels on 8th November 2023. I presented my illustration research practice which is based on my project Inside Climbing. Below is a Slideshow of the slides I presented, captioned with excerpts from the script.

Inside Climbing is a project about the indoor climbing gym.

Why are climbers willing to adopt unnecessary obstacles for fun? Why is it so fun?

Figurative representations did not seem to provide a close enough look at the indoor climbing gym.

I moved towards making abstract prints, based on traces collected from The Castle Climbing Centre.

Traces I recorded from climbing holds in the climbing gym.

I scanned these traces, and realised that these “footprints” connect various shared experiences in the indoor climbing community.

From the labour of gym staff in facilitating a safe and conducive space for climbing

To the route setters who create the routes for climbers, and the effort of climbers who try to climb them.

I created a display from scrap climbing gym materials that mapped the interacting forces between the space, people and materials.

I combined the mark making and material experience I had gained into making large, off-set lithography prints

These marks reference and represent the overlapping actions that take place in a climbing gym.

They reflect the intra-acting forces that motivate people to climb

Actions that fold together into a leisure community of practice.

In addition to presenting, I also used After Effects to animate our holding screen for the symposium, in collaboration with fellow presenter Onion Peterman who contributed the initial art and design.

Wei-Ting

Illustration

2020-2024

Research Sympsium: Working Within