A big thank you to all who came along to our Dundee Arts Cafe series 2015/2016.
The Dundee Arts Cafe team are taking a well earned rest over the summer holidays, as well as planning an exciting new series starting on Tuesday 6th September 2016, at our usual venue of the McManus cafe.
Sign up for our mailing list to find out more about upcoming talks and events by emailing dundeeartscafe@dundee.ac.uk with ‘Subscribe’ in the subject box.
Have a lovely Summer!
During the winter of 2014 the UK was hit by an exceptional run of winter storms, leading to serious coastal damage and widespread flooding. This extreme weather caused disruption to electricity supply across the country, with over 100,000 people facing several days without power.
The loss of power affected remote and urban communities, with vulnerable people considered to be at a greater risk. The companies responsible for maintaining and repairing the electricity infrastructure asked themselves how they could improve their support communities before, during and after power cuts.
Join us for a talk from Dr Irena Connon and Dr Ed Hall from the University of Dundee, who will discuss stories of vulnerability and resilience collected from four very different communities. Irena and Ed’s research will help energy companies to plan and respond effectively when future storms reach our shores.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm.
For the last 15 years Brendan Body has
been a computer animator working in film
and television. 
He has worked on popular films such as Harry Potter, The Amazing Spider-man, Pacific Rim, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Brendan is now teaching the next generation of Scottish animators as a lecturer and researcher at Duncan of
Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee.
In his talk Brendan will discuss his career in animation and give some insights into the world of films and visual effects. He will also talk about his current research; where he will share his knowledge of animal and human anatomy, plus biomechanics, gained throughout his career, and how he will apply this to his latest project – producing some animation for the Natural History Museum’s most recent significant acquisition; a Stegosaurus fossil named ‘Sophie’.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm.
Mind the Gap
When Volkswagen were caught out cheating emissions tests, the gap between performance promised by manufacturers and the reality was substantial, causing uproar.
Hayshed Copyright Kirsty Maguire
But quietly, bubbling away under the surface and hidden under piles of paperwork are the predictions for every buildings performance. Just like buying a new fridge, all buildings have an energy rating A – E. But what is conveniently ignored is that these predictions are rarely worth the paper they are written on. The gap between prediction and reality can be enormous.
Why is this acceptable and how can we change this? Buildings can be complex but it is certainly possible to create warm and comfortable buildings that do what they say on the tin, costing next to nothing to run in the process. They can remove the building occupants from the volatile energy markets and take households out of fuel poverty. A shocking 29% of Scottish households are classed as being in fuel poverty.
New buildings can achieve this type of good performance right now. We don’t need fancy technologies or costly new solution.
Kirsty Maguire, award-winning architect, talks about her own projects in Scotland and around the world plus some examples of other leading UK practices to show how good design can perform, inspire – and even change the world – one step at a time.
The event lasts one hour, and speakers talk passionately about their work for 30 minutes before the floor is opened up to an informal discussion with the audience. All talks take place in The McManus Café, Albert Square, Dundee.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm.
What does it mean to be represented in
a political system where 
politicians are elected by individuals but are expected to toe their party line on policy? How has devolution changed people’s perceptions of being represented at different levels of government? Did it really matter that three of the seven party leaders debating with each other in the 2015 election debates were women?
Dr Carvalho will examine the myriad ways in which the idea of political representation has been understood in political studies. She will also reflect on what this idea means to ordinary people by evaluating data gathered from talking to people across England, Scotland and Wales during the 2010 and 2015 UK general elections.
The event lasts one hour, and speakers talk passionately about their work for 30 minutes before the floor is opened up to an informal discussion with the audience. All talks take place in The McManus Café, Albert Square, Dundee.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm.
As Scottish politicians grapple with a new Land Reform bill, Dr Annie Tindley will explore the historical background of this contentious issue, from the Highland clearances, the Land War of the 1880s, and how perceptions of these events have, and continue to, shape legislation and public opinion.
Annie will cover important questions about what kind of nation Scotland wants to be – how is its landscape to be managed, or for whose benefit? She will examine the nature of power and conflict in rural Scotland, and how its history and traditions have affected Scottish culture and continue to set the political agenda today.
The event lasts one hour, and speakers talk passionately about their work for 30 minutes before the floor is opened up to an informal discussion with the audience. All talks take place in The McManus Café, Albert Square, Dundee.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm.
Copyright: Image accredited to Robin Hammond
Child poverty is on the rise. Poverty is a significant barrier to young people’s well-being whether this be in Dundee, across the UK or the poorest cities across Africa. Now is a timely moment therefore to consider how young people experience poverty and the impact this has for their future adult lives. Poverty is experienced differently across the World and for many young people living in African cities their lives are lived and experienced on the streets. This creates a unique set of issues and problems for young people around access to shelter, food, safety and money to survive. Through understanding these issues we can more effectively listen to young people regarding their needs as a universal tool for influencing policy across the globe.
This talk from Dr Lorraine van Blerk from the University of Dundee, and Dr Wayne Shand from the University of Manchester explores what life is like for young people growing up on the streets through discussing an innovative longitudinal research project working in Accra, Ghana; Bukavu, DRC and Harare, Zimbabwe. The research investigates the lives of 198 young people over a three year period and takes an innovative participatory and qualitative approach. The research explores poverty, exclusion and homelessness from a capabilities perspective and aims to stimulate debate on the factors that shape life lived on the street and the representation of street children and youth in national and international policy.
The event lasts one hour, and speakers talk passionately about their work for 30 minutes before the floor is opened up to an informal discussion with the audience. All talks take place in The McManus Café, Albert Square, Dundee.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm. This event is likely to last one hour.
A warm welcome to you all after our summer break. We have got a fantastic series of discussions planned for you from September 2015 to June 2016.
Prof Nikolai Zhelev and Curator Clare Brennan will discuss the exhibition ‘Hearts’ which is part of pair of shows title ‘Hearts and Minds’ across two spaces; the Hannah Maclure Centre at Abertay University and LifeSpace at the University of Dundee.
This talk will focus on the Hannah Maclure Centre exhibition which explores scientific and artistic research relating to our life-giving organ, examining incredible breakthroughs in life sciences research and
sharing the work of internationally renowned artists
whose practice is concerned with the heart.
In Prof Zhelev’s lab, miniature beating hearts are developed from human cells reprogrammed to grow as tiny hearts which are then used to investigate preventions and cures of heart disease. This inspired an exhibition of work from artists working across a variety of media, examining the heart in transplantation, the heart as a system and the heart as a poetic object.
Opening times for the exhibitions are as follows:
Hearts Exhibition: Preview night – Friday 11 September, 6pm-8pm
Runs until Friday 23 October 2015 at Hannah Maclure Centre, Abertay University
Minds Exhibition: Preview night – Friday 18 September, 5pm-7pm
Runs until Saturday 18 October 2015 at LifeSpace, University of Dundee
Join us in the relaxed atmosphere of the McManus Café for a short talk followed by your chance to ask questions and discuss the topic. Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm. This event is likely to last one hour.
A big thank you to all who came along to our Dundee Arts Cafe series 2014/2015.
The Dundee Arts Cafe team are taking a well earned rest over the summer holidays, as well as planning an exciting new series starting on Tuesday 8th September 2015, at our usual venue of the McManus cafe.
Sign up for our mailing list to find out more about upcoming talks and events by emailing dundeeartscafe@dundee.ac.uk with ‘Subscribe’ in the subject box.
Dr Jennifer Barnes explores the story of Laurence Olivier’s unmade Shakespeare film, Macbeth.
Since Macbeth was shelved in 1958 it has gained a reputation as representing a gap in the fabric of Britain’s national cinema with a variety of scholars and cultural commentators wondering just what exactly Olivier’s fourth and final Shakespeare film might have looked like and how it would have fitted in alongside Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1945) and Richard III (1955).
In 2012 Jennifer discovered 13 hitherto unseen screenplays for Macbeth in the British Library. In this talk Jennifer discusses how the screenplays offer us a unique insight into Olivier’s approach to filming Shakespeare and how they reveal something significant about Olivier himself.
Reading the screenplays alongside Olivier’s autobiography and accounts from fellow theatre stars, Jennifer shows how the unmade Macbeth exemplifies Laurence Olivier’s tendency to interpret moments of personal and professional crisis through appropriations of Shakespeare. Written during a fraught period that would end with Olivier’s divorce from Vivien Leigh in 1960, it becomes clear that this unmade cinematic Shakespeare plays out, through the Macbeths, the very public downfall of the so-called ‘Theatre Royals.’
Join us in the relaxed atmosphere of the McManus Café for a short talk followed by your chance to ask questions and discuss the topic.
Everyone is welcome. Free. Non-bookable. Places are limited so please arrive early to avoid disappointment. Doors open at 5pm. This event is likely to last one hour.