By Kai Hagen (Bachelor of Media Studies, Press Play URA)
This entire Press Play experience has felt unreal. I never in a million years thought that I would get the opportunity to install our artwork internationally, nor work with researchers and a database like the Poetry of the Lancashire Cotton Famine to help create art. This whole trip to the University of Exeter has just felt perfect, in part due to meticulous planning. The opportunity to have a cross-cultural project like Press Play is valuable because it offers opportunities to learn about different cultures, heritage, and research spaces, and to collaborate with such interesting people, not the least of whom include Dr. Charlotte Tupman of the Digital Humanities Lab and Dr. Simon Rennie, PI of the Poetry of the Lancashire Cotton Famine project. It’s an experience that has inspired me and has left me feeling motivated to start new projects, reach out to different countries for work and to consider new ideas for my education.
My two favourite parts of this trip were the presentation day when we gave our artists talks in front of researchers, students, staff, and leadership from the University of Exeter and the time we got to simply just walk around, meet people, and look at things. I’d find myself on walks through the city of Exeter feeling super inspired and motivated to create something new with these new experiences.
I see the relationship between the AMP Lab and the University of Exeter’s Digital Humanities Lab is a model for what collaboration between two research labs that feel like siblings can look like: two entities that have a lot in common but each contributes something unique that enhances the other. And, out of this relationship, new communities are built.
