King's Cultural Challenge 2018
Background
The King's Cultural Challenge is an annual event where all students at King's are invited to submit ideas to respond to or answer a key challenge facing the cultural sector in the UK.
From hundreds of entries, 10 to 12 finalists are selected by a panel of experts from our participating cultural partner: the V&A, the Roundhouse, The Southbank Centre, the Royal Opera House and, for the first time this year, Breathe Arts and Science Gallery London.
The finalists receive coaching and their ideas are developed to a stage where they are then pitched to senior figures from our cultural partners in front of a live audience. Winners are selected from the finalists, and each winner is offered a paid internship with one of the partners to work to develop their idea and receive invaluable work experience.
Cultural Challenge 2018
Each year King’s sets a new Challenge and this year students were ask to respond to the question:
‘Art Changes Everything: How can arts and cultural organisations or programmes transform lives and influence the world over the next decade?’
Students worked alongside leading cultural partners to explore three key themes: arts and society, arts and health and arts in a global world.
Over 160 students took part in a series of hackathons and ideas labs. At the Arts and Society hackathon, students and senior staff from the Royal Opera House, Roundhouse, V&A, Graeae Theatre and Cardboard Citizens questioned how art can drive social change and support our local communities.
The Arts and Health event brought students together with Breathe Arts Health Research, Science Gallery London, Trinity Laban and Wellcome Collection to question how, in an era of austerity and uncertainty about the future of healthcare provision, arts and culture can contribute to society through impactful healthcare interventions. The students’ responses tackled subjects as divese as loneliness amongst older migrants and body dysmorphia.
At the Arts and Global hack students worked with staff from London’s Southbank Centre and artists from South Africa, Brussels, the Netherlands and China to explore how artists – and organisations – can collaborate across international borders to devise powerful responses to a breakdown of trust between cultures and nations.
The programme culminated in King’s Cultural Challenge final where 12 finalists pitched the ideas they developed to culture sector leaders, bidding to win paid internships at the Royal Opera House, Roundhouse, V&A, Southbank Centre, Breathe Arts and Science Gallery London and 6 winners were selected.
King’s Cultural Challenge 2018 winners
- Hannah Wigfield for Take 2 Cinema, a project providing opportunities for rough sleepers to take weekly trips to the cinema, allowing them to network, be creative and learn about services available to them.
- Daisy Stopher for Crafting Generations, a project inviting older generations to share their craft-based skills with university students.
- George Ackerley for 98 Questions (for the Modern Kid), a book for primary school children that invites them to visit a marketplace and learn about other cultures through the items they might buy or play with.
- Angela Chan for The Cli-fi Coalition, athree-tiered project that sees cultural institutions work with artists to develop climate change-themed work, such as exhibitions and research initiatives.
- Pauline Meyer for Foreshadowing, a project where staff members from cultural institutions shadow the lives of people who the organisation want to connect with in order to develop a better understanding of that particular group’s needs.
- Daniel Hardman for ARTiculate: A Nation in Conversation, a national project where cultural institutions, schools, and art groups create a piece of art in response to a specific theme. This piece of art is passed onto organisations across the country who creates a piece in response. The chain continues to build, until a number of pieces are created and showcased as part of an exhibition.
