Review: Fun-a-Day, West Dean College
Curated by current Postgraduate students Sheila McGrath and Rachel Foister, Fun-a-Day was a cross-disciplinary, collaborative event involving full-time students, staff, volunteers and tutors throughout West Dean College. The original concept of Fun-a-Day was pioneered by the ArtClash Collective in Philadelphia and it has since gone on to spawn a large number of events worldwide. West Dean was first involved in the project two years ago, with shows curated by MFA student Eleanor Buffam. The fundamental principles of the event are inclusivity and community - creativity across various media is encouraged and supported through the simple idea of creating one small work every day throughout the month of February. Works could be in any medium or size and this year's entries were extremely diverse, including sound pieces, three-dimensional structures and more conventional image-based works.
West Dean's show managed to bring together the diverse talents of individuals based within different disciplines in the college, including submissions from students from the Conservation Programmes, as well as entries from the College's highly skilled technicians. By way of the organising skills, facilities and curatorial effort of members of the Visual Arts Department, the event provided a welcome opportunity for more people across the college to become more involved with the arts.
