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IMAGINING THE FUTURE

A snapshot of 2008

In this year at Warwick:

  • Sir Richard Lambert succeeded Sir Nick Scheele as Chancellor.
  • Prime Minister Gordon Brown opened the Warwick Digital Laboratory.
  • The Warwick Prize for Writing was launched.
  • The Skydiving Club set up the Great Warwick Jump and raised £20,274 for Charities worldwide.

  • The Teaching Grid in the Main Library opened in order to develop teaching at Warwick in line with the University’s Strategy. The idea was to “use …. different spaces to enhance teaching and learning” (CommUnicate, Issue 320, page 4).

  • Café Humanities opened with a new look and new range of products, following a refurbishment over Christmas.

  • Warwick launched its new car-share scheme – WarwickShare – to manage the increase of traffic in and around campus.

  • The Wolfson Research Exchange in the Main Library opened; it was designed specifically for researchers and research students.

Untitled is from Ingleby Gallery’s ‘Billboard for Edinburgh’, an exciting ongoing public art project started in 2008. The project asks selected artists, four each year, to produce a large billboard poster for the gallery’s exterior side wall. The project has included many celebrated artists including Whiteread who was the second to be displayed in 2008. To complement the billboard each work is reproduced as a signed and numbered limited edition print.

The inspiration for Whiteread’s billboard and subsequent print came from her installation, Place (Village), which was included in the Hayward Gallery’s ‘Psycho Buildings’ exhibition. The origins of Place date back to the purchase by Whiteread of 3 or 4 dolls’ houses over 20 years ago, friends and family assuming that Whiteread was starting a collection, began to purchase and look out for dolls’ houses for her, resulting in a substantial collection of around 200 houses which she decided to use in a series of works throughout 2008

And in the world:

  • Northern Rock became the first bank in Europe to be taken into public ownership.
  • Governments around the world faced the continuing problems of increased oil prices causing inflation and also unemployment increasing. Oil hit an all-time high of $147 a barrel.
  • Writers strike against Hollywood studios, networks and production companies demanding a percentage of revenue instead of a fixed fee for Internet content. The strike lasted for nearly 3 months and a compromise agreement was reached. The strike meant many popular TV programmes were affected including talk shows.

  • Estimates are coming out which put the cost so far for the war in Iraq at close to $3 trillion.

2008

Untitled | Rachel Whiteread