James Reed

James ReedJames Reed
James Reed is a South African artist who has recently completed his Masters in Social Sculpture on a British Council Chevening Commonwealth Scholarship.

During this period he worked closely with Shelley on the development of social sculpture projects, including University of the Trees, participating in the trials of the 'instruments' and dialogues about the strategies employed in this project, including the whole idea of creating kits.

Before coming to Oxford in September 2005 James tutored in various art institutions, community out-reach and development programs and grass roots organizations in South Africa. In October 2007 James returned to South Africa to work with the climate change kit, Agents of Change, developed in collaboration with the SSRU's Earth Agenda project and for the Social Sculpture today exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, in April 2007. 

The Agents of Change project opens up an opportunity for people to experience a personal and collective sense of their ability to change through collaboration and dialogue processes; and to work with images which internally activate new possibilities, connections and thought.

James' work relies on a series of strategies that originate from life processes: listening, reflecting, discussing, caring; making space together that allows for thinking and reconnection to our knowing (an approach arising from the pedagogic practices developed in the SSRU). His practice can be seen as an emerging of soul;  creative strategies to facilitate conscious interconnection, to activate a sense of inner necessity and an image of wholeness.

James practice explores a number of questions, such as:

How  do we develop a wider personal and philosophical framework that cultivates a deep sense of personal and shared meanings?

How do we develop a culture of transforming our mode of consciousness?

How can we begin to realise our full potential as human beings and work as transformers of the materialist thought systems that shape our world?

How do we excavate the insights of the heart?

James is currently developing the work of the SSRU in South Africa through working with Agents of Change in communities and organisations.  

 

Details of the Agents of Change project will be accessible soon from this site in

Social Sculpture > Developing the Territory > Project, Processes and Transactions > Agents of Change