Cafe des Arts

The Cafe des Arts provides a cultural space that seeks to create community through arts. Our aims are to: create a stronger identity for Ustinov as a cultural space; explore the role and importance of the arts and culture in our communities and wider societies; be influential in the arts and cultural scene in Durham; explore the transformative role of arts and creativity by developing an onsite studio residency and host an annual artist in residence.

The Café des Arts is a project that unites several different strands of art and creativity under one umbrella.  This year, there are four distinct projects. 

Leo Aldea is co-ordinaring a series of painting and sculpture workshops, aimed to give people who may never have tried either before the chance to explore their own creativity in an informal and supportive environment. 

Ariadne Schulz is facilitating a series of dance lessons, which provide an opportunity for students to sample various dance traditions, whilst in addition providing a cultural and historical background to the evolution of different styles of dance and music.

Matt Hann is curating the Café des Arts’ international cinema series, which aims to show films from around the world, reflecting the international nature of the student body at Ustinov.  During the Michaelmas term, the series has focussed on films which challenge our notions of ‘family’; in the Epiphany term, connecting with other Ustinov projects on criminal justice, the series will be showcasing films which address the issue of crime, criminals, and the justice system.  This is planned to include a showing of Paul Sutton’s Emmy Award-winning documentary ‘Doing Time’.

In addition to this, the Café des Arts is collaborating with Ustinov College’s Music Society in setting up and running a college choir, as well as promoting music in the shape of regular open-mic nights, ‘Ustinov Live!’. 

Each year, the Café des Arts hosts an artist in residence.  For the year 2012-2013, we are delighted to welcome Alan O’Cain, ‘artist of encounters’.  Alan’s work includes both visual arts and poetry.  Recent encounters have included an ‘Aktion’ in the prison cell occupied by Egon Schiele, which combined the physical space with the music of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise to create twenty-four drawings – one for each Lied. 

Peter Ustinov once said, ‘The arts are one of the few known antidotes to the pallor of accuracy and the frigid exhilaration of scientific techniques’.  The Café des Arts, then, aims to offer students something different, and something profoundly liberating.

Ustinov Café des Arts is on facebook!  Find us here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/282435415189460/