Features

An artist at Oxford University has won the 2017 Film London Jarman Award.

Oreet Ashery was recently appointed as Associate Professor of Contemporary Art at The Ruskin School of Art and a Fellow of Exeter College.  

She has made an immediate impact, winning the prestigious award for UK-based artists working with the moving image. Her successful entry was a 12-part, web-based video series called Revisiting Genesis.

The series looks at the modern death industry and follows an artist with cystic fibrosis and a painter who has had cancer, as well as carers, friends and curators. The films contained stories of Syrian refugees and the people trying to help them, which she recorded in Thessaloniki, Greece earlier this year.

The Guardian interviewed Oreet about her work here.

'I was interested in how people work together,' Oreet told The Guardian. 'Telling stories in a darkened room. Even if no one speaks, that is a story, too.'

Anthony Gardner, Head of the Ruskin School of Art , said: 'We're thrilled that Oreet's enormous talent has been recognised with this award, given in honour of one of the UK's great film-makers to celebrate the next generation of artists using film and moving-image.

'And like Derek Jarman himself, Oreet is not only a great artist but also a great teacher and mentor, which makes her success with the Jarman Award even more fitting.' 

The Ruskin School of Art has punched above its weight in the art prize categories in recent years. In the last three years alone, its tutors and alumni have won two Turner prizes (Elizabeth Price and Helen Marten), one Hepworth prize (Helen Marten) and now a Jarman Award.

The Film London Jarman Award recognises and supports the most innovative UK-based artists working with moving image, and celebrates the spirit of experimentation, imagination and innovation in the work of emerging artist filmmakers.

Launched in 2008 and inspired by visionary filmmaker Derek Jarman, the Jarman Award is unique within the industry in offering both financial assistance and the rare opportunity to produce a new moving image work.

There is an interview with Oreet Ashery in The Guardian here. You can watch Revisiting Genesis here.

Oreet Ashery

Christina Holka

Research led by Oxford University highlights the accelerating pressure on measuring, monitoring and managing water locally and globally. A new four-part framework is proposed to value water for sustainable development to guide better policy and practice.

The value of water for people, the environment, industry, agriculture and cultures has been long-recognised, not least because achieving safely-managed drinking water is essential for human life.  The scale of the investment for universal and safely-managed drinking water and sanitation is vast, with estimates around $114B USD per year, for capital costs alone. 

But there is an increasing need to re-think the value of water for two key reasons:

• Water is not just about sustaining life, it plays a vital role in sustainable development.  Water’s value is evident in all of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, from poverty alleviation and ending hunger, where the connection is long recognised - to sustainable cities and peace and justice, where the complex impacts of water are only now being fully appreciated.  
• Water security is a growing global concern. The negative impacts of water shortages, flooding and pollution have placed water related risks among the top 5 global threats by the World Economic Forum for several years running. In 2015, Oxford-led research on water security quantified expected losses from water shortages, inadequate water supply and sanitation and flooding at approximately $500B USD annually.  Last month the World Bank demonstrated the consequences of water scarcity and shocks:  the cost of a drought in cities is four times greater than a flood, and a single drought in rural Africa can ignite a chain of deprivation and poverty across generations.

Recognising these trends, there is an urgent and global opportunity to re-think the value of water, with the UN/World Bank High Level Panel on Water launching a new initiative on Valuing Water earlier this year.  The growing consensus is that valuing water goes beyond monetary value or price.  In order to better direct future policies and investment we need to see valuing water as a governance challenge.

Published in Science, the study was conducted by an international team (led by Oxford University) and charts a new framework to value water for the Sustainable Development Goals.  Putting a monetary value on water and capturing the cultural benefits of water are only one step towards this objective.  They suggest that valuing and managing water requires parallel and coordinated action across four priorities:  measurement, valuation, trade-offs and capable institutions for allocating and financing water.

 Lead author Dustin Garrick, University of Oxford, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, explains: ‘Our paper responds to a global call to action: the cascading negative impacts of scarcity, shocks and inadequate water services underscore the need to value water better.  There may not be any silver bullets, but there are clear steps to take.  We argue that valuing water is fundamentally about navigating trade-offs.  The objective of our research is to show why we need to rethink the value of water, and how to go about it, by leveraging technology, science and incentives to punch through stubborn governance barriers.   Valuing water requires that we value institutions.’

Co-author Richard Damania, Global Lead Economist, World Bank Water Practice said: ‘We show that water underpins development, and that we must manage it sustainably.  Multiple policies will be needed for multiple goals.  Current water management policies are outdated and unsuited to addressing the water related challenges of the 21^st century.  Without policies to allocate finite supplies of water more efficiently, control the burgeoning demand for water and reduce wastage, water stress will intensify where water is already scarce and spread to regions of the world - with impacts on economic growth and the development of water-stressed nations.’   

In conclusion, co-author Erin O’ Donnell, University of Melbourne adds: ‘2017 is a watershed moment for the status of rivers. Four rivers have been granted the rights and powers of legal persons, in a series of groundbreaking legal rulings that resonated across the world. This unprecedented recognition of the cultural and environmental value of rivers in law compels us to re-examine the role of rivers in society and sustainable development, and rethink our paradigms for valuing water.’

In the latest animation from Oxford Sparks, experts from the Oxford Genomics Centre talk us through how they 'read' DNA – the 'instruction book' inside of all our cells.

Oxford Sparks is a great place to explore and discover science research from the University of Oxford. Oxford Sparks aims to share the University's amazing science, support teachers to enrich their science lessons, and support researchers to get their stories out there. Follow Oxford Sparks on Twitter @OxfordSparks and on Facebook @OxSparks.

This is the latest in the Artistic Licence series.

Art is part of all our lives. But if you’ve ever tried putting paintbrush to paper, or slipped on a pair of ballet shoes, you’ll know that it’s not easy to make it.

Because most of us can draw a face, or shuffle awkwardly and call it dancing, but few of us will paint sunflowers as well as Van Gogh or tap dance like Fred Astaire. But why not? What makes good art good?

Dr James Grant, philosophy tutor at Exeter College, is using the tools of philosophy to explore that very question.

Looking at artworks across the spectrum - from performance to sculpture to oil painting - he’s exploring what differentiates the doodles from the Dali.

“I want to see if there is an overarching theory of what features make an artwork good,” he says.

And, taking inspiration from Aristotle, he’s come up with a novel argument.

Dr Grant argues that good art exhibits “excellences”.

“Excellences” are attributes that demonstrate high levels of thought, character, and perception. Two key excellences are imaginativeness and good craftsmanship.

So if your artwork is highly creative, and includes a high level of skill, chances are it’ll be a good one.

This might all sound obvious—but Dr Grant’s theory contributes to big debates in philosophy.

He hopes to show that art is not just instrumentally valuable - valuable because it serves a purpose, like making us feel good - but intrinsically valuable - good in its own right.

“I think this provides a new argument for the intrinsic value of art,” he says.

So what is an example of a good artwork that has these excellences?

“I find Chinese jade sculptures very interesting,” Dr Grant says. “Jade is extremely hard to work with, so there’s incredible skill behind these pieces.

“Another example would be Gaudí’s architecture. Not everybody likes it, but it’s imaginative. The Sagrada Familia cathedral is a pretty dramatic manifestation of imaginative thinking.”

Dr Grant hopes that, by thinking about art in this way, we might start to appreciate beauty, and art, differently.

“Many people talk about art as if it’s valuable only because we get pleasure from it. I’m arguing that, when you appreciate and enjoy a good work of art, it’s also true that you get pleasure from it because it’s valuable,” he says.

So that’s all there is to it. If you hone your skills, and think creatively, you too could make art to rival Rembrandt. Better get practising.

Deciding when to return to the GP when symptoms do not resolve is something many people struggle with, especially when the symptoms may not appear to be serious or life-threatening. Research with cancer patents in Denmark, England, and Sweden, published today in BMJ Open, indicates that small changes to how doctors conclude consultations with their patient could help to improve both survival rates and efficiency.

Led by Oxford University, the international team included researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark with Lund University, Umeå University and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. The project was funded by Cancer Research UK.

The researchers interviewed 155 people aged between 35 and 86 years old, within six months of being diagnosed with lung or bowel cancer. Patients were invited to talk about events since they had first noticed a problem, including what influenced their decision to consult a doctor.

The study compared Denmark, England, and Sweden because survival rates for lung and bowel cancer between 1995 and 2007 were persistently higher in Sweden than in Denmark or England, particularly in the first year following diagnosis.

Notable differences between the three countries were found in patients’ accounts of the clarity and communication of action plans at the end of GP consultations. Patients in England and Denmark told the researchers that they had not known whether and when to return to their GP with symptoms, while Swedish patients described clear action plans with instructions from their GP to return in specified timeframes.

The study concluded that if clear action plans are used routinely in primary care consultations then uncertainty, false reassurance, and the inefficiency and distress of multiple consultations during cancer diagnosis could be reduced.

The authors recommend that every GP consultation should conclude with explicit advice about what to look out for and provide specific advice for patients to return if symptoms do not resolve, or re-occur.

Dr John MacArtney, Senior Researcher at Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said: ‘Spotting cancer early can make the difference between survival and death. We already know that many people are reluctant to seek medical attention in the first place, for fear of unnecessarily bothering their doctor. If they have already seen a GP for the same or similar symptoms then they may wait longer to return, even if they have been given the general advice to “come back if things don’t get better”. This makes it important to understand why people might be reluctant to re-visit their GP.’

The study, which is the first to study how patients experience the pathway to cancer diagnosis, has helped to illuminate previous findings from other International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership studies, which have shown that no single factor could explain why differences in cancer outcomes persist between high-income countries with universal health coverage.

The study lead Sue Ziebland, Professor of Medical Sociology in Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, said, ‘Making the general public aware of the seemingly innocuous symptoms of common cancers is only one part of improving early diagnosis. It is just, if not more, important to remove the barriers patients face in getting to see their GP if they are concerned about their health. One of those barriers arises when patients are unsure about what to do when symptoms return or persist, because they have already seen a GP.

‘Recognising these issues exist, and encouraging GPs to communicate concrete and specific action plans, could be vital in improving patient survival, especially for those patients who worry about wasting the doctors time.’

Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK’s director of early diagnosis, said: ‘Diagnosing cancer is complex and most often starts with someone presenting to their GP with signs or symptoms they’re not sure about. This fascinating study builds our understanding of what’s happening at a very personal level, at what can be an anxious and difficult time for patients. Having this insight across different countries and cultures helps build a clear picture of what’s most important about the conversation between the doctor and patient, and could well improve cancer outcomes. GPs across the UK may need more support to help them make the most of these critical consultations in the little time available. Charities such as Cancer Research UK can provide information to patients at this point in the diagnostic process.’

The full paper, 'Patients’ initial steps to cancer diagnosis in Denmark, England and Sweden: what can a qualitative, cross-country comparison of narrative interviews tell us about potentially modifiable factors?' can be read in BMJ Open.