LEVEL hosts monthly TED Circles and wants to invite you to our next conversation focused on the theme of Imagination and based on this TED talk by Theaster Gates.

Beauty is a universal concept, or is it? How does the concept of a female beauty evolve throughout the Chinese history? How does it reflect the value and state of the society? This 1h online talk takes a historical view of Chinese perception of female beauty and its representation in Chinese poems and paintings.

Join us to take a journey of discovery through history to learn about some of the incredible heroes and heroines in Black British heritage.  We will explore some amazing stories of the contributions of black Britons through the ages that have largely been forgotten or marginalised in our telling of British history today.

Join this talk and discover prominent feminist artists creating opportunities and spaces for women and minority artists. Challenging the dominance of men in both art and society, a younger generation of feminist artists are now using their art to bridge these concerns with those of  race, class, privilege, and gender identity.

Lecture two will pick up the threads from the previous lecture on Cuban Modernism and look at the life and work of Wifredo Lam. The lecture will trace the early European influences on Lam’s work and the way in which his artistic style transformed after encountering Michel Leiris, Pablo Picasso and Aimee Cesaire.

LEVEL hosts monthly TED Circles and wants to invite you to our next conversation focused on the theme of OPTIMISM and based on this TED talk by Mallika Sarabhai.

Japanese Kintsugi art is not only about mending our broken ceramic objects with gold, but it has a more profound meaning. We apply gold or silver glue to broken parts of porcelain objects to emphasise ‘the scar’ and make it shine even more, embracing our imperfections, flaws, wounds and painful experiences as a part of our unique paths and personalities. Kintsugi helps us to develop more compassion towards ourselves and others and learn how to appreciate broken pieces of our lives.

How do we form our individual and collective identity? How do we modify our identities to fit in and assimilate when we encounter other cultures? Belonging is intrinsic to our sense of confidence and self worth as individuals and how we are perceived and interact with the rest of the world. Complex by nature, we often unconsciously see and project ourselves in a myriad of ways in different environments.  Join us to explore identity and belonging in this webinar.

We will dissect some of our most iconic creatures of the night – vampires, zombies, the Frankenstein Monster etc. – showing how they evolved, from arcane folklore to Hollywood pop culture, and beyond. We’ll examine why they’ve taken on the characteristics they have, and what they tell us about the shadow sides of our world and ourselves.

Paula Rego’s art is undoubtedly characterised by her incredible ability to create captivating narratives that often evoke fairytales or dreams, but we will see how she equally uses her art to push important socio-political messages to the frontline. During this talk we will explore her early political works from 1950s Portugal, through to her large pastels that revolutionised the way in which women are represented.

The internet generation has grown into a monolith determining what we can and cannot consume, what’s funny and why and even how you’ll wear your hair if you don’t want to get left behind. In this talk we investigate through a materialist lens the shifting approaches to culture, humour and politics as a generation raised on the internet and subjected to constant streams of information comes of age.

The art of writing is the art of finding meaning. And meaning is subjective and personal. How do writers convey their meaning to reach out to an universal audience? How do artists do the same? In this hour-long talk, we will take a look at two things: images as writing prompts and creative nonfiction as a literary technique in the craft of life writing. We will take a look at how one artform feeds into the other.

Significant changes occurred in China over the past 40 years since it’s opening up reform. How does that impact on the life and values of each generation? How do Chinese people who were born at different stages of Chinese political and social development perceive themselves? This lecture explores the similarities and differences of generations in China and aims to provide an overall review of the challenges and opportunities each generation faces.

Lecture three will look at how Cuban art transformed after the triumph of Castro’s 1959 Revolution. As well as discussing the context of the period, we will see how Cuban photography and art was produced to support the Revolution. The lecture will look at the hope that the Revolution inspired and how art eventually became a form of propaganda for the State and the way in which artists were gradually censored during the 1970s and the quinquenio gris.

This lecture will look at the period directly after the quinquenio gris and the way in which economic stability gave way to a Cuban artistic renaissance from the late 1970s until 1989. The lecture will look at how institutional and structural changes created spaces for creatives and intellectuals to flourish, explore and express themselves freely.

Lecture five will look at the way in which the fall of Berlin Wall and the start of the Periodo Especial affected Cuban Art. Many artists were either censored or fled the island as a result of economic instability caused by the fall of the Soviet Union. This lecture will focus on artists who continued to produce during this period of adversity and the way they focused on either political criticism or themes of migration.