Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Student gives himself the sack as part of his degree
Student Robert Oliver is preparing to suffer for his art on Saturday – by carrying a 10kg sack of coal on his back for 27 miles.
The strength-sapping stunt is the final ‘performance’ piece for the 27-year-old’s masters degree in fine art, with the focus on highlighting climate change.
Mr Oliver, who is in his final year at Canterbury’s University for the Creative Arts, will walk the Miners Way around the former Kent collieries, visiting 12 villages, starting and ending in Wingham.
He said: “The work is a comment on the struggle to make change against issues of global warming and the feeling of hopelessness at making artwork which seeks to make that change come about.
“It is called Futility is the Way Home and draws on the history of the mines and the mining communities of the Kent collieries. It is a statement on their closure and the resounding gap in the industry which has not been replaced.”
Mr Oliver, who lives with his wife Kite in Cherry Tree Gardens, Canterbury, has been training for the ‘performance’, which will be presented in pictures and words at the final year degree show at UCA on August 25.
He said: “If you close mines in the Garden of England, the sunniest place in the UK, why 28 years later is that energy production gap not filled with solar production, but merely shifted to other carbon-emitting means elsewhere?
“I hope that through my performance piece I can raise awareness of the issue and hope it engages with a wider audience.”