As long time readers of this blog will know, I've been working with Jasper Bouverie of Funder Films to produce three short films celebrating the University's roots in - and on-going support for - interdisciplinarity. The films were finished in time to be premiered at Kent's 50th Anniversary shindig on 5 September, and are now available on its YouTube channel, below:
- Past: youtu.be/S4t0QSG4o84
- Present: youtu.be/CTvVnktO5yA
- Future: youtu.be/k3AUi3cqOG4
In presenting the films, Jasper gave a thoughtful and passionate introduction to the project, to why it was important to him, and why interdisciplinarity is important for us all. Here is a transcript of his words:
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| Jasper Bouverie |
'Thanks everyone for coming. It’s a great honour for me to
have these films shown in a cinema. It’s even more of an honour that there are
even people in the audience.
I’m not going to speak for long at this stage but I wanted
to say how much I enjoyed making these films. I enjoyed meeting and working
with all the people I had to work with. I had some great conversations. I am
particularly indebted to all of the interviewees and to Simon the presenter and
to Phil Ward who commissioned the films. Thank you very much.
I wanted to say a few words about what this project has
meant to me on a deeper level. Interdisciplinarity it seems to me is about
embracing something new. For academics who have been studying a particular
subject for years, it can be a leap of faith. There must be the chance that you
may feel awkward, that you will be concerned that you are asking the wrong
question, or misunderstanding the language of your partner discipline. In the
films you will see that there is some reference to this initial feeling of
foolishness – as well as the feeling of triumph when the new discipline has
been mastered.
In a sense this is what I have been doing in making these
films. I am trained as a radio producer and a journalist – so pictures are new
to me. For the past couple of years I’ve been embarked on my own leap of faith.
I still feel slightly awkward. This
occasion is a very important stepping stone.
Another reason why this for me is a significant project is
because, prior to becoming a video producer, I worked on one of the big issues
of our time - climate change - as communications director for a small non-governmental
organisation called the Climate Parliament. Our aim was to talk to the world’s
members of parliament about solutions to the climate problem. To understand the
solutions we had to talk to academics, energy specialists, ecosystem
specialists, businessmen, policymakers, philanthropists, uncle tom cobbly and all. And then we had to
get everyone to agree...! 45,000 people attended the Copenhagen summit in 2009.
I was one of them. I don’t think anyone listened to what I had to say. And I’m
not sure I really listened to anyone else. We all know that no-one agreed about
anything at all.
It was while working at the Climate Parliament that I came
to realise that film has an important role to play in coordinating efforts on
these big issues, and communicating thoughts and results to funders,
policymakers, and to the general public.
That was why I set up Funder Films and embarked on my own
leap of faith.
I think it says a lot about the University of Kent in its
early days that the university’s first Vice Chancellor Geoffrey Templeman
established an enabling environment where these leaps of faith were so
commonplace. He really must have been a man of great energy and vision.
And I applaud the University for attempting to recover this enabling
environment now. Given the dynamic academics I’ve spoken to and the new
buildings being constructed on campus, I think all the ingredients are here. The
world certainly needs it to happen.
I hope you enjoy watching the films. I certainly enjoyed
making them and thank everyone involved for giving me the opportunity to do so.'
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