Region Europe

📅 16 June 2026

🕖 19:00–20:30 CEST (18:00–19:30 UK)

📍 Google Meet - 🔗 meet.google.com/nei-xwgx-jqh

What happens when two artists enter a living forest with no predetermined plan, no fixed outcomes, and a shared commitment to paying attention?

In October 2025, fibre artist Annette Holtkamp and OCA Fine Art graduate Karen Stander spent two weeks at the Bodhi Khaya Artist Residency in the Western Cape of South Africa—an ecologically and culturally significant landscape of old-growth forest, fynbos, and regenerating land.

Join us for Poetics of Presence with Icelandic painter Thordis Adalsteinsdottir

Together we’ll explore interpretation, sensuous experience, and the space between an artist’s intention and the viewer’s personal reading of the work. Inspired by Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation, this session invites open discussion, questions, and reflection on how we experience art.

📅 20 May 2026

🕕 18:00–19:30 CEST

🔗 https://meet.google.com/fte-fvjp-yrd?hs=224

How does creativity actually unfold when AI is part of the process?

This interactive online workshop invites OCA students from all disciplines to move beyond “human vs machine” debates and explore creativity as something distributed — across tools, habits, repetitions, decisions, hesitations, and moments of resistance.

Through guided discussion and a short participatory exercise, we’ll look at where authorship, agency, and responsibility are felt inside real creative practice, and how AI can shift or intensify those moments. No technical knowledge needed — curiosity about your own process is more than enough.

Led by Peter Hungerford, whose research-led practice explores AI, image-making, and distributed authorship, this session forms part of his ongoing practice-based research into how artists experience AI from inside the act of making.

We’re excited to invite you to our next OCA Artist Talk — an evening of creative exploration and discovery!

On Wednesday 12 November

Time: 18:00 – 20:00 CET

Dark Holding: Tracing Time with Whitby Jet

In this talk, artist and OCA tutor Hondartza Fraga shares her current exploration of Whitby jet — a rare fossilised wood from the Yorkshire coast. Although best known for its use in Victorian mourning jewellery, jet carries a far older and more intricate cultural lineage — one that extends well beyond sentiment and fashion into deep histories of ritual, touch, and transformation. Fraga’s project explores how this material embodies geological time and loss. The presentation will trace the evolution of her ideas — from the initial desire to repurpose this material, artistic influences, and the challenges and possibilities opened through experimentation using multiple techniques and media.

Join us on Saturday 11th October, 10:00–12:00 CEST for a relaxed Making Day.

This is an open space to work on your own projects, whether that’s drawing, painting, writing, or experimenting with new ideas. There’s no formal guidance – just time to create alongside others, share the atmosphere, and enjoy working in company.

📍 Online, via Google Meet: meet.google.com/fjr-wjpg-zfo

Bring your materials, settle in, and let’s make together!

Abstract landscape in paint and collage with Arlene Sharp

🗓 13 September

⏰ 11:00 CEST

📍 Online workshop — register here: https://www.ocasa.org.uk/event-details-registration/abstract-landscape-collage-workshop

Discover new ways of exploring landscape through abstraction. In this session you’ll:

Join us for our monthly Café Meeting on 2 July 2025 at 18:30 (CEST) via ZOOM:

🔗 https://oca.zoom.us/j/92630511836?pwd=SFFlUitlZ2lYbnNXZDBXUWFHT3A4QT09

(Passcode: 879138)

This month, we’re thrilled to welcome OCA student Inger Weidema, who will be sharing her work and research around her project Rooting for Plants—a poetic, thoughtful exploration of our connection to the natural world.

As always, there’ll be time for open conversation, questions, and relaxed sharing after the talk.

Steve is a software engineer turned artist.  He is a Level 3 Drawing student, who works in technology alongside studying with the OCA since 2019. His current practice is based on collaboration with concert musicians, working with the idea of computational drawings, from homemade software, that respond to music performance that in turn responds to the emerging drawing. After an event, snapshot drawings (fingerprints) from the event are used to make physical work in different media, freezing the experience in some way. Steve will talk about his ongoing project with an orchestra in Ireland. We'll gather your questions related to his practice to engage in a lively discussion on topics such as collaboration across disciplines and the role of chance in art. Mark the date in your diary: Sat. 28 June. From 09:00 - 10:30 UK (10:00 - 11:30 CEST). Google Meet video link: https://meet.google.com/ikn-wqiu-fjz

More info about Steve's work: Instagram @meyfroidts https://meyfroidt.com/

Join us for a unique workshop with Stefan J. Schaffeld exploring deep listening, affect, and sentient life in a more-than-human world. 🌍💫

🗓 Date: 12 April 2025⏰ Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM (CEST)📍 Where: Online

💻 Register now via Eventbrite >> Eventbrite registration page

Are we, as humans, ready to receive care from the natural, sentient world? 🌊🌳 Through a mix of listening, sounding, and touching practices, this workshop will challenge us to rethink how we sense, know, and care.

Don’t forget our ‘Hunting For Traces’ Workshop with Ariadne Xenou is coming up soon!

Dont’t miss it!🤗

All info here: https://www.ocasa.org.uk/group/region-europe/discussion/543a3dc1-bbe2-4f8d-ad7d-e79a08414812

Looking forward to seeing you all there!!☺️

Join us for an inspiring session with Dr. Ariadne Xenou!

🗓 Event: Hunting for Traces: Research, Theory, and Practice

📅 Date: 7th December

⏰ Time: 14:00 CET

📍 Where: https://oca.zoom.us/j/93406686674?pwd=a2JlWWkxMnVNbXU5bmpYVGU4a2JDdz09Meeting

Artist Talk: Trine Wade

Join us for an insightful artist talk with Trine Wade, a Norwegian artist whose practice centres on the embodied experience of 'being-in-place.' Trine will share her recent journey, which took her back to her ancestral roots in Norway. Through art objects placed in the landscape, she explored themes of forgiveness, repatriation, and the impact of inter-generational trauma, forging a personal connection while honouring the memories of those before her.

Date: November 12th

Time: 1:00 PM CET

We are planning a tutor led working day with dr Michelle Whiting on Saturday 16th September 2023 at 11 CET. This will be a practical making day and the link to the event will be shared shortly. We want to inform our members of this full day event.

We would like to invite students to a Student/Artist talk on Saturday 3 June at 11 am CET.

Dhama Thanigasapapathy as London based artist and Sonia Boenig a Munich based artist collaborated in Menacing Beauty on the online Kunstmatrix site. You are invited to visit and view their exhibition before the talk: https://artspaces.kunstmatrix.com/en/exhibition/11477727/menacing-beauty

Our Zoom link for this event is:

https://oca.zoom.us/j/91249597473?pwd=RkdZTkxKZ01XUzFDd05IcjEwanJhZz09

the Passcode is: 649820

OCA EU workshop with tutor Katie Taylor, Apr 22, 11am-2pm CET (10am UK time)

Katie’s work explores ideas of absence and presence, the impressions left after interactions or brief encounters and asks the viewer to question how we consider, think about and remember the lives that were lived by unidentified human remains.

Katie will first give a presentation of her work and her own path through OCA. Then we'll discuss in small breakout groups selected artworks, reflecting on questions like the role of beauty when dealing with challenging topics.

Please register at https://oca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0vc-qopjIjHNWyynUUarsgMIfqGU9eFEpR

NEW OCA EU Tutor lead workshop on critics

This time Tutor Bryan Eccleshall will give us a workshop on critics. If you are interested, please read the following article and texts prior to the workshop:

Elkins, James, Why Art Cannot Be Taught

Thornton, Sarah, Seven Days in the Art World (specifically Chapter Two, ‘The Crit’

When? On February the 25th at 11.00 AM CET (10.00 AM UK time)!

On January 21st 2023 10.00-12.30am UK Time (11.00-13.30 CET) there will be a workshop lead by Tutor Michele Whiting on Contextualisation: Let's talk about practice, contexts and complicity.

Registration for this meeting at the following link: https://oca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sd-GvrzMrE9T8VETzWzHgjlxabnE45Rxq

After subscribing you will receive a confirmation email with the information required to enter the meeting.

Workshop

On January 21st 2023 10.00-12.30am UK Time (11.00-13.30 CET) there will be a workshop lead by Tutor Michele Whiting on Contextualisation: Let's talk about practice, contexts and complicity.

Please fill in the following form by 10th of December 2022

https://forms.gle/esUpRCRyyiCxCfo48

Registration for this meeting at the following link:

https://oca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sd-GvrzMrE9T8VETzWzHgjlxabnE45Rxq After subscribing you will receive a confirmation email with the information required to enter the meeting.

Student Talk with Steve Cussons: Active Matter

Join us on Saturday, 12 November 2022, 4pm CEST for a talk by and conversation with Steve Cussons, who is currently completing her Level 3, Creative Arts programme. We had to postpone this event, originally planned for this summer, and are very happy that it finally will take place 4 weeks from now

Access this event via the zoom link: https://oca.zoom.us/j/99640806809?pwd=b1dMZ0tNMURuOUd2TVc5NmtOTUlqZz09

All welcome and we look forward to you joining us!

Annette (and the rest of the core team)

Hi all, some housekeeping suggestions regarding our group session on Satudray morning:

Diana Ali will be leading us to do evaluation of our online exhibition, eg. How we experienced collaboration, what we learnt from challenges to success, and suggesting you be ready to share any images/text or info with regards to the session. Baiba has put up her hand to share the screen on our behalf, so do not stress around technicalities. Thank you Baiba👏🏻

"We will be doing an overall evaluation of the group show, how you found the collaboration, what the group learnt from challenges to successes, why we evaluate, what you will take forward, audience engagement, communicating ideas from conception to realisation.

Looking forward to see all in the Zoom space between 11:000 and 13:00 CET ( 10:00 - 12:00 UK)

Annette, Annalisa, Sonia and Karen ( Core team for OCA EU group

Diana Ali will lead a 2hour workshop where we will discuss and share our experiences and lessons learned from the WWW exhibition. We hope a new group project could follow.

Date: Saturday 1 st October 2022

Time: 11:00 - 13:00 CET ( 10:00 -12:00 UK time)

Zoom log in address: https://.oca.zoom.us/j/98508243254?pwd=aWowTU9jRDRadjhWOXpBVXoxTngvZz09

Passcode: 130836

Can we get an idication of interest/ names( reply here or send me and email( carolina519407@oca.ac.uk in a 2 hour session with tutor Diana Ali on lessons learned after the WWW exhibition? Date: Saturday 1 October 2022 at 11:00 CET. I will also share on IG and you can leave comments there as well

You are invited to the Vernissage for the Wander Wide Web group

When: Jun 30, 2022 19:00 London time

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://oca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0tcu-upzsvE9ZjwXzMUHOdqxbe2cp5dA8u

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting

Student Talk with Steve Cussons: Active Matter

Join us on Saturday, 25 June 2022, 10.30-12noon CEST for a talk by and conversation with Steve Cussons, who is currently completing her Level 3, Creative Arts programme.

Register here for the zoom link:

https://oca.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAlf-GtrTorGdGio3rLWGI8TkCdzms2cEMD

All welcome and we look forward to you joining us!

Gesa (and the rest of the core team)

Hi everyone, we have 2 events coming up, please mark your calendars (not in chronological order, though):

1/ Tuesday June 14 at 19:30-21:00 CEST for a crit session with Jayne Taylor. The first hour will be spent exploring the curation of the wander wide web exhibition (which opens on 30 June), the final 30 minutes are open for non-exhibition group members to put forward individual work for a 15 min crit (2 slots, priority given to work not part of the exhibition).

How to register and upload work:

We hope that the crit session and its focus on exhibition curation is of interest to all RGE members so please join us, also if you aren't part of the exhibtion group or have no work to put forward to a crit.

The registration for the crit session is via this zoom link:

oca.zoom.us

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: OCA EU Crit Session with Jayne Taylor. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.