Art, Design & Architecture

As part of Shanghai Expo 2010, students will run a live project from the MA Curating Contemporary Design course run by Kingston University and the Design Museum London. The project will be developed in partnership with students and staff from the curating programme at China Academy of Art in Hangzhou and is supported by the British Council’s Student Mobility programme.  The aim of the project is to devise ways in which the legacy of the Expo can be used to build and develop creative links between the two great cities of Shanghai and London.

Throughout May, eight curating postgraduates students from Kingston will work with 20 curating  students from Hangzhou to a brief set by the British Council. At the same time tutors from the Chinese Academy of Arts will work with students at Kingston. On May 25th they will present a series of curating proposals to an industry panel of judges, with the winning idea then developed as a live event to run in London and Shanghai during the London Design Festival, 18 – 26 September 2010.   You can track the progress on the project online though a Blog as it develops on the KINGSTON UNIVERSITY website throughout the summer until the event runs live.

Aims:
The legacy project developed by the students from Kingston University and China Academy of Art will aim to nurture existing relationships between the two countries and help create new contacts between creative groups. In particular key topics such as bio-diversity and climate change will addressed in response to the unique design of Thomas Heatherwick’s British Pavilion and the partnership with the Millennium Seed Bank.

The project will attempt to ensure that Shanghai Expo 2010 has a lasting legacy beyond this year and continues to engage and connect with people throughout the decade to come.

On May 5th at Knights Park Kingston University there will a reception to launch the project and welcome our Visiting Tutors from China Academy of Art.

For further details please contact Professor Catherine McDermott:  C.McDermott@kingston.ac.uk

Professor Catherine McDermott was named one of the hottest properties in the design world last month by eminent industry magazine, Design Week. The magazine’s ‘Hot 50’ was a list of design champions whose commitment and determination burned brightest during 2009.

An eclectic collection of the people, places and organisations that have been inspirational during the past year, the list contained some surprising inclusions alongside the Kingston academic. Not only did Professor Mc Dermott find herself rubbing shoulders with such cultural icons as Anish Kapoor and Anthony Gormley; the list also included broadcasting heavyweight the BBC and retail power-house Selfridges, alongside the even more surreal entries of Abu Dhabi and London.

A Professor in the School of Communication Design, Catherine set up Kingston’s MA in Curating Contemporary Design with the Design Museum in 2001. Amongst other things, Design Week cited her pivotal role in instigating the Dream Lab challenge, in which Chinese design students were invited to communicate the science of sleep and dreaming using their creative skills, and Project Kingston Africa, a new venture linking design students at Kingston with South African Aids Charity Wola Nani, as reasons for including her on the list.

Professor McDermott said that although she did not place much importance on industry roll calls, to have received recognition from her peers was a welcome acknowledgement of her work: “Any industry lists of who’s in and who’s out are always interesting – but they do need to be more enjoyed than celebrated,” she said. “It is nice to be selected, especially by such well known industry peers and colleagues. It’s also a way of getting our work here at Kingston better known, and hopefully better funded.”

However, for Professor McDermott, it was the projects she has developed, with the support of colleagues from Kingston and across the wider design community, which were of real importance. “From my point of view, what makes me really proud is work such as Dream Lab and Project Kingston Africa, which reflects the teamwork of colleagues from several university faculties, including designers Simon Maidment and Rebecca Wright from our Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture.”