The School of Three-dimensional Design has been invited to take part in the SaloneSatellite exhibition which is held in Milan from 14th -19th April.

The exhibition takes place at the same time as the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the world’s biggest design trade fair. Designers and manufacturers from every corner of the world show their work to 278,000 visitors from over 151 countries

The 24 square metre display will feature work by product and furniture students chosen by Simon Maidment along with information about postgraduate courses and research projects.

A Space for Assessment:

Exploring assessment and feedback in practice and studio based learning environments.

Location: Kingston University, 
Knights Park, Kingston

Date(s):  27 May 2010 11:30 – 28 May 2010 15:00

An ADM-HEA & PALATINE symposium hosted by Kingston University

The notion of the ‘studio’ as a space for work and learning is integral to both art and design and performing arts education. The Art Design Media Subject Centre (ADM-HEA) and PALATINE, the Subject Centre for Dance, Drama and Music, are organising a symposium to explore assessment and feedback in practice and studio based work.

Read more… http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/events/a-space-for-assessment

Kingston University’s Reader in Fine Art, Elizabeth Price, has been shortlisted for the 2009 – 2011 Max Mara Art Prize for Women. The Prize is awarded biannually to one UK based artist who has not previously had a major survey exhibition. The short-listed artists for the Max Mara Art Prize 2009 – 2011 alongside Elizabeth Price are Becky Beasley and Andrea Buttner,

Chaired by Iwona Blazwick, the jury for the prize comprises; Fiona Banner, Turner Prize nominated artist and Kingston alumna; Alison Jacques, Gallerist; Valeria Napoleone, Collector and Polly Staple, writer and Director of Chisenhale Gallery.

The winner is to be announced on Tuesday 23 March at the Whitechapel Gallery. For more information please visit: http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/about-us/prizes

Exhibition and installation by Carol Mancke at the Mid Pennine Gallery in Burnley Lancashire.

Get Over It is an interactive exhibition that took inspiration from Burnley’s industrial heritage. Through her ‘Safe and Healthy Art’, artist Carol Mancke explores how rules and regulations can take away opportunities for people to exercise judgement, understand risk and take responsibility as individuals. She also questions the growing culture of people and organisations being forced to tick boxes, rather than having the opportunity to address underlying causes of problems that are perceived to pose unacceptable risk.

The exhibition also challenges the popular notion that art is something to be viewed from a comfortable distance. The work invites participation, thereby raising questions about the potential risks to both the visitor and the artwork. By getting the audience to physically engage with the exhibition the artist raises issues about the fragility and durability of an artwork, and what determines its commercial and cultural value.

Alyse North writes about the exhibition her review published in the Lancaster Art Network Newsletter:

The haptic nature of the installation is enjoyable and thought provoking. The act of touching and climbing on the art works – ultimately transgressive in all but a smallish corner of contemporary visual art – provides a particular sense of freedom and involvement that view-only artworks would struggle to offer. The requirement of physical participation presents a possibility of knowing and understanding in a way that cannot be achieved by just looking. The expletive title of the show encourages the visitor to accomplish something while they are there. Perhaps the limited and limiting nature of what we accept as our reality is simply an amalgamation of petty concerns, a string of monotone beliefs and rules, which can easily be overcome. Our set of circumstances can be altered; a new freedom can be found, through engagement and participation. The invitation is there.

There is a valuable topic for contemplation offered by this exhibition, which is this: our expectations of ourselves and others, coupled with our inhibitive fears and the memory of past physical injury, compounded by the corporate way of dealing with these things, combine together to feed countless limitations into our daily lives. We are stringently limited in social and work environments… This climate of limitation profoundly affects the way we live, and in recent decades has given rise to the extensive and influential industry known to us now as ‘Health and Safety’. (Such a promise in an uncertain world!) This industry is in many ways ridiculous, and widely ridiculed – a thread that Mancke takes pleasure in tugging. Yet it is undeniable that ‘H&S’ is essential in the increasingly litigious culture we have in Great Britain. And undoubtedly we owe the non-arrival of many precarious even calamitous happenings to its existence. The way things are, we cannot manage without it. But isn’t it enlivening and refreshing to poke a bit of fun, to employ our physical and creative selves to – very simply – get over it? Individual and societal limitations reflect and reinforce each other. There is much that wants to hold us back. But once we take action and engage our sense of humour, our serious surroundings can once again become a playground.

Get Over It continues until 13 March. For more information visit 

www.midpenninearts.org.uk

Morgan Layton, a second year Landscape Architecture student, has been shortlisted for the recent Paper Cities open competition at the Royal Academy. Morgan’s proposal for a floating city explores the potential of the city as a mega-structure. The judging panel, that included Archigram architect Peter Cook RA, the illustrator Sara Fanelli, the Blueprint editor Vicky Richardson and the RA’s Curator Kate Goodwin, stated that this was “an amazing idea and proposition for a super-city structure located in the sea”.

More information about the competition can be found at:
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/architecture/paper-city-urban-utopias/competition,1108,AR.html#photos=gallery_null

Open Road

3rd – 21st March 2010

In October 2009, the three artists resident at the Toilet Gallery launched a campaign to name the anonymous side-street where the gallery resides. Just four months later, they are proud to announce the council-approved creation of Nipper Alley, named in honour of the dog made famous in the HMV trademark, who lies buried only metres away.

To celebrate the official opening of Nipper Alley, Copernicium are mounting a multi-media exhibition at the Toilet Gallery. Taking the HMV trademark as a starting point, it’s a show of departures. Ranging from a short film shot from a dog’s eye view to a makeshift recording studio and encompassing cartoons, animations made on an iphone, paintings, an installation of vinyl discs and recorded local folklore, it’s a show for all ages. So hit the road and come visit.

Over the course of the exhibition, the public will be invited to use the roentgenizdat recording studio, to record their own songs, stories and local folktales.

An official opening of Nipper Alley with an unveiling of the street sign will be held at 12 midday on 10th March. Please check the website for confirmation of the time.

The Copernicium artists are: Kate Renwick, Dave Loder and Patrick Blower.

The exhibition opens Wednesday 3rd March at 6pm and the private view is open to the public. The show runs until the 21st March.

Wednesday – Friday 1pm – 6pm, Saturday 10am – 6pm, Sunday 12am – 6pm

Toilet Gallery
Nipper Alley
Kingston upon Thames
KT1 1QT

www.copernicium.org.uk

Open Road is supported by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Second year fashion students competed for the second year running for a prestigious fully paid internship at Banana Republic headquarters in New York this summer.

This year’s winners pictured with the Creative Director and Vice President Simon Kneen are Lauren Sanins and Alicia Duncan – Smith. Lauren created a stylish jersey and knit knot dress and Alicia a new take on a traditional trench coat which Simon selected as being modern and on brand.

Simon , an ex Kingston graduate flew in from Paris to judge the portfolios and garments and gave constructive feedback to the 25 finalists and interviewed 14 to choose the winners. Simon wrote after the event:

“Thank you Elinor for Friday and the amazing work of the students for our BR Summer internship. Congratulations to our winners Alicia Duncan – Smith for women’s wovens and Lauren Sanins for women’s knit-jersey. Thank you and your staff for the support and enthusiasm for our project but most of all the students exceptional work that this year has taken it up a couple of notches with talent and creativity that is humbling. It is always such a great experience for me to be able to encourage young talent from our beloved Kingston.”

Fine Art graduate Catrin Davies is soon to exhibit at the Standpoint Gallery in London as part of the exhibition Beast, a dialogue between the known, human, and the animal (the Other) world.

Davies presents The Beast of Bont 2009, the latest of her documentary videos based on alleged ‘big cat sightings’, combining the use of original and found footage. The ‘Beast’ is the name that locals give to a large cat, believed to inhabit the forest near the small village of Pontrhydfendigaid in West Wales, close to where Davies lives.  Davies interweaves interviews with members of the village who have seen the Beast, studies of the windswept landscape, footage of ‘evidence’ such as mauled sheep, with suggestive inserts from such Freudian classics as Cat People.

Catrin, who graduated Ist class in June 2009 from Kingston University, was selected for the Welsh Artist of the Year show, and Salon Gallery, London’s choice of the best new graduates. To find out more about this exhibition please visit:

http://www.standpointlondon.co.uk/Beast.html

David Hughes, the  internationally acclaimed Illustrator, launches his latest book ‘Walking the Dog’ at Kingston University this week. David, who’s acerbic drawings grace the pages of The New Yorker, The Observer and the Times, will talk about his innovative graphic novel that is a reflection on his own life, personal demons and obsessions. He’ll also show his Opera sets and costumes for the Spoleto Opera Festival in Italy and his numerous children’s books and arts projects.

David Hughes is an artist whose work combines illustration, graphic design, photography and animation. In 2003 he received the Pentagram Award for his outstanding contribution to the art of illustration. His drawings have appeared in The Observer, The New Yorker, Esquire, The Guardian, and many other magazines and newspapers. He has received great acclaim for his children’s picture books, Strat and Chatto (1990) and Bully (1992). In 2006 he published his version of Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The talk and launch will take place in the 4th. floor illustration and animation studio Knights Park Campus, at 4pm on Tuesday 23rd. February. Everyone welcome!

Fashion student Nicole Bradshaw has been shortlisted for the Pringle of Scotland Design Competition. Below is her account of this experience.

September 2009

Kingston has always encouraged us to work on live projects so I was very excited when The British Fashion Council launched the Pringle of Scotland Design Competition. The prize is a full –time, paid, six month design position at Pringle, plus a £1,000 in cash… What an amazing opportunity!

The project was aimed to create a unique and modern interpretation of the brand whilst still maintaining Pringles heritage.

My starting point was an old piece of tartan fabric, given to me by my Gran. I wanted to create a contemporary look so scanned in the fabric and set to work in Photoshop to experiment. I eventually developed a ‘digital’ tartan print which then led on to further developments working in experimental yarns to produce something which I hoped would be new and exciting.

My design development was crucial to the project, sketching ideas down, working on a mannequin in 3D and sampling knit, all played a vital role in building up an exciting body of work to design from.

Focusing on the Pringle customer I developed a capsule collection for the working city woman. I considered her busy lifestyle, to create a rage of designs which would keep her feeling great from day to night. The clothes were intended to feel empowering in the work place yet relaxed enough to go out for dinner and drinks straight from work and still feel comfortable. Combing my passion for tailoring and knitwear.

Before I knew it, I had been through three selection processes and was lucky enough to have been chosen as one of eight design students in the country to be selected for an interview!

January 2010

The finalists were to present their project and portfolio to a six of the leading UK and International fashion press and buyers alongside Chief Executive of the British Fashion Council, Anne Tyrrell and Pringle Creative Director, Clare Waight Keller. I arrived feeling a little nervous, but as soon as I entered the interview I remembered all the advice and support I had been given from tutors and fellow students and felt confident and well prepared.

The interview went well and I left feeling inspired. I feel very fortunate that I was given the opportunity to talk through my work with such influential people. It has proven to be an invaluable experience.

I am still awaiting the winner to be announced …wish me luck!