Monthly Archives: May 2010

Landscape Architecture and The Heathrow Contest

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Four landscape architecture students from Kingston University have been selected for the long list and exhibition for the Greenpeace Airplot Competition. Anna Jones of Greenpeace stated that the“judges were extremely impressed with the high level of quality ideas and designs” for a competition that challenged the proposals for the third runway at Heathrow. Joe Sanders, Jason Winder, Yesol Park and Aaron Carpenter of 2nd year landscape will have their work exhibited at the Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf from Wednesday 2nd June, 6.30 – 8.30pm.

Kingston Architecture Students in Exhibition at the National Gallery

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RIBA London teamed up with Design for London and developer and investor Qatari Diar to launch Forgotten Spaces, an ideas based competition that highlighted areas of left-over land in London and encouraged innovative proposals for improving local communities. Recent Part II graduates Simon Mellor and Ryan Butterfield from Diploma Unit 4 at Kingston University, run by Christian Frost and Rod Heyes, are the only students selected to exhibit at this prestigious show at The National Theatre on London’s Southbank from 24 May – 4 July 2010.

Complementing the Mayor’s Great Spaces initiative, Forgotten Spaces sought under used areas of the capital and hearts of local communities in order to explore their possibilities.

http://www.architecture.com/

Postgraduate students at Expo 2010 in Shanghai

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The School of Communication Design won British Council mobillity funding to send eight postgraduate students to China for Expo 2010. On the 25th May their Expo project will be launched live in Thomas Heatherwick’s Pavilion in the VIP Lounge. The students are working with staff and curating students from Hangzhou’s China Academy of Art, which many rate as one of China’s premiere schools. In September the winning idea from the students will run live as part of the MA Show. The idea will be selected across eight Kingston/China teams competing and the results will be announced on June 15th.

The students are sending blog postings from the Expo site and contributing to the Design Week magazine. Below are  some firsthand insights from Pete Collard.

“After an elaborate opening ceremony broadcast live on State TV and an extensive corporate partner programme that has seen the official mascot Haibao appear on products and billboards across the city, the Shanghai World Expo 2010 has now settled down to its daily business of attracting paying customers. Although queues for some pavilions are extensive, overall the site feels under-populated in parts, with staff outnumbering visitors at some of the entrances and restaurants. While the majority of media coverage prior to the opening focussed on the architecture of the pavilions, attention is now turning to the content housed within them. Having spent millions on the construction of their sites, some countries have struggled to match the architectural vision displayed on the exterior. Reverting to Expo tradition, several appear to have been curated by travel agents and rely heavily on films and presentations that feature traditional costumes and geographic landmarks. Denmark should be acknowledged for having the sense of humour to follow this concept to its logical conclusion by bringing the actual Little Mermaid statue to Shanghai for six months, much to the consternation of the Copenhagen Tourist Board.

Amongst all these statements of grandiose national pride and achievement the UK pavilion seems small in comparison, in particular when compared to its Italian and French neighbours. When viewed from the top of Holland’s psychedelic ‘Happy Street’ opposite it resembles a strange furry creature within its enclosure at the zoo. Yet without doubt it is one of the most original and memorable pieces of architecture at the Expo. The courageous decision to create a singular inside/outside design, whereby the content of the pavilion is the pavilion itself and vice versa, has been fully rewarded by an enthusiastic response from the public, resulting in long queues throughout the day. The only criticism to be heard was from two Italians working in a nearby pizzeria who commented “yes it beautiful but its not lit up at night”. Given the environmental focus of the ‘seed cathedral’, this does suggest however that the subtlety of Heatherwick’s concept may not have been understood by everyone.”

Kingston graduate’s new Tate Modern exhibition

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Level 2 Gallery: Haris Epaminonda, VOL. VI.

Haris Epaminonda, graduate of the BA Hons Illustration & Animation Course, launches her new exhibition at the Tate Modern London. Her subtle and evocative video work is on display from 29th May to 30th August 2010.

In the latest Level 2 Gallery series, Tate Modern’s dedicated strand for emerging art, Cypriot artist Haris Epaminonda creates a new installation responding specifically to the architecture of the space. Using layers of imagery and sculpture to create a false history or new journey through time, Epaminonda will transform the gallery into a three-dimensional collage using the gallery space and walls to juxtapose found objects, such as vases and statues, paper collage and video projection.

For more information please visit:
 http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/harisepaminonda/default.shtm

MIRC book and journal launch

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The Modern Interiors Research Centre will be celebrating the publication of Designing the Modern Interior: from the Victorians to Today and the launch of the journal Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture, by Berg Publishers. The launch is part of ‘Interior Lives’, the 11th Dorich House conference hosted by The Modern Interiors Research Centre, taking place on the 13th-14th May at the Lawley Lecture Theatre, Kingston Hill Campus.

Please see further details on both publications at:http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=4982 and http://www.bergpublishers.com/?tabid=7303

The launch is to be held at the Dorich House Museum on Thursday 13 May, 6-8pm.

Interior Lives – 11th Dorich House Conference

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Interior Lives

The Modern Interiors Research Centre are hosting the 11th Dorich House Confernce, Interior Lives.

The conference will consider the historical insights that ethno/auto/biographical investigations into the lives of individuals, groups and interiors can offer architectural and design historians; the methodological issues that arise from the use of ethno/auto/biographical sources to explore the history of the interior as a site in which everyday life is experienced and performed; and the ways in which contemporary architects and interior designers draw on personal and collective histories in their practice. 

Key note speakers:
Professor Carolyn Steedman, History Department, The University of Warwick
Dr Vesna Goldsworthy, Reader in English Literature and Creative Writing, Kingston University

Thursday 13 and Friday 14 May 2010 9am – 5:30 pm
Kingston Hill Campus, Lawley Lecture Theatre

Further details can be found at: http://fada.kingston.ac.uk/research/mir/mir_conf.php

Re-presenting History in the Digital Age

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A symposium is to be held to celebrate the launch of the Muybridge web portal which is the result of a 6 month AHRC knowledge transfer project undertaken by Alex Reynolds and led by co-partners Fran Lloyd and Peta Cook as part of the larger ‘Muybridge in Kingston’ research project initiated by David Falkner, Stanley Picker Gallery, and Peta Cook, Curator of Kingston Museum.

The symposium celebrates the launch of an innovative online research resource which draws together information on collections of Muybridge’s work worldwide for the first time; whilst providing an academic and historical context for it. Speakers will include:
• Dr Harriet Riches: Senior Lecturer in Art History and Visual Culture at Kingston University
• Professor Tim Cresswell, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Geography Royal Holloway, University of London
• Louise Shannon, Curator, Deputy Head of Contemporary Programmes Victoria and Albert Museum and co-curator of ‘Decode’

The symposium will critically reflect on some of the crucial cultural and aesthetic questions to have arisen from this contemporary heritage project. Three presentations will explore representation and the body within photography, the ideological meaning of space and place within cultural communication, and the contemporary trend towards digitization in arts and heritage projects.

Hosted by the British Film Institute, the event will take place 2pm-5.30pm on 21st May 2010.

There is no charge for this event. To reserve a place, please email fadaresearch-enterprise@kingston.ac.uk or telephone Emerald Day on 0208 417 7416.

Exploring the Edge of Trauma, 13 – 16 May

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Exploring the Edge of Trauma – an International Colloquium organised by Professor Fran Lloyd, Faculty of Art, Design & Architecture and Professor Lieve Spaas, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in partnership with University of Debrecen, Hungary, and McMasters University, Canada.

Exploring the Edge of Trauma will interrogate the intricate and wide-ranging ways through which we seek to go over the edge of trauma, through art, literature, media, therapeutic and social experience, which all call for the construction/deconstruction of metaphors and representations that help or prevent sharing and communicating about trauma. In an interdisciplinary and international context, it will delineate and discuss some of the rich cultural and social experience accumulated in this quest, and investigate the impossibility/possibilities to be fully cognate with and experience the trauma of others and communicate our own traumas.

The 7th Cultural Intersections International Colloquim is to be held from the 13 to 16 May 2010.

For further information please visit

www.kingston.ac.uk/edgeoftrauma

13-16 May 2010 Trauma Conference,
West Dean College,
West Dean, Chichester PO18 0QZ

Kingston’s fashion wins British Fashion Council award

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Kingston University has beaten off competition from 26 other leading colleges to win a prestigious British Fashion Council Award. Undergraduate fashion course director Elinor Renfrew collected the Fashion Illustration award at the BFC’s Colleges Council Graduate Preview Day, along with fellow lecturer Andrew Ibi.

“Kingston has always had a very good reputation for illustration”, Mrs Renfrew said. “This award didn’t come out of the blue – it’s something we’ve been focusing on and putting in the building blocks for over the past few years.”

The colleges’ portfolios, which consisted of illustrations of the garments that will eventually make up the students’ final collections, were judged by a panel of senior industry executives, headed by chair of the British Fashion Council Colleges Council Anne Tyrrell. “Kingston University’s portfolio included very sensitive pencil drawings and the content was creative and innovative,” she said. “It showed a complete fashion package of design talent including textile swatches and knitwear swatches, which were very complimentary to the design work and showed graduates’ individuality and creativity.”

The judging panel also included representatives from Selfridges, website WGSN, Drapers magazine and London Fashion Week designer Todd Lynn. Vogue Italia, Elle Magazine, Marie Claire, Evening Standard, Max Mara, Matches, Harrods, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Browns, Topshop and Warehouse were among the media and industry guests who attended the prestigious awards ceremony.

Kingston University’s award marked the culmination of three years’ hard work for the students. “We all felt very proud,” said third year student Harriet de Roeper, whose work was included in the winning portfolio. “We’re all friends and we bounce ideas off each other and push each other. There’s always a lot of creative energy in the room.” Many of the drawings in the portfolio will form the basis of garments that will be exhibited at this year’s Kingston University Fashion Show, which is set to be one of the highlights of the Graduate Fashion Week programme on June 7.

The annual British Fashion Council Graduate Preview Day provides universities and colleges with the opportunity to showcase their graduating students’ work to industry professionals. It is now in its 16th year. “The Kingston students whose illustrations were included in the portfolio will find there’s a lot of interest in their work”, Mrs Renfrew predicted. “The great thing about this award though is that it’s for the whole of the Kingston University Fashion Department, not just one student.”

WGSN digital development director Lauretta Roberts said this year’s entries were of a higher standard than ever. “The way in which the work was presented was incredibly strong,” fellow judge Todd Lynn added.