Studio 3: Articulate Bodies

Studio philosophy

‘The work I make focuses on ordinary parts of the body that we never really celebrate, but actually there is nothing ordinary about them at all, they are unique to every individual. By isolating them, and making a spectacle out of them, they are made extraordinary.' Naomi Filmer

For this studio, you will be exploring mixed media approaches to material, shape and texture alongside gesture, movement and space. Open discussion around ideas of imprint and absence will offer opportunities for debate and exploration of how we understand our world and ourselves. The studio will develop through the year, to help you establish your own philosophy and working process towards a very personal body of work for end of year shows and events.

The work can be abstract or installation, artefact or adornment. With the first semester concentrating on research and development you will begin to resolve some of your own practice through a detailed and thoroughly thought through self-generated brief designed to guide you in the search for your own personal creative voice.

The project

Using a diverse laboratory of mixed media materials from metal, textiles and resins to enamels, ceramics and plaster you will be encouraged to use critical thinking alongside profound making skills in the construction of pieces destined to be worn, used or perused by an audience.

Materials and sensorial experiences will be examined: texture, light, shade, solid, void, sound and taste while social, political and existential narratives will inform debate and increase the deeper understandings of what makes us human, our flaws and our perfections. We will debate ideas of identity, sexuality, and the socio-political context, exploring the meaning of form through metaphors and analogies, with ideas made real with workshop practice and making skills as a central thread throughout the year. 

New technology adds to our palette of available skills, we will look at ways to use these technologies to free the design process from the constraints of traditional making techniques. Digital process alongside energetic material sampling will be informed by a series of workshops set to increase the experimental nature of the study.

A major performance/exhibition/show will be the finale to the year with press and live clients and personalities invited to share the experience. The shape and direction of the show will be as a result of a partnership debate amongst students and staff. The ‘performance’ of your work can gather a variety of different scenarios with actual performance and film alongside exhibited pieces and catwalk shows, all curated as a cohesive embodiment of the work you complete.

We will begin with a Kick-Start project at the Roca Gallery (Zaha Hadid) we will visit the Wellcome Collection exhibition of Wayne McGregors ‘Thinking With The Body’. Then to Sadlers Wells, to see a live performance of ‘Atomos’ Wayne hauntingly beautiful choreographic masterpiece with bodies flexing and contorting in complex, double-jointed moves, like beautiful robotic mannequins in a writhing dance.

Further links with live clients will include a project with Veuve Cliquot and interventions in the Lea Valley as part of a bigger dialogue with our urban environment. We will visit mannequin makers and eyewear factories while exploring the Lea Valley's opportunities for exhibition and intervention.

Our Study Trip will take us to the Masked Carnival in Venice.

Image Credit: ‘Paintloon’ by Bella Volen

Details

Course Jewellery and Silversmithing BA (Hons)
Textile Design BA (Hons)
Product Design BA (Hons)
Tutor Marianne Forrest
Mark Bloomfield
Jess Chatterton
Adi Toch
Where Studio 4, 5th Floor, Central House
When Tuesdays, Fridays


Marcus Appleby
Mary Ayoola
Samantha Barker
Charlotte Dann
Armelle Ellison
Agata Lauckaite
Amelia Pearson
Lisa Sabine
Kara Sharpe
Nathalie Server-Coker
Jordan Tyson
Chris Townsend
Luo Xin Tang
Suzanne Ka Yan Tse

Aretha Anin
Kadi Arula
Jekaterina Atarinova
Ann Chan
Aniela Dublaszewska
Nathalie Coker
Agnes Fok
Clare Hannigan
Marie Hazra
Kirsty James
Rosalia Liotti
Preanka Patel
Libby Keizer Shalom
Sophie Yarrow