StreetDraw24 Exhibition | Not One Place

NOT ONE PLACE | REPORTAGE DRAWING EXHIBITION

Students of Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Illustration have designed and organised an exhibition at The Poly, Falmouth, to share work created by students and staff during their 24-hour drawing event on the streets of Falmouth in August, #streetdraw24, an event which aimed to raise awareness of street homelessness.

The Poly have generously provided their upstairs gallery free of charge for the two week exhibition, in support of the #streetdraw24 team’s aim of raising funds for St. Petroc’s Society, which undertakes valuable work with the street homeless.

Alongside the drawings created, the exhibition will feature an eerie soundscape created by second year BA(Hons) Film student Aaron Mason. Also featured are quotes from those who know what it’s like to live on the street. The exhibition reminds us that many different lives are lived in one town and that the street becomes another place when you have no home to go to.

The exhibition will be fascinating for anyone interested in day-to-day life in Falmouth, in the arts or in the social challenges facing this county. It also raises the question – what can art and artists do to help make the world a better place?

During the exhibition there will be opportunities to learn about the work of  St Petroc’s Society, a Truro-based organisation providing accommodation, support, advice, training and resettlement services to single homeless people in Cornwall. Funds will be raised for St Petroc’s through Donate& Draw – donate what you can afford and enter a draw to win a signed drawing by one of the #StreetDraw24 artists.

Student Helen Trevaskis was among the organisers of StreetDraw24. So far, over £700 has been raised through donations. Helen shared the learning from the 24-hour drawing event in a blog post back in August, and you can hear her talking to SourceFM the day after the event (Helen is introduced at 12:50)

Not One Place opens at the Poly Tuesday 2nd October, with a Private View open to all from 5:15-7:15. 

The exhibition runs until Saturday 13 October, Tuesday-Saturday 10am-5pm.

#StreetDraw24: What can you do in 24 hours?

BA(Hons) Illustration student Helen Trevaskis was among the organisers of StreetDraw24, a drawing initiative to raise awareness and money for homeless charity St. Petroc’s. So far, over £500 has been raised through donations. You can hear Helen talking to SourceFM the day after the event (Helen is introduced at 12:50)

Following the pilot event, Helen shares 24 things that this reportage fundraiser taught her and her fellow drawers about life in Falmouth, about staying up drawing for 24 hours, and about trying to do something good in the world through art.

1. A town is not one place. Using Falmouth as a reportage location across 24 hours showed us other sides of the town we live in…From the early morning workers busy while most of us are tucked up in bed, to the fitness fanatics using Jacob’s Ladder as their personal gym, to the late night car racers partying at Pendennis Point – the town has many sides.
2. Not sleeping sends you a bit weird. During the 24 hours some drawers went from being intensely focused to barely able to speak – let alone draw – to practically hysterical with laughter at the smallest thing, or continually hungry. Fascinating what sleep deprivation does to you!
3. Make it fun. Along the long walk from The Moor to Falmouth Cemetery via Pendennis, we played drawing games to get our energy up as midnight came and went. The results were not artistic masterpieces (or even a record of where we were, given we could barely see) but were one of the most memorable bits of the night.
4. Stay safe. Even though we live in a safe town, we ensured no one drew alone at night, and we kept touch with each other via a Messenger group.
5. Talk to people. During the 24 hours many interesting interactions occurred. One group, drawing on a housing estate, talked to an elderly couple who then fed them fruit. Another got #StreetDraw24 followed on Instagram by a creative agency in London after chatting to its founder. Many more revealed how many people are themselves artists in this town. Embrace such interactions – it’s one of the joys of location drawing.
6. Start. Many of us were not sure what to draw when we first got out on the street despite lots of great advice from reportage supremo Anna Cattermole’s blog, written for us in the run up to #StreetDraw24 (sorry Anna!). While it can be good to have a plan perhaps what’s more important is getting going, because once you do, drawing tends to have its own momentum.
7. Mix it up. Bringing variety into how you draw not just what you draw can help give you and your work energy, particularly as the hours tick by.
8. Be respectful. There was a point at about 1am Friday where five of us were drawing a camper van parked at Gyllygvase Beach, and realised someone was probably asleep inside! As we quietly snuck off, we imagined how weird it would have been for the occupants to find us all there, reminding us it’s important to be respectful in choosing our locations.
9. Keep repeating your message. #Streetdraw24 is designed to raise awareness about the problem of street homelessness in Cornwall, but it’s very easy for people to miss the point. So don’t be shy about repeating the why of what you’re doing, to get it across effectively, and then repeating it again.
   

   

   

   

   

   
10. Make it social. While drawing in pairs or a group is not something illustrators and artists normally do, even the least extrovert among us got lots out of drawing on location together.
11. Dogs are of the day cats of the night. This is just true.
12. Keep going. Whether you’re on location for four hours or 12 or 24, you’re not going to be in the mood the whole time and not everything you produce will be great; but we definitely saw work evolve across the 24 hours, because we just kept going.
13. Be shamelessly opportunist. Telling everyone you meet what you’re up to before, during and after an event like this is really valuable. Not just because they might want to get involved, but also because the story of what you’re doing is almost as important as the thing itself, and the more you tell it the better it will get.
14. Drawing from observation matters. If you’re involved in the arts, you should draw, because drawing is less about drawings and more about looking at, engaging with and absorbing what’s around you – a core artistic skill.
15. Collaboration is an important creative skill. This time around there were only a few people from beyond the BA Illustration course involved in StreetDraw24. It’s something we’ll shake up next time, because collaborating brings new ideas, perspectives and opportunities.
16. Wet wipes are your friend. Whether you’re using messy charcoal, find there are no open public toilets near where you’re drawing, or you’ve taken food to eat and are worried about where your hands have been; you’re going to need wet wipes during an event like this.
17. Be easy-going. This was a pilot, so for us it was important to have as few rules as possible, so people could invent what worked for them and we could learn.
18. Most people are really nice. They are. So talk to them.
    

    

    

    

    

    
19. Getting the money bit right is hard. #StreetDraw24 was designed as a fundraiser and fundraising is difficult but an event idea isn’t a good one if it doesn’t make money.
20. “The more you look the more you see”. So true.
21. Laughing helps warms you up. Also true but you still need a coat, thick socks and a hat if you’re out all night.
22. There are lots of ways to take part. While a small band of drawers took to the streets last week, many other people sent messages of support, donated to St Petroc’s, and ‘liked’ or commented on the images we posted. To us they were all part of the #StreetDraw24 team.
23. Feel lucky. There are many things those of us with homes to go to each night take for granted – like having a toilet when and where you want one. It’s important to remember this is not everyone’s reality and to remember how lucky we are.
24. Be ambitious. Next up will be an exhibition of #StreetDraw24 work – exhibition space kindly donated by the Poly– in early October. But we’ve bigger plans, too, so watch this space…

You can donate to the StreetDraw24 fundraising page, in aid of St. Petroc’s, and you can see more of the resulting work, and hear about future initiatives via the StreetDraw24 Facebook page.

StreetDraw24: Raising awareness of homelessness in Cornwall.

For 24 hours starting at noon on 23 August, a small band of students and other locals will be drawing from the streets of Falmouth to raise awareness of Cornwall’s homelessness problem, as part of the first ever StreetDraw24. Here, one of the organisers, BA(Hons) Illustration student Helen Trevaskis, talks about the motivation and intention for the initiative… 

StreetDraw24: How can art be a force for good?

‘While beyond the Tamar, Cornwall may conjure up thoughts of pasties and clotted cream, happy childhood holidays and Poldark’s semi-clad antics on horseback along a never-ending coastline, anyone who spends proper time here knows that parts of the county face many and serious social problems. One of these is homelessness, with some reports highlighting an increase of 52% in rough sleeping in the county between 2009 and 2016. While the arts may not seem an obvious place to look to for ways to bring focus onto this problem, that’s exactly what StreetDraw24 wants to do.

How? Well, the idea is simple. Over a 24 hour period, ending at noon on the 24th of the month, draw from the streets of your town, post images to social media using the tag #streetdraw24 and share a link for donations to a relevant homelessness charity. After the event, use the best 24 images – one for each hour of the day – to promote the issue of homelessness and fundraise further. Then…learn, grow, repeat!

This will be the first ever StreetDraw24 and has been organised by first year students from Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Illustration keen to feel connected to and active in the community they now live in. With an emphasis on learning by doing on a small scale, they’ve been promoting the event on Facebook and raising funds for St Petroc’s Society – a Truro based charity supporting the single homeless. Along the way advice on location based drawing, ‘reportage’, has been shared from Falmouth students and tutors alongside information on Cornwall’s homelessness problem.

Some of those taking part in the event will draw from the streets for the whole 24 hours to bring attention to the sad reality that for some the streets are their home 24/7. So, if you see a damp cold looking person drawing from the streets of Falmouth at the end of next week go and talk to them – they’ll love to share what they’re doing! Or even better – take part by checking out the StreetDraw24 Facebook page, donating to St Petroc’s Society or offering ideas for how to make the impact of this initiative even bigger’.

 

Falmouth Illustrators Create Mural for Penryn Primary Academy

Second year BA(Hons) Illustration students Elleanna Bird, Sophie Freestone and Amelia Brooks recently completed  work on a mural to transform some of the interior space at Penryn Primary Academy.

The project, carried out at the school over three weeks, was a voluntary commission, enthusiastically taken up by the three friends. Elleanna commented, “We were all very keen to get started and we had lots of ideas to share. Our ideas encouraged the Head Teacher, who seemed very pleased and excited about what we had planned”. Elleanna says she feels grateful to have been involved, describing an atmosphere of encouragement and motivation; she feels that their enthusiasm in creating the work was kept high by the positive reactions of members of the school community who popped in to see how the project was coming along.

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Sophie reflects on the process of creating the pieces: “The three of us were working together on one painting, which meant all of our bizarre and strange ideas were multiplied by three! The murals happened in quite an organic way; although we had developed plans to work from, a lot of the visual elements came to life in the moment when we were drawing and painting straight onto the boards”.

Elleanna, Sophie and Amelia with Penryn Primary Academy Head Teacher James Hitchens, at the unveiling of the mural panels.

The result is a feast for the eyes – a vibrant panorama depicting creatures of land and sea, as well as Cornish motifs and legends. Sophie says, “I really enjoyed this project because of the unlimited amounts of colour and creativity we were permitted to use. In the paintings, if you look hard enough, you can spot a sea monster, a sloth playing the drums, a pair of feet belonging to a giant and a couple of dinosaurs wearing high heels!”.

The murals received a fantastic response from pupils when unveiled by the artists at a school assembly. Of the experience, Sophie said, “We had a fantastic few weeks painting the murals, and I would recommend anyone who gets the opportunity to get involved in a project such as this – local or afar – to say yes!”.

BA(Hons) Illustration Course Coordinators Natalie Hayes and Keryn Bibby have since met with Head Teacher James Hitchens and Assistant Head Chris Lee, to discuss possible future projects. They were shown around the school and discussed opportunities to involve Illustration students; from the possibility of murals for the walls of the swimming pool, production of inspirational imagery to enliven library spaces, or Illustration students working with Penryn Primary pupils on a series of creative workshops. Natalie commented, “Developing the bonds between Falmouth’s Illustration course and Penryn Primary Academy will provide our students with further excellent professional practice opportunities, and we hope will enhance the school experience for the primary pupils”.

Fine Art students’ residency at CAST, Helston

BA(Hons) Fine Art students Ella Schlesinger and Nicholas Sanderson recently secured one of Falmouth School of Art’s studio residencies, at CAST, Helston, where they have been working together for the past month. The result is England your England, an installation comprising sculpture and video, to be shown to the public at an open studio event to mark the end of their residency.

Ella says, “The piece presents a search for a more democratic and honest space to create a conversation about Britain. We see a massive emphasis put on verbal and written language: in other words, the tyranny of the spoken and written word. With the cultural weight of the English language and its global historical context, it leaves us with a predefined and therefore limited platform to connect with and express our individual selves. We want to challenge this vacant gap these words leave and how, using the language of materials we can reown the identity to our country. Humans, as multi-sensory organisms, are constantly reacting against spaces and places, objects and feelings, so why do we settle on such a single faceted form of communication? And how can we create a more immersive and inclusive form of communication through art?

 

 

 

The Drawn Exchange: A collaborative project

Alice Howard and Georgia Hunt

Falmouth School of Art student Alice Howard collaborated with her good friend and BA Photography student Georgia Hunt in the development of The Drawn Exchange, an art group involving residents at Abbeyfield Residential Home in Falmouth.

Georgia, a final year student of BA(Hons) Photography, had wanted to develop a photography workshop with residents after she discovered that some were creating beautiful artistic work in the privacy of their bedrooms. Georgia described as an immense privilege the access she gained to the private world of this community, but her plans soon broadened. She says, ‘The initial plan to begin a photography workshop was scuppered as I saw a greater need to encourage drawing, the most basic yet fundamental form of seeing. The purpose then shifted to center on relationship, the relationships between the residents and their relationship with drawing’. It was here that Alice became involved. A 3rd year student on BA(Hons) Drawing, Alice brought a love of literature and a foundational understanding of drawing, which underpinned the art group model, based on emotional awareness and creative freedom. Similar to the practice of Art Therapy, the emphasis lay in the process of making art. The success was in the quality of relationship as opposed to the final outcomes. The Drawn Exchange was born.

Each week the group got together around the living room table, with materials selected by the residents. The sessions began with an exercise to engage the emotional mind, to invite and express the unseen and then – responding to how they felt – they began to draw. Sometimes they worked with their non-dominant hand to activate the right hemisphere of the brain, to stimulate emotions, to open up a channel for feeling and to encourage emphasis away from the visual aesthetics of the drawing. Georgia says, ‘I think of it as preparing the ground  for further art making to occur, yet it was often the most profound. There is a raw and unknown quality that emerged through the drawings’.

The art group worked predominately from imagination and memory and the residents communicated their internal world, bringing a shift from emotional to physical. Georgia says, ‘The magic of drawing is that it has the capacity to bring to life those fading fragments of memory, unfolding like silent stories on paper’.

Alice introduced poetry into the group, to act as a catalyst for sparking memories and understanding feelings, which could then feed into drawings. Alice says, ‘In a number of sessions, we did collaborative drawings between two people. Starting from a poem enabled the drawer to delve deeper into their emotions sparked by that poem. The collaborative aspect meant that as the paper was turned and we each worked into the other’s drawing, it was no longer about responding to the poem but to the other persons drawing’. The drawing became a form of exchange.

The culmination of the project was a showcase of the work made and curated by the Abbeyfield Art Group.  The exhibition was shown in the communal areas at the Abbeyfield Residential home to the joy and acclaim of residents, students, and visitors. Georgia and Alice intend to explore the possibilities of continuing elsewhere the model they have developed here in Falmouth, following their graduation this summer.

 

BA(Hons) Fine Art Second Year Exhibition

The Poly, Falmouth, is host again this year to the second year exhibition by BA(Hons) Fine Art students. The student curatorial committee worked with Falmouth alumni Cat Bagg and Rosie Thomson-Glover of Field Notes, to set up the show and make any necessary changes to the curation.

The student curatorial committee share their experience of putting up the first half of the show, as they prepare for the launch of the second half this evening:

‘Students found the Poly enormously supportive in allowing us to use space and their equipment; for example, allowing one of our artists to use the grand piano in the upper space, and giving us a library room we hadn’t seen before, adding a wonderful new dimension for us to work with in order to take advantage of the space’s antiquated atmosphere and natural light.

Transporting work from the university in the pouring rain didn’t particularly hinder the set-up, and by lunch time the following day the show was basically completed and preparations for the Private view began. By 5:30 we’d already had 100 people through the door, and there was a real buzz to the evening, with an estimated 250-300 who came along. The wine and nibbles were gone very quickly, but the Poly allowed us to work alongside them and use their bar to serve extra drinks.

We’re now preparing to do it all again for the second show, which will contain more work with sculpture and audio-visual content, so we’re excited to see how we can shape the show differently in order to accommodate this’.

 

The second half of the exhibition is open to the public 10-5 on Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 March, and 10-1pm on Friday 16th, at The Poly, Church Street, Falmouth.

Shelterbox exhibition by BA(Hons) Drawing Students

BA(Hons) Drawing students from all years are exhibiting work during February and March in the Shelterbox Visitor Centre, Truro.

Course Coordinator & Senior lecturer Isolde Pullum says, ‘The students were very moved by their recent visit to Shelterbox. I think it really hit home to many of them the importance of an immediate response to an emergency situation. The idea to make drawings that could raise money came from them, and the theme of Temporary Housing seemed broad enough to encompass a range of different approaches and ideas.’

‘Also in the exhibition are The History Box drawings, which aim to capture the passage of time by including elements of change and movement within the same drawing. A drawing, unlike a photograph, has the potential to encompass time passing by the artist’s reaction to changes. The staff and students really welcome this opportunity to work with Shelterbox and hope it can be the start an ongoing relationship.’

 

All the drawings on display can be bought, some for as little as £10 each, with all the proceeds going to ShelterBox.  Visitor Experience Assistant Ellie Howell-Round says, ‘This is very generous of the Drawing students, and the artworks are fascinating and thought-provoking. Everyone can empathise with the people that ShelterBox helps, as we all fear extreme weather and appreciate the importance of safety and shelter.’

Keiken Collective – a productive finish to 2017…

Keiken at FOMO

Keiken, a collective of artists comprised of alumni from Falmouth School of Art, co-founded by Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori and Isabel Ramos, have enjoyed success since graduation and regularly provide opportunities for recent graduates and current students to collaborate with them. Autumn and winter 2017 saw Keiken engaged in projects around the UK…  

Keiken performance and installation at Clinic //2

Keiken performance and installation at Clinic //2

Keiken’s performance and installation piece, Silicone_Animism | The Birth of Mother Digital, was presented at Clinic //2 at the Oxo Tower, London, as part of a group show for the London Design Festival. The piece included the collective’s virtual reality film @MotherDigital (Tanya Cruz, Hana Omori, Jess Pemberton, Isabel Ramos, video design by Keiken’s George Stone and sound by Oak Matthias), alongside durational performance accompanied by live sound; a truly visceral atmosphere was created by 700ok (current Falmouth School of Art students Jasper Golding, Auguste Oldham and Zac Pomphrey) using generative code, in conjunction with sound artist Nati Cerutti.

Performers occupied the installation wearing costumes designed by recent graduate, Nine Derricott. Clad in silicone pregnancy bellies and PVC and reflective 3M garments, performers, in reference to the revolution of AI, explored innate feelings of connection usually associated with mother and child, in a world where the human is intertwined with the digital. Current BA(Hons) Fine Art student Alberta Shearing wrote the score and with another student Haruka Fukao performed extraordinarily alongside other performers, Nine Derricott, Kat Cashman, Sian Fan, Monty Fitzgerald, Si Garner, Sam Hall, Coral Knights, Beth Mellet and Julia Mallaby. In November, the film @MotherDigital was transmitted into space by Jon Pettigrew as part of Planet3artnews.

Keiken at Disturbed, Hacked, Reassembled

A group show curated by Drive-Thru at Lewisham Arthouse featured an adaptation of Silicone_Animism | The Birth of Mother Digital, as part of ‘Disturbed, Hacked, Reassembled’, an event which explored how artists are employing technology to stage, interrogate and celebrate the digital female body. Keiken’s interactive installation, again with sound designed by 700ok, used VR, video and sound to trace the birth of the digital; a giant networked space fused with human interaction and technology.

The installation, representative of an office environment, featured a pregnant woman working in Silicon Valley, who has

Agatha Gothe-Snape, Every Artist Remembered with Keiken, 7 October 2017, Frieze London, Regent’s Park, London. Photo: Sofia Freeman/The Commercial, Image courtesy The Commercial, Sydney

relationships with the office furniture in an allegory of Late Capitalism and animism (video design Keiken and George Stone, sound by Nati Cerutti). This adaptation was re-exhibited by Keiken as part of ‘Hervisions’ at Second Home, London.

In other recent projects, Keiken performed in Every Artist Remembered (2017) by Agatha Gothe-Snape at Frieze Art Fair, London; in November they led a performative workshop for Goldsmith University’s BSc Digital Arts Computing, and in a return to Falmouth, they performed at FOMO, the first Falmouth Art Publishing Fair.

In January 2018, Keiken will be hosting a workshop and event under keiken° mind u as part of Vorspiel transmediale, Berlin.

First Year BA(Hons) Drawing – A Pop Up Exhibition.

The first year BA(Hons) Drawing students transformed their studio to create a pop up exhibition, curated by John Howard, Associate Lecturer. The exhibition was held in the drawing studios and featured over 100 drawings from the students’ first term of work and covered a wide range of subjects and artistic techniques.

The students worked together to prepare the space for the exhibition. First year student Maria Meekings felt that this process shifted the collective vision from viewing their work as practice pieces, to viewing the pieces in their own right and she was excited to get feedback on her work. “Being able to present work to fellow practitioners and the wider public is gratifying in that it helps you understand that as an artist you are part of a community and that your work exists in a context of both other pieces of art and as something which others can take pleasure or interest in, and not merely as art for its own sake.”

The exhibition also prompted discussion among the students about what they had learnt during this first term of immersion, their response to each-others’ pieces and the aspects of the course that they had most enjoyed so far. Maria says “Being able to explore a variety of techniques and viewpoints has been quite fascinating and useful I feel to understand myself as an artist and the work I want to produce. I think that the understanding in many ways is just as important as the work I’ve produced, if not more, as that is part of my future while each piece finished is automatically assigned to my past.

Reflecting on the process of drawing, Senior Lecturer Peter Skerrett considers that it can be a very introspective activity. “Having the opportunity to share this practice with a wider audience enables the students to see their work from a critical distance, almost like encountering it for the first time. This increases their ability to understand their own and their colleagues work from a more critical and reflective viewpoint.”

Isolde Pullum, Course Coordinator for BA(Hons) Drawing, was impressed with the students’ professional manner and the way in which they worked together to put the show up in a very short space of time. She was also delighted with the quality of the drawings produced so early in the course, during which time they have created work on location during study visits to Tresco on the Isles of Scilly, The National Trust’s Trelissick, Trebah Garden and Paradise Park wildlife sanctuary. They also visited ShelterBox in Truro to prepare for an upcoming project for next term.

There will be more opportunities for the students to develop their professional practice and to exhibit their work, as future exhibitions are planned for the Fox Café on the Falmouth Campus.

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Student exhibition responds to Venice Biennale…

BA(Hons) Drawing and BA(Hons) Fine Art students recently returned from a study visit together to the Venice Biennale, and responded by creating a student-led pop-up exhibition in the attic of Falmouth Campus’s Belmont Studios. Work included drawing, painting, print, photography, sculpture and installation.

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Artist Peter Matthews visits BA(Hons) Drawing

Artist Peter Matthews visited BA(Hons) Drawing in October to give a talk about his work and run a two-day Experiential Drawing workshop with first year students. Peter makes work in the oceans, but the drawing students found interest in the shoreline and shallow waters off Gyllyngvase Beach.

Utopia and dystopia at Kestle Barton

Students from BA(Hons) Fine Art, BA(Hons) Architecture and BA(Hons) Creative Writing came together for a 1 day collaborative project at Kestle Barton, a rural centre for contemporary art on Frenchman’s Creek in Cornwall.

Students explored themes of utopia and dystopia in the current show Kestle Barton exhibition, Togetherness: Notes on Outrage. Curator Ben James opened up questions for debate relating to a post industrial landscape; students discussed the themes in small groups before setting out into the landscape of Kestle Barton and its beautiful gardens to make artworks in response to place.

Students took a documentary approach, walking though the landscape gathering a sense of the environment, generating fiction and narrative about Kestle Barton. In small, mixed discipline teams, recording the soundscape of place with high-tech sound equipment that picked up frequencies within the earth, students walked, talked, made drawings, collected sound and film footage which informed their discussions about their relationship to place and site. BA(Hons) Fine Art Senior Lecturer Lucy Willow, said ‘The warm autumn day provided the perfect opportunity for students to explore the possibilities of working off campus, away from the studio, with students from different creative subjects, finding common ground within their practice’.

BA(Hons) Fine Art student Alex Maclachlan shared some thoughts about the day…

‘Kestle Barton was a very refreshing experience for me, and I am very grateful to have gone. The idea that we would be exploring the theme of Utopia/Dystopia throughout is what drew my initial interest in the trip and yet the day turned out to have many more advantages than just aiding me in my current practice. For some time I’ve been eager to partner up with students on other courses at Falmouth, and [this study visit] extended me the opportunity to do just that…By the end of the day, some really interesting collaborative work had been produced among creative writers, architects and fine artists. We were exceedingly lucky with the weather, and the gentle conversation among students, tutors and Kestle Barton staff was all the more effortless because of it. We talked as we walked about the gardens in the sun, enjoyed the homemade lunch provided, all on top of the time dedicated to serious discussion…it was lovely to indulge in casual debate away from the elevated pressure you might find on campus or perhaps the more serious atmosphere you may find in the studio. This was an experience that I would happily participate in again’.

On at Kestle Barton until 4 November 2017, Togetherness: Notes on Outrage celebrates the pioneering work of the architecture critic Ian Nairn, whose 1955 edition of Architectural Review, entitled Outrage, revolutionised architectural criticism. For Outrage, Nairn traveled across England observing and documenting the urban sprawl and ubiquitous civic architecture. Broken into 25-mile segments, Outrage proposes an audit of every facet of subtopian aesthetics, covering subjects ranging from wire fencing, telegraph poles and street lights, to military installations and power stations, culminating in a manifesto and checklist of planning malpractices.

Illustration students collaborate with local school children to create exciting mural

Lucy Rivers, Sonja Burniston and Iola McCorkindale, BA(Hons) Illustration students at Falmouth were given the opportunity to work with a local School, Truro Learning Academy, to create a mural for their School during the Summer break.

Lucy said of the project “Once we got a small brief from Jon (Thrive Lead – Senior Leader at Truro), we went into the school to work with the children to generate some ideas on Friendship, Trees and Murals…It was such an amazing learning experience and we have made some really fantastic friends over at Truro Learning Academy.

Jon was so generous, on the last day, Iola, Sonja and I were all invited into assembly and we were given flowers and a gift card and all the children sang for us, it was so lovely, hopefully we can work with them again on future projects!”

To find out more about what our Illustration students are up to at Falmouth, head over to the Illustration course blog here

Sophie Wright, BA(Hons) Fine Art student – new exhibition

Final year BA(Hons) Fine Art student Sophie Wright, has and exhibition opening in Penryn on 5 August, with fellow artist and student Rebecca Pearce-Davies. Heretics of the Mundane runs until 26 August, and all are welcome to the Private View from 6pm on 4 August.

https://www.facebook.com/HereticsoftheMundane/ 

Crafting the Cathedral – BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts Exhibition

 

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‘Crafting the Cathedral’ brings together for exhibition contemporary craft artefacts, created and designed as a personal response to Truro Cathedral by invited third year students from Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts course.

The responses to Truro Cathedral – its stunning architecture, history and purpose as a place of worship – has led to an engaging mix of small and large-scale art works.

BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts has long worked closely with a range of external partners, exploring new ways of engaging audiences with objects and places.

‘It’s been a really important, demanding, yet rewarding challenge to create interpretive objects that live up to the building, the people and items that live there’, says Jason Cleverly, Senior Lecturer on the course. ‘Many of the Cathedral’s artefacts carry great metaphorical power and some fascinating and unusual stories – we hope you will enjoy the students’ responses to the building’.

Truro Cathedral is keen to provide opportunities for students to creatively explore the building, its artefacts and how it is connected to the wider community.

Kirsten Gordon, Education & Schools Officer, commented, ‘We have found the students’ approach to their brief to be interesting and incredibly varied, demonstrating technical skill and creativity. It is a valuable experience for us to see with fresh eyes the many different facets of cathedral life which speak on so many more levels than we perhaps see at first glance’.

Lizzie Arthur, Truro Cathedral’s Education and Interpretation Officer and graduate of the Contemporary Crafts course added, ‘We hope that our visitors enjoy the students’ personal responses to Truro Cathedral. Such exhibitions challenge the audience to look more closely at the familiar, inspiring both the cathedral community and our visitors’.

Crafting The Cathedral is on at Truro Cathedral, 2-16 February (Monday-Saturday 10-15, Sunday 12-4) Entry is free.

First years present – “BAD Drawing”

 

BAD DRAWING

The first exhibition of works by Falmouth University’s current first year BA(Hons) Drawing students.

This show reveals the process and product of first year studies of BA(Hons) Drawing at Falmouth University. With the view that drawing remains an important part of contemporary art practice and wider culture as a whole, these students have adopted a broad and in-depth perspective to demonstrate unique insight into drawing practice today.

Curated entirely by the students, there will be over 30 works, displaying a wide variety of technical and cultural influences.

Zoe Pearce and Falmouth School of Art receive awards from the British Art Medal Society

© Zoe Pearce, front of medal

One of our BA(Hons) Fine Art students, Zoe Pearce, recently received the Tin Plate Company prize from the British Art Medal Society for her medal design It is July on the Moorlands: Took the wrong path when descending a 520-metre high sandstone hill.

Zoe describes her work below:

“Since entering the 2015 BAMS Student Medal competition, I really enjoyed learning the medal making progress, as well as the concept behind the medal. I have therefore continued medal making, incorporating it alongside my painting practice as well as going on to enter the 2016 BAMS Student Medal competition.

My artistic practice explores the relationship we have to the natural world, creating artworks that encourage viewers to reflect upon their understanding and observation of the physical world that surrounds us; but it isn’t without experiencing elements of the natural world for myself that I am able to understand our reality within it. Through walking within the landscape I am exposing myself to the elements of weather, light, change in temperature, and sense of space, that are all qualities of nature that have begun to inform the creation of my art medal.

In my work so far, it has been the vast and desolate British Moorland that has provided me with much of my inspiration, revealing that through my experience of walking through such open ground it is hard not to feel small and alone when surrounded by what seems such infinite space. The medal presents a place where I have walked within the landscape on one side, and the reverse featuring a figure, which is a representation of myself, which if placed on the side of the landscape would be positioned looking out into the distance. Although the subtle bronze landscape might not appear obvious to anyone where this place is, I still have no intention on giving away the exact location, instead, I have used the title in which to hint but not tell, supplying the viewer with a poetic fact of the landscape combined with an aspect of my experience there.”

© Zoe Pearce, reverse of medal

It has also been announced that the 2016 BAMS President Medal will be awarded to Falmouth School of Art.  The BAMS President Medal is awarded annually to individuals and organisations who have made significant contributions to the understanding, appreciation and encouragement of the art of the medal.

2nd Year BA(Hons) Fine Art Shows

Please join us to view the Second Year BA(Hons) Fine Art Shows, currently exhibiting on the Falmouth Campus in the Project Space.

From painting to performance, from sculpture to sewing, this exhibition guarantees a wide range of displayed practices from all mediums and methods.

Work from 2nd Year students have been separated into three individual groups, works will be exhibited for a limited time of one week each until another set of works are revealed.  This constant change from show to show will keep viewers on their toes as they begin to decipher the distinctive individuality of each practising artist, as well as understanding their collated bond as an exhibiting year group. Come along and find out for yourself.

Cafe Morte ‘Lost For Words’ Exhibition Review by Megan Fatharly

BA(Hons) Drawing student, Megan Fatharly, has reviewed the Café Morte Lost for Words exhibition on her blog: Megan’s Art Space

CAFÉ MORTE presents: Lost For Words, Exhibition 6-10 January

CAFÉ MORTE presents: Lost For Words

FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY PROJECT SPACE (Falmouth Campus)

6-10 January 10am-4pm (Private View 6 January 16-9pm)

Lost for Words is a culmination of the work of Café Morte to engage in and encourage discussion around the subject of death with a wider community of artists, curators and healthcare professionals.  It has been curated with the intention of creating a thoughtful and contemplative space for both artists and audience to reflect on their own personal interpretations of death and how it is represented in art and literature. The works are varied, expressed through a variety of different media and address through physical means the often unthinkable concept of absence and loss.

Exhibiting artists: Bram Arnold, Ed Ashby-Hater, Nicola Bealing, Regan Boyce, Neil Chapman, Esther Cooper-Gittens, Kerry Foster, Glad Fryer, Tanith Gould, Joanna Hulin, Sasha Knezevic, Angela Lloyd, Polly Maxwell, Neil McLeod, Janet McEwan, Lucille Moore, Eloise Pilbeam, Viola Qian, Andrew Ross, Edward Rowe, Jessica Russell, Carolyn Shapiro, Chris Slesser, Kate Southworth, Tabitha Tohill-Reid & Joshua Green, Virginia Verran, Belinda Whiting, Lucy Willow, Sandi Williams, Gillian Wylde.

CAFE MORTE is a pop up research group established at Falmouth University in 2014.  Inspired by the recent surge of death cafes across Europe, our aim is to identify themes and ideas relating to death and dying, mourning, transience, ritual and how these translate into contemporary art practice.

Café Morte’s Lost for Words exhibition is a collaborative project with MOTH, a research group which, through the discipline of Graphic Design, explores visual language associated with death and end-of-life experiences – creating visual ‘toolkits’ (analogue and digital) as devices for change in attitudes, conventions and context surrounding death issues.

You may also be interested in:

MOTH Talks: In the face of death – 8 January 2016 | Falmouth Campus, Fox 4 Lecture Theatre, 1.30pm-5pm

Guest Speakers:

Stephen Cave |Writer, critic and philosopher, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization (2013, Biteback)

Prof. Tony Walter | Head of the CDAS, (Centre for Death and Society at Bath University) Sociologist

Joseph Macleod | Designer, Closure Experiences

 

Acrobats come to Drawing Studios

Two young acrobats from Theatre Disparu recently visited the BA(Hons) Drawing studios to model for students. Kesha and Joel worked through a series of balances and routines and students had to work quickly as some of the poses were very hard to hold. Portrait is by Ralph Nel, second year Drawing Student.

The Big Draw at Falmouth

Read about last week’s Big Draw project at the Falmouth Campus, on falmouthillustrationblog.com

“The week had been meticulously organised by  senior lecturer Linda Scott and involved workshops from MA student Poppy Robinson and Illustration lecturer Nick Mott and a daily reading from Moby Dick by fine art lecturer Gillian Wylde….” (click for more!)

Staff and students from BA(Hons) Fine Art take part in Goonhilly Village Green

Staff and students from BA(Hons) Fine Art recently took part in Goonhilly Village Green an event supported by Arts Council England and led by artists Sara Bowler, Elizabeth Masterton, and curators Field Notes to celebrate the unique landscape, history and culture of the Goonhilly Downs on the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, UK.

Goonhilly has no central village and most of its residents live around the edge of the Downs. The aim of Goonhilly Village Green was to draw together this diverse range of people and interests to meet, talk, learn and play on a temporary village green on the Downs; to find common ground on the common land of National Nature Reserve. The event opened with a musical procession from Cornish dancer ScootsKernow and continued with workshops in writing, bushcraft and natural craft; a guided archaeological walk; the Village Green Society Lecture programme; film screenings of Ian Helliwell’s ‘Practical Electronica’ and Liminal’s ‘Of This Parish’.

Throughout the day, bells rang out from a bell-tower created by artists Liminal, on a village green specially created for the event by Natural England. Liminal is a partnership between architect Frances Crow and sound artist and composer David Prior. Frances works as Senior Lecturer, Architecture at Falmouth University and David is Associate Professor in Music and Sound Art. For more about the project see here: 

A solar furnace created for the event by artists Andy Webster and Darren Ray was a focal point for discussions around renewable energy, tribute d.i.y. acts, and the ad-hoc as a dissenting practice. Andy works as Senior Lecturer, Fine Art in the School of Art. Darren graduated from BA Fine Art in 2015.

Replication of Arlene’s Solar Furnace 2009, Darren Ray & Andy Webster

On Friday 25th September, the event hosted a special day for children from the primary schools of the Keskowethyans Multi-Academy Trust, who took part in workshops, devised by artists Liminal and supported by the National Trust Wild Lizard Rangers.

This was the fifth project that Sara Bowler and Lizzie Masterton have developed at the Goonhilly site and aimed to lay the groundwork for a larger village green event to take place in 2016. For more information please visit: Goonhilly Village Green

Printmaking Students and Staff Exhibit in China

Falmouth School of Art printmaking students and staff took part in an art project with Norwich University. The resulting work is being published and exhibited at the Impact 9 International conference at The China Academy of Arts in Hangzhou this week from the 22nd until the 26th of September. 

The project is a collaborative portfolio of limited edition works produced in response to a broad theme in a 35cm x 25cm format which is produced to tie in with the IMPACT conferences (International Multi-disciplinary Printmaking, Artists, Concepts and Techniques).

‘The aim remains to promote the democracy of printed multiples and to provide scope for cultural exchange. It has also provided impetus for students to engage with print methods and materials, both digital and manual…Art schools that have sensibly held on to their print workshops are now in a position to embrace the hybrid nature of print and to make works that embrace the relaxed mode of existence and production within the post internet landscape… This year staff and students from Falmouth University have joined us at Norwich University of The Arts in a collaborative venture. With Norwich in the extreme east of the UK and Falmouth near the westerly extremity of the country. East / West unfolds as a metaphor encompassing relative distance and geographic location. Taking into account the exposition of the finished project at Impact 9 International Printmaking Conference at the China Academy of Arts, Hangzhou in September 201, the metaphor takes on a global significance’. 

Carl Rowe , Course Leader BA Fine Art, Norwich University of the Arts 2015. 

Here’s a link to the work on show: INTERNATIONAL PRINT PORTFOLIO

Plasizmo – Exhibition by collaborating Fine Art students

PLASIZMO is a collaborative contemporary art exhibition at Back Lane West, Redruth, created by two of our graduating students from BA(Hons) Fine Art.

 

Rosie McGinn and Gareth Wilde were selected to participate in the Back Lane West residency programme in conjunction with the Falmouth School of Art. The one month residency has provided support, space and time for the artists to continue the development of their fine art practices on graduating.

Back Lane West is an artist-led residency, project and meeting space in Redruth, Cornwall. Its aims are to support and encourage critically engaged visual art practice and artists’ professional development, while contributing to the growth of a nationally and internationally connected, cultural community and network in the South West.

PLASIZMO will take place at Back Lane West, Redruth on Friday 26th June, 7-10pm.

Back Lane West is a short walk from both rail and bus links.

BA(Hons) Drawing students on placement

BA(Hons) Drawing students had the opportunity of a work placement at the Cornwall Morphology and Drawing Centre, CAST Studios, in Helston.  This project creates a space to explore artistic and scientific practices, especially drawing and artistic fieldwork, as ways of knowing the natural world.

Gemma Anderson, in the centre of the picture, is an alumna of Falmouth School of Art.

Exploring the Natural World through Drawing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BA(Hons) Drawing students compare micro and macro zoological specimens with Associate Lecturer Gemma Anderson at Exeter University’s Bioscience Lab at Penryn Campus

Circadian Rhythms

A wonderful day exploring Circadian Rhythms with 30+ BA(Hons) Drawing and BA(Hons) Dance students at Falmouth University – a collaboration between Gemma Anderson (Drawing Lecturer) and Katrina Brown (Dance Lecturer) and students.

BA(Hons) Drawing and Truro School students collaborate

Falmouth School of Art is pleased to announce a joint drawing exhibition between Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Drawing students, and students from Truro School, at Truro School’s Heseltine Gallery.

The Big Draw workshop at The Heseltine Gallery

Students from both institutions collaborated in a workshop to celebrate The Big Draw 2014. The workshop was creative and exciting and presented students with the opportunity to collaborate on a large scale drawing project.

Also featured at The Heseltine Gallery is work by Falmouth’s Drawing students from their touring exhibition, Scope, which comes to Truro following display at the RKB Gallery in London, and The Ariel Centre in Totnes.

Exhibition open Saturday 21 November to Saturday 29 November inclusive | Saturdays 10-5pm; Monday to Friday 5-7pm

BA(Hons) Drawing and The National Trust

BA Drawing students at The National Trust Poltesco

BA(Hons) Drawing Senior Lecturer Peter Skerrett took a group of BA Drawing students to meet Ranger Rachel Holder from the National Trust at Poltesco, a hidden valley on the Lizard’s east coast. Rachel has invited our students to design a wall drawing to be digitally printed onto plastic boards and permanently installed in a recently renovated barn that is to become a new Visitor Centre.

The project will be run as a student competition, with the resulting mural to appear on the wall pictured behind the students, left. The mural will reflect the local history of pilchard fishing.

Memento Mori

10 BA(Hons) Fine Art students have been working in pairs with BA(Hons) Graphic Design students, responding creatively to mortality and how this is translated in visual terms. They have produced a Vanitas / memento mori object, image, in response to the notion that we are all mortal considering  the relevance/irrelevance of the traditional metaphors associated with death.

The project is interested in the aesthetics of death, the educational implications of this and the design potential for the context it might serve, questioning the ideology of Deathists and Immortalists; how we might contemplate our own future as being either finite or immortal; the notion that we either simply cease to be or that we can live forever through a spiritual, genetic or cultural legacy.

MOTH is a research project initiated by Nikki Salkeld and Ashley Rudolf, Senior Lecturers on Falmouth’s BA(Hons) Graphic Design course. It looks at the Design of Death, respecting traditional and conventional associations with death and mourning, along with contemporary attitudes and anxieties and how design might instigate and support this process, encouraging us to talk about death with greater confidence and understanding.

Fine Art’s Nicola Kerslake awarded prize for ‘cutting edge’ medal

Nicola Kerslake, a student on BA(Hons) Fine Art, has been awarded a prize, presented by the Worshipful Company of Cutlers for a ‘cutting edge’ medal, titled You Will Be My Death.  Nicola describes her medal as “a statement on how nature is deadly to humans; yet at the same time humans are equally as harming to the natural world.  This is shown by the flip side of the medal.  The Hemlock flower depicted on one side of the medal is poisonous if consumed by humans.  On the other side, the Hemlock’s root system suffers, entwined with human’s rubbish, sewage pipes and cables.”

The Student Medal Project, which is now in its 21st year, is run by The British Art Medal Society (BAMS), and is based at the British Museum.  Nicola’s medal is currently included in the exhibition in The New Ashgate Gallery: Farnham, Hold It!  The Art of The Modern Medal:  British Art Medal Society Student Medal Project.  08 March – 19 April 2014.

(c) Nicola Kerslake – You Will Be My Death

(c) Nicola Kerslake – You Will Be My Death

 

Spatial Illusion workshop for BA(Hons) Drawing students

Discussions and practical exercises took place in a recent measurement workshop about the problems of accurately translating the three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface.

Using acetate to find the picture plane and analysing the differences between binocular and single eye vision were just some of the issues raised in the workshop for first and second year BA(Hons) Drawing students.

Drawing the Museum

First year BA(Hons) Drawing students and tutors Isolde Pullum and Peter Skerrett spent the day at the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, drawing from the Rashleigh Collection of rocks and minerals, as well the museum’s other collections.

Student Emma Abel said, ‘It was fascinating to view the fossils and rock specimens and also the reconstructions of the settlements.  Most interesting was the rhinoceros tooth. It’s great to have a drawing resource like this just a train ride from Falmouth.’

Drawing and Biosciences

First year BA(Hons) Drawing students have recently been involved in a data collection project run by Falmouth alumna Gemma Anderson – The Natural World. Students worked on both the Falmouth and Penryn campuses and spent a day at the University of Exeter’s Biosciences Lab at the Penryn Campus, working from the collections.

Gemma said of the project, ‘today in the Biosciences Lab was really exciting – especially having the group mixed from Drawing and Bioscience students. We had a great discussion at the end. Most students said they would like to visit the  labs again to continue the drawing study, and would also like to work with the Bioscience students again. The Exeter students also expressed great interest in joining BA Drawing activity and were keen to collaborate with the drawing students – I feel a project coming on!’

Drawing Falmouth Docks in November

Early November sunshine allowed first year BA(Hons) Drawing students to draw the amazing panorama of Falmouth docks in relative warmth.

This is one a series of tough observational challenges all BA Drawing students are expected to undertake.

BA(Hons) Drawing students exhibit in London

2nd year BA Drawing students at R K Burt Gallery, London

Second year BA(Hons) Drawing students had their first taste of exhibiting their work in London at the beginning of October, when they presented a showcase of their work at the RK Burt Gallery in Union Street, timed to coincide with nearby drawing shows at the Jerwood Gallery and the Society for Graphic Fine Art.

Thanks go to Clifford Burt, of RK Burt’s Paper Suppliers, for making the students so welcome, and for once again providing BA(Hons) Drawing with an excellent gallery space to show in.

This course followed their London exhibition with a show of work by second and third year students at the Ariel Centre at King Edward VI Community College in Totnes.

Jamie Stenhouse’s work, shown at the Ariel Centre, Totnes

BA(Hons) Drawing – Day 1…

The first day of the new year and BA(Hons) Drawing has a full cohort of three years of students for the very first time. All three years meet and undertake a drawing project together, the first of a series of portraits which will be added to as the year progresses.

There is a buzz in the room, this feels significant… only a few months now before we have our first graduates…

 

Exhibition – RAW Drawing

Second year BA(Hons) Drawing students showcase their first year work in London, presenting RAW Drawing.

Drawing as a discipline in its own right was introduced at Falmouth in 2011 and offers a pure education in drawing, encompassing a wide range of approaches, traditions and applications. Phil Naylor, Head of Drawing & Foundation Studies said, “We believe that drawing sits right at the centre of visual practice, a core subject that encapsulates the essentials of the visual arts, but also translates across the broader terrain of science, technology and the wider cultural world.”

This show will consist of a diverse, unique and beautiful collection of drawings ranging from architectural design, nature studies and realism to psychological exploration, experimentation and surrealism.

Included will be work by Taylor Bates, Sarah Butler, Theo Crutchley-Mack, Rory Farwell, Nicolai Freberg , Nina Garratley, Olive Haigh, Charlotte Jaffer, Reuben Quatermass, Feargal Shiels, Jamie Stenhouse, Celia Storm, Stefan Tiburcio, Carys Trace, Jessica Willan and Tom Wood.

Open 10.00 – 16.00 Monday – Friday only. Admission free.

Tuesday 8 October 2013 10.00 to Friday 18 October 2013 16.00

Work by Carys Trace