Forward MA Jewellery, Silversmithing and Related Product is the title of the course, which the students featured in this catalogue have experienced. This is however a very limited and traditional description when one considers the wide variety of products that are within the province of the designer who has knowledge and expertise in the area of personal ornamentation, body signification, decorative and functional objects. The variety of materials, manufacturing techniques and processes available to an artist or designer in this field is far larger and of much greater potential than is indicated by the term ‘jewellery and silversmithing’ and has some affinities with industrial design, fashion design, fine art and sculpture and is often informed by intellectual engagements with general philosophy, strategies of conceptualisation or investments in critical theory. Our post-graduate course philosophy enables practitioners to address existing and potentially new relationships within this subject area, and encourages them to recognize, understand and operate within its diversity. The philosophy of the course is embodied within a structured programme that requires students to address vocational and academic research in design by applying their developing abilities and interests to a wide range of issues. Looking through this catalogue it will be obvious that we welcome and celebrate a multi-cultural learning environment. Our students come from many diverse backgrounds, whether cultural, economic, political or educational, to engage with a ‘new’ and international learning community. We believe that students with such experience will be better prepared to forge professional links in a global culture and economy in an ever faster changing world. Employability, market positioning and professional practice, together with career planning for designers, artists or production managers, are essential and are recurrently emphasized aspects of the course experience and learning requirements, aiming to provide tooling for a sustainable creative practice. The postgraduate students featured in this catalogue have undergone an intense process of reviewing and advancing their reflective creative practices and developed their distinct artistic positions. At the beginning of the course ideas were generated and over the year of the programme these ideas were questioned, transformed, de-constructed and re-constructed, interpreted and finally realised. Problem solving, together with intense material research, skill development and, of course, questions of wearability and functionality needed to be addressed. Finally, each maker generated a body of work that demonstrates integrity of artistic enquiry, skill and sensitivity to materials and processes. Each body of work in its own right expresses new knowledge and understanding found, exhibits confidence in using artistic strategies and is thus adding another voice to the discipline.
Professor Jivan Astfalck