FAH Faculty of Arts and Humanities Digital Magazine
Contents Coventry Degree Shows
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School of Art and Design 6 School of Humanities
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School of Media and Performing Arts
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Graduation 12 Getting into photography: Anthony Luvera 14 Spotlight on Interior Design 18 Spotlight on English
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Congratulations on your offer to study at Coventry University. This magazine is your chance to find out more about everything that goes on in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities and some of the exciting things our students have been getting up to over the last year.
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Coventry Degree Shows
If you choose to study here at Coventry University you'll have plenty of opportunities to showcase your creative work, no matter what course you're studying within the Faculty. One of our most-anticipated events is the series of Degree Shows that take place from May to September. The Degree Shows are an annual event to celebrate and showcase your work as you aspire to make your mark in the creative world. There's a range of events going on throughout the Degree Shows, including an industry night for potential employers and a friends and family event to celebrate your achievements. Not only will you exhibit in the University and across Coventry - such as the Belgrade Theatre, FarGo Village and on the catwalk in Square One, some students will have the opportunity to head to London and showcase their work at Free Range and New Designers in the Summer.
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Watch our Degree Shows highlights from last year
Plans are already well underway for our 2017 Shows from exploring ideas, finding suitable materials and space to fundraising events.
Want to see them for yourself? No need to book, just turn up! Our Degree Shows are open to everyone on 27 May - allowing you to drop in at a time that suits you, across multiple locations. Find out more at www.coventry.ac.uk/degreeshows Unable to come along? Follow us on Twitter and Instagram #covdegreeshows to get involved
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School of Art and Design Graphic Designer’s artwork hits the silver screen Neil Tung, a third year Graphic Design student at Coventry University, won a competition to have his poster displayed in cinemas after coming up with his modern twist on 1995 anime film, Ghost in the Shell. Launched by blog site Manga UK, the competition called for a poster to advertise a one-nightonly screening of the original film in January, ahead of the UK release of a live action remake in the spring. “The course at Coventry University definitely helped me create work like this throughout my three years here. The teaching staff taught me new skills and have great resources, they were also the people to tell us about this competition, which lots of people on the course entered.” Neil Tung
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Graduates pick up multiple Car Design Awards Two BA Automotive Design with Industry Enhancement graduates from Coventry University have between them been commended in five of the ten categories at the Car Design Awards 2016. This year’s contest included 421 entries submitted by students at 41 universities. Bart de Graaff’s cocoon-like autonomous car design was judged the best from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and placed second in the overall ‘2016 Student Design of the Year, sponsored by Optic Group and Best Innovative Interior’. On top of this, the design came third in the ‘Best Lighting Concept’ category. Tomas Omasta won the ‘Best Exterior Design sponsored by IAT’ award for his ‘Volanti’ concept, a helicopter interior for the Jaguar brand. Tomas was also commended for the presentation of his work, placing second in the ‘Best Visual & Graphic Presentation’ category.
Designer takes on women’s rights for catwalk success A creative Coventry fashion student has wowed judges to be named Young Designer of the Year after taking women’s rights with a cultural twist onto the catwalk. Final-year Fashion student Ren Wong beat hundreds of hopefuls to the top spot at the annual Clothes Show Live awards in December with a 21st century fashion twist on the life of Chinese empress Wu Zetian. The empress was recognised as a king during her reign - something Ren said he wanted to celebrate and show off with his garment which merged royal and gender-specific colours with traditional feminine patterns.
As well as scooping the £1,000 prize, Ren’s winning collection will also now feature in the upcoming Bright Young Things 2017 campaign. “I was so happy to be nominated, I can’t believe I was one of the finalists let alone the winner. It is a fantastic feeling and a great beginning for my career which will motivate me to do better and better. People think of fashion, trend and design all based on the Western culture. But I believe every culture has its own beauty which is why I decided to combine Chinese style in my garments.” Ren Wong, final year Fashion student
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School of Humanities Sociologists’ new creative research project
Images: Coventry band The Specials (top) and Swedish musician Benjamin Folke Thomas (bottom). Students will interview these artists and attend their shows as part of their project.
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Sociology students will be conducting a micro sociological project in Coventry and Gothenburg at the end of the term, and exhibiting their projects in a Coventry art gallery.
The projects will all be self-directed, with on-site guidance from Dr. Joshua Paul, Dr. Charlotte Butler and Dr. Geraldine Hammersley in Gothenburg and Ben Kyneswood and Dr. Paul Campbell in Coventry.
The project is designed as part of the Research Methods module to complement the students’ theoretical learning by allowing them to apply these methods to 'real world' sociological topics. Half of the team will conduct a project in Coventry and half in Gothenburg. In groups of 10 they will research one of the following themes:
The students will also create a photo poster using their research project to engage with the methodological movement to make Sociology more public and artistic. The photos will be exhibited in the Glass Box Gallery in Coventry in May.
• the refugee crisis • industrial heritage • cultural politics • urban planning • city markets • post-industrial decline
History students discover a talent for filmmaking History students have helped to create a feature length film called Looking for Charlie, a documentary about Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and the suicidal clowns who inspired them. The trailer for this film is out now:
Get involved in creative writing There are opportunities for students from every course to get involved in creative writing at Coventry University. Coventry Words (CovWords) first started out as a society, then a magazine which has expanded into a website for all the writers of Coventry University to join. At CovWords you can find creative writing submissions like flash fiction and radio dramas as well as articles and competitions. It is run and edited by student union group CovWords Magazine Society. The latest edition includes an exclusive interview with Benjamin Zephaniah, and poetry from the latest winner of the annual ÂŁ1,000 Fred Holland Poetry Prize.
Looking for Charlie
Students have also been exploring oral history and current affairs in America. They travelled to New York to create a documentary about The Donald Trump Effect, as seen by the people of New York City. Watch their work for yourself:
No matter what you study, if you enjoy writing and meeting new friends join the CovWords Magazine Society.
The Donald Trump Effect
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School of Media and Performing Arts Theatre students’ award-winning Shakespeare project Coventry University students have been performing Shakespeare alongside Finnish students 1,129 miles away using a specially-designed wall-size ‘Shakespeare portal’. This allows students from Coventry and the University of Tampere to share a virtual rehearsal space. They can make eye contact and see and speak with their fellow performers with virtually no delays. First tested through the Coriolanus Online project, the immersive rehearsal room uses a mix of stage and video conferencing technologies mirrored on both sides of the North Sea. The pioneering technology has already made a major impact and was a recipient of an international Reimagine Education Award in December. The project continued in February and March 2017 with the groups of students working together in online rehearsals before the Coventry University students flew out to Finland to stage a version of King Lear using a repurposed Elizabethan stage.
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Students seeing the Upside of Coventry life Lots of students set up bands while they’re at Coventry University, current student Callum Maciver tells us about his, The Upsiders. “It began with myself (Singer/Ukulele), Nathan (Melodica/ Accordion) and Chris (Bass Guitar) in Madrid where we began playing music together for one of our Erasmus year assignments instigated by jamming sessions in the Spanish sun. Upon returning to Coventry to continue our Music studies we collaborated with our course mate David (Guitar) and Civil Engineering student Ryan (Cajon) and thus The Upsiders was formed in October 2015. See The Upsiders in action
Since then we have performed at a variety of venues, including Kasbah and Welford Road Stadium for a whole array of events from private functions and weddings to a recent collaboration with the Talking Birds theatre company in aid of the Coventry City of Culture bid. We are also using our course acquired skill in Music Composition to write and produce our debut EP.”
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Graduation
“Queen of Ska” receives honorary degree Pauline Black, lead singer of The Selecter, received an honorary degree in November, 45 years after moving to Coventry to study at Lanchester Polytechnic (which became Coventry University in 1992). The honorary Doctor of Arts is in recognition of a career that has seen her create platinum-selling albums and an award-winning autobiography. Pauline told the University: "I’m really proud of being associated with Coventry, as a city and a University, and was humbled and honoured when it was suggested I would receive this degree. I’m committed to the city, especially the 2021 City of Culture bid and will do all I can to make that happen.”
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Congratulations to the Class of 2016 It’s been a busy few months for the students who graduated in 2016, here’s what just a few graduates have been getting up to. Four Fine Art graduates were chosen to exhibit in New Art West Midlands, the region’s largest showcase of emerging contemporary artists. Rob Hamp also won a £1,000 prize, awarded at the exhibition opening at the MAC in Birmingham. Roshan Gunga, 2016 Music Composition graduate, is one of only eight students in the world offered a place on a Masters in Composing for Film and Television at the National Film and Television School. The NFTS has been described by The Observer as ‘the best film school in the world’. Sophie Gordon won the prestigious Midlands Young Designer of the Year award at the Midlands Fashion Awards in October, just months after finishing her Fashion degree.
Coventry student turned Hollywood visual effects guru You may not have heard of Coventry alumnus Christopher Townsend, but there’s a good chance you’ve seen his films. Chris received an honorary degree in 2015 in recognition of his outstanding work in film-related visual effects, and he told us this was just as exciting for him as his Oscar and BAFTA nominations! After graduating with a degree in Graphic Design from Coventry Polytechnic in 1988, Chris worked at George Lucas’ visual effects company before becoming a freelance visual effects supervisor. His résumé includes superhero flicks Avengers: Age of Ultron, Iron Man 3 (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award at the 2014 Oscars) and Captain America: The First Avenger alongside swashbuckling fantasy Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow. Chris told us what he thinks of this award: “I’ve had an amazing career in the film industry and am fortunate enough to have been nominated for both an Oscar and a BAFTA but I can honestly say I’m just as thrilled to be recommended for this honorary degree by Coventry University.
Image: Danny Choo
This is where I set out on a journey that would eventually lead to Hollywood - in fact the degree course I studied here was one of the early adopters of computer graphics, which of course play a big part in visual effects – so I’m very happy to be returning to collect this award.”
Chris Townsend
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Getting into photography: Anthony Luvera Many of our academics originally came from industry and Anthony Luvera, Course Director for BA Photography is no stranger to the ‘ins and outs’ of the photography industry. We interviewed him to ask where his passion for photography came from; about his recent projects and for his tips on taking self-portraits. Where did your love of photography start? When I was 14 years old a teacher at school gave some equipment to my best friend and me, and we set up darkrooms in the bathrooms of our homes. We taught ourselves how to develop film and print black and white photographs, we then began advertising photography courses in our local newspaper. We soon had adults arriving at the front door looking rather confused when they realised they’d signed up to be taught photography by two teenage boys! A few years later I applied to go to university to study a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. I did an option module in Photography and was so inspired by the photography lecturers that I changed my program of study to BA Photomedia. From that moment on I saw myself as a photographer - not just a student and threw myself into the course and my career. What is the most memorable project you’ve completed so far? Why? This is a tough question. I have had a varied portfolio career as a photographer for over twenty years. I’ve worked in fashion, theatre, commercial photography, art, documentary and education. It’s the work I’ve been doing since 2002 with homeless people in cities and towns across the UK – including London, Belfast, Colchester and Brighton – that is at the core of my practice now. Assembly is a project of mine working with over 50 homeless people living in Brighton between 2013 and 2014. This body of work is composed of photographs made by participants, Assisted Self-Portraits, digital sound recordings, and an installation of research about support services provided by councils across the UK. I even worked with a community choir of people recovering from addiction issues and homelessness as part of this project which was great fun! Much of my work involves working with subjects as participants to collaborate and co-create work about their lives and the things they are interested in. Another project I recently created is called Not Going Shopping, which focuses on the experience of queer people living in Brighton and Hove. As a gay man, creating this work seemed to me to be a useful way to further my inquiry into collaboration and at the same time provide an opportunity to confront my own views of queerness. I’ve recently returned from the Not Going Shopping exhibition on the streets of Malmo in Sweden, where we also produced a 16-page newspaper about the work that was distributed freely across the streets of Malmo and Copenhagen. Left: Collaborative Portrait of Sarah Magdalena Love from Not Going Shopping (2013-2014) by Anthony Luvera
Documentation of the making of Assisted Self-Portrait of Ben Evans from Assembly (2013-2014) by Anthony Luvera
You focus mainly on self-portraiture. What do you find the most interesting thing about photographing self-portraits? What 3 tips should students remember when taking selfportraits? I have explored self-portraiture in my work a lot over the years. Mostly though it has been through facilitating subjects to create their own self-portraits, rather than me photographing myself - although I have done this too. I call this work ‘Assisted SelfPortraits’ and ‘Collaborative Self-Portraits’. Sharing my skills with subject participants is at the core of my practice as an artist and in many ways this comes out of an interest in the critiques of documentary and community photography. When creating self-portraits or any kind of portrait really, I’d suggest the following three things: 1. K eep it simple – the composition and all of the technical elements you use to create the images. 2. Consider what story you want to tell - all photographs tell stories and all photographers are storytellers. Even though photographs may seem to tell truths about places, people and events, what they do best is spark the imagination of the people they are created for. Your role as a photographer is to guide your audience to think about the things you want to say through your images. 3. Play! Have fun – photography is a process of experimentation. Take loads of images and every time you press the shutter, explore another view on your subject by getting closer, including or excluding different elements in the frame, or changing your point of view. All photographs are the culmination of a series of decisions you make about how you use the equipment and how you relate to your subject. It’s decisions like these that are like the words on the pages of the stories you tell through your images. 15
The BA Photography course is one of the most popular degrees offered in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. What makes it so appealing? Can you give examples of what students have been up to recently? As Course Director for Photography I am extremely proud of what the Photography team has achieved with the growth of the course to date and we are excited about its continued development. Photography as a profession occupies a dynamic space across a number of industries ranging from photojournalism, publishing, fashion, documentary, art, to various commercial applications. This is what makes photography one of the most exciting forms of visual representation and our degree is built for the 21st century. The rapid technological transformation of the medium has enabled the production of images to be more widespread and more accessible than ever before, and this throws up many discussions and areas for consideration that we unpack with students to develop their skills to be able to use photography as a tool for creative expression and visual communication. Collaboration, facilitation and experimentation are at the heart of the course ethos, with students engaged as co-creators of learning situations and approaches tailored to develop their specialist photographic knowledge. This includes taking part in the open photography classes delivered on the course with contributions from networks of photographers and experts from across the globe. Our classrooms are opened up at every level of the degree, enabling learning to take place alongside professional practitioners, international subject specialists and wider learning communities. By graduation, students are technologically fluent, theoretically literate, critically rigorous and context aware, and are prepared to take their place in the future generation of photographers.
Assisted Self-Portrait of Ben Evans from Assembly (2013-2014) by Anthony Luvera
All of our students are supported throughout the process of gaining valuable experience in the professional photographic industry and they benefit from our longstanding relationships with regional, national and international media producers, galleries and museums, including: • The BBC • Birmingham Open Media • GRAIN • The Photographers’ Gallery • The National Portrait Gallery • Photofusion • Belfast Exposed Photography Our students have worked with photographers as far afield as New York with such luminaries as Annie Leibovitz, GQ and Vogue photographer Chris Floyd, World Press Award winner Peter Dench, Simon Roberts and Martin Parr.
Aizak Buyondo by Anthony Luvera for The World in London, The Photographers Gallery (2012) 16
Award winning students
Saudade by Natalia Fadejeva and Siyana Kasabova
Out of Time by Aaron Sehmar
• N atalia Fadejeva won the Master Photographers’ Association Retoucher Award in 2014 • I mogen Wall was shortlisted for the Association of Photographers Student Awards in 2015 • R ebecca Woodall, Aaron Sehmar, and Natalia Fadejeva and Siyana Kasabova all had their work featured at the Pingyao Photography Festival in China in 2015 • B oth Aaron Sehmar and Rachel Bint were selected for the prestigious showcase exhibition New Art West Midlands 2016. Aaron Sehmar was selected as the best photographic artist on show in the exhibition and for this he was deservedly awarded a prize of £1000.
Uninvited guest by Jenny Swerdlow
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Spotlight on Interior Design Year abroad? Year in industry? Why not both? Jacqui Spiers spent a year in Berlin on a work placement. She is now back in Coventry finishing her degree in Interior Design and working on her Final Major Project. "The decision to take advantage of the University’s overseas opportunity for a year’s internship was a big one that admittedly took a little more effort to pursue than the normal year in industry, but it was probably one of the best decisions I have ever made. Not only from the progression that I have made in my hard design skills but also the soft skills I gained from working in a team, managing client expectations and working together closely with talented designers daily, constantly learning. The life experience from exploring a new city, inevitably leading to new friendships (a couple of which I hope will last a lifetime) is almost as important as the work experience itself. Berlin’s relaxed atmosphere, creative freedom, hundreds of galleries and rich history led me on an interesting year of adventure. The experience introduced me to a lifestyle that I feel I have a natural affinity with, it’s a city and time in my life that I will always be grateful for. The outcome has been very positive; I was hired as a Trainee Designer after 6 months and a Junior Designer after one year, with the opportunity to return to a job as soon as I finish my degree. This removes an aspect of stress associated with the Final Year, not only worrying about your project but what the next step is going to be once you graduate. Working directly in the industry also enabled me to make important contacts that have since led to freelance work, making my position even stronger when applying to other agencies in the future. Generally, as a person I and others feel I have changed for the positive. The experience has made me more resilient, focused, relaxed and given me more confidence in my design ability. Ultimately everyone’s experience will be very different and there will naturally be highs and lows but if you approach it with a good attitude, an open mind and willingness to learn and progress then I would highly recommend taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity."
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Spotlight on English One of the great things about studying English at Coventry is how closely students from across the range of courses work together and make friends across different years and modules. Recently, first year students have been writing songs as part of their Language of the Media module. These songs were recorded by Music students and used in films produced by second year English students. The films were created as part of the second year Language in the New Media Age module that allows students to create a film or graphic novel and encourages students to work and plan together to not just improve their creative writing, but also to develop vital employability skills.
And the teamworking doesn’t stop there. Students have plenty of opportunities to work on international projects without even leaving the campus. One recent project involved English student film-makers from Coventry University working with colleagues in Changzhou to make documentaries on the issues they feel are important. Creative Writing students have also teamed up with students at the prestigious Escuela de Escritores (Writing School) of Madrid to develop collaborative short stories. Other international collaborations have included working with students in Mexico, Turkey, New York and France, and we’re always developing new international projects.
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Employability is an important aspect of studying at Coventry University, and is built into all of our courses. As many students are interested in going into publishing, a first year module was developed to give students experience of designing and creating their own magazine covers using industry-standard software Adobe InDesign.
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