AUB Alumni Magazine. One Piece of Advice — Issue 5 – Sign up

EDITORIAL

Editorial Directors Lauren Bowling Helen Duckworth Zoe Larrad Simon Pride Editor Dale Hurst Writers Ashleigh Barker Jonathan Beal Harry Davenport Dale Hurst Charlotte MacKay Zoe Larrad Simon Pride Ben Whittall DESIGN

Lauren Bowling ILLUSTRATION

Lauren Bowling Eliott Bulpett Barnaby Catterall Amy Clifford Ciara Moran Tegan Price Laurian Robertson PRINT

Dayfold Ltd PUBLISHER

PAPER

Edixion Offset FSC TYPFACES

Lyon GT Pressura Marian 1554 Roman Timmons

COVER ILLUSTRATION Tegan Price

ONE PIECE OF ADVICE

It was Alexander Mackendrick, the filmmaker and lecturer, who described the culture at CalArts in the 1950s as: “We are not students and lecturers, but artists at different stages of our journey.”

This sense of togetherness and community is one of the first things that alumni often remark upon when asked about their experience of Arts University Bournemouth.

But invariably they link this thought to something else – an acknowledgement that this environment allowed them to become uniquely themselves.

To find what out what they enjoyed. What they could do. What they could make. To discover what they wanted to become. Who they wanted to become.

What they wanted to change in themselves. And what they wanted to change in the world.

As Ryan Calais Cameron, alumni playwright and actor says in this edition: “Nowadays, people don’t often give themselves time, it’s all about the glory.

But are you an artist? Do you really want this? If you do, take your time, find out what’s unique about what you do and what you can give to the world that no one else can.”

Because only by becoming our best selves, can we have the greatest impact.

This edition of One Piece of Advice is dedicated to everyone on that lifelong creative journey.

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The Rise of Zack of All Tradezzz Amelia Gaughan explains how they went from studying Make-up in Bournemouth, UK, to performing as their Drag King alter-ego on stage in Shinjuku, Japan

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Knitting For Change

How Elena Lo Presti tackles social issues, one stitch at a time

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Catford’s Local Hero

Award-winning Acting alum Ryan Calais Cameron on how he got from Catford to Broadway, and back again

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The Artist’s Studio

A look inside the eclectic world of Pamela Howard OBE

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The Sky’s the Limit

How Photography alumna Chloe Davenport went from art school to aerospace

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An Interview with Lydia Reeves The body casting artist on her process and how her work allows people to celebrate and embrace who they really are

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An Interview with Elliott Trent From desktop to workshop, Elliott Trent carves his way into the music scene

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Exploring the Work of Frankie Turner

The Commercial Photography alumna and AOP Gold award-winner on food photography

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I Must Go Down to the Seas Again, to the Lonely Sea and Sky Landscape artist Tom Massey reflects on his bold career change

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From One Designer to Another: Navigating the Freelance World We talk sneakers and social media (and a side of Gucci) with Graphic Design alumna Tegan Price

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A Love Letter to Romany Culture and a Lesson for Us All Jacob Parvin on his feature documentary ‘Our Gypsy Blood’

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A Writer’s Affinity with Nature BA (Hons) and MA Creative Writing lecturer Kevan Manwaring on coastline creativity

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A Day in the Life

...of Paris Higson, photography and videography graduate intern in AUB’s marketing department

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Meet Our Illustrators

The people behind the fantastic illustrations adorning this issue

LEFT Amelia as Zack of All Tradezzz, Amelia Gaughan

WRITING Dale Hurst

The Rise of Zack of All Tradezzz – AMELIA GAUGHAN

Make-up alum Amelia Gaughan may have found their feet in prosthetics at AUB, but it’s also the birthplace of their alter ego and a burgeoning career as a Drag King…

RIGHT Amelia at their graduate show, Arts University Bournemouth, Rachael Adams @rachaeladamsphotography

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I’VE ALWAYS LIKED CHANGING APPEARANCES. AS A CHILD, I’D GO TO MY FRIENDS’ BIRTHDAY PARTIES AND DO FACE PAINTING ON OTHER KIDS. It’s the love of changing appearances that brought Amelia Gaughan to AUB, to study BA (Hons) Make-up for Media and Performance in 2017. They’d already been cosplaying for a few years by this point. But one day, in their halls of residence, Amelia found the name for their alter ego, Zack of all Tradezzz.

Not exactly a Drag alter ego, at first, as Amelia admits: “I’d been dressing as a man for years.

Even though I call myself a Drag artist, I guess I’m more a performance artist.

It’s so ingrained in me that it’s less like a completely different persona.

I’d been dressing up in my halls, and I remember thinking, ‘What’s a good name for all this? I want something like Zack of all Trades’. And then I thought, ‘That’s a brilliant name! Why don’t I use that?’”

For the first year of Zack’s life, Amelia just did photo shoots, all the while developing the make-up and overall aesthetic for the persona. But they soon decided that the performer in them wasn’t getting any fulfilment, while doing make-up on other performers.

Which led Amelia to take Zack to the public in early 2019, when they won a lip sync competition at DYMK in Bournemouth and were rewarded with the opportunity to support Drag Race star Latrice Royale.

Amelia describes Zack as “everyone’s emo heartthrob crush from 2007 come to life.”

“He’s a massive edgelord… very angry a lot of the time. It’s a very specific aesthetic, but with a sense of irony.

The emo subculture is fantastic – I love it. But there are a lot of negatives to it, a lot of toxic masculinity. Zack is almost like a supervillain in a sense.

Think of JD in Heathers… any sort of emotionally unstable teenage boy.

They’re not very nice people, but they do look cool, even though the things they do are horrendous. There’s a lot of eyeliner, skinny jeans, a lot of ‘my parents don’t understand me’. Even though, in real life, my parents are lovely, and they love what I do.”

The image and persona of Zack of all Tradezzz has been well clarified and refined. But just how common is it to find Drag Kings on the ever-popular Drag scene?

“A lot of my career, I’ve been the token Drag King,” says Amelia.

“There’s nothing wrong with that; in the last year or so, it has expanded a bit more, and I’m grateful to be around other Drag performers in general. Drag Kings are out there; people just don’t know we exist. Shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race have done a lot for the community, but they’ve also been damaging, because it’s a very narrowminded view of what Drag is, what gender identity is. It’s a double-edged sword – it did a lot of good, but now people think, ‘Oh, that’s what Drag is.’

PEOPLE THINK YOU HAVE TO BE A CERTAIN GENDER, SHAPE, ETHNICITY OR GENDER IDENTITY TO BE A DRAG PERFORMER, WHICH ISN’T TRUE. IT IS SO DIFFERENT. The London Drag scene, specifically, is so diverse. And shows like Dragula, which rival competitions like Drag Race, have had a lot of Drag Kings on.

Landon Cider, who won Dragula, is a huge Drag King now.”

Since creating Zack all those years ago, Amelia has achieved a number of successes of their own. Reaching international levels; most recently appearing in a show in Japan.

“My parents lived in Japan before I was born. I love Japan – I’ve got a lot of friends over there, it’s really fun to visit and I love the culture and everything.

I’d been planning to go back for quite a while, and last year, my partner and I

decided we’d go for an entire month.

In the October, I was curious about what the Drag scene was like in Japan – specifically in Tokyo – so I had a look on Instagram and found Angel Heart, a Drag Queen who works in Shinjuku.

I messaged her, explaining that I was planning to visit and was curious about the scene. She was so lovely and helpful, and basically asked me, ‘When are you here? We’d love for you to be part of our show’.”

April 2023 arrives, and Amelia and Zack of all Tradezzz are part of the line-up to appear at Club SCIENCE in Shinjuku. It’s primarily an international Drag show, at which they held a unique honour.

“There were a lot of American and Swedish performers,” Amelia explains, “Plus a couple of Brits that I was chatting to. But everyone in the show lived in Japan, apart from me. Angel Heart told me, ‘We never have guests from outside the country.’ Even in rehearsal, the Drag Queen Endigo, who was on Drag Race Sweden, came up to me and said, ‘You’re the one from England, right?’”

Amelia’s performance at Club SCIENCE made a definite impression.

Many told them they’d have them back as soon as they returned to Japan, while some photographers lamented that they weren’t based in Japan, wanting to work with them again.

PREV. SPREAD LEFT Zack of All Tradezzz, Amelia Gaughan

PREV. SPREAD RIGHT Zack of All Tradezzz, @matti_arti

RIGHT Zack of All Tradezzz, Amelia Gaughan

“” WORK HARD, BUT ALSO FULFIL YOURSELF CREATIVELY

These days, Amelia fills their time doing wig commissions for Drag and cosplay connections, among other things. Since leaving AUB, their credits include work on DC’s The Flash and Meg 2, and they’ve also been successful on the catwalk, as a professed lover of alternative fashion.

“I have so many different things going on in my brain – cosplay, wigs, make-up, fashion, Drag, film… it’s exhausting. I’m struggling to pick one, and I don’t really want to.”

With all these experiences behind them since graduating from AUB in 2020, our chat with Amelia ends with their one piece of advice:

DON’T PUT YOURSELF DOWN ONE PATH. DON’T THINK, ‘I’M DOING AN ANIMATION COURSE… OR A MAKE-UP COURSE… THIS IS THE ONLY THING I CAN DO.’ I GOT STUCK IN THAT AT UNIVERSITY, AND THEN FOUND DRAG AS MY WAY OUT. WORK HARD, BUT ALSO FULFIL YOURSELF CREATIVELY OUTSIDE YOUR DEGREE.

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ILLUSTRATION Eliott Bulpett

PHOT0GRAPHY Jonathan Beal

WRITING Zoe Larrad

Knitting For Change – CRAFT FORWARD

‘Craft Forward’ knitting workshops are popping up all around London. They’re free, they’re fun, and you don’t have to have any prior skills to get involved.

You’ll find all stages of knitting ability, from complete novices tentatively picking up the needles for the first time, to knitting extraordinaires pulling yarn at lightning speed from rolls carefully balanced on top of their heads! Everyone’s smiling, everyone’s knitting, and everyone is working towards one goal; to create positive change.

Among the packed room of keen crafters in Brixton are six (yes six!) AUB alumni. Zoe Larrad, AUB’s Alumni Officer, sits down with founder and Fine Art alumna, Elena Lo Presti to hear how her philanthropy work developed from an Instagram call-to-action in her living room to a multi-disciplinary craft-based not-for-profit, serving the city.

IDENTIFYING AN ISSUE I have always had a love for craft. During my BA I worked with ceramics, using zines, writing and other types of lo-fi media. I had been living with my grandma in Italy to care for her through the 2020 lockdowns and she taught me how to knit. Knitting was such a good way of connecting with my grandma, especially at such a difficult time.

It also really helped me process what was happening in the world.

I came back to Lambeth to start a job at a pottery studio and finish my MA in Fine Art. In yet another lockdown I heard of night and day shelters being shut down for fear of new cases.

IT WAS A VERY TRAGIC TIME BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS ASKED TO STAY HOME, BUT WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE ONE? I just realised that I don’t need another jumper, I don’t need another scarf, I don’t need to be knitting for myself, but it really helps, and I want to keep knitting.

SPREADING THE WORD I took to Instagram with a post ‘Let’s knit blankets for people experiencing homelessness in Lambeth.’ People donated spare yarn or knitted squares and I would assemble them into blankets to donate.

To be honest I thought I’d make a couple because it was just me in my living room, but surprisingly, loads of people got interested and were really passionate about it. In the end we had 14 blankets assembled.

And Blankets for Lambeth was born.

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IT’S ALL IN THE (HE)ART After distributing the blankets through a local charity, I received a handwritten letter. It said how important the gift was, not only from a practical perspective but also to receive something so beautiful, so thoughtful.

In all the conversations I’ve had with people that are unhoused, the real issue is feeling like they are not being considered as people. You don’t get given gifts anymore, right? It’s about survival, it’s about making it to the end of the day, to the end of the week. I guess it was a great opportunity to make someone that’s in a very vulnerable position feel special. When I got that feedback, I realised that I had actually made a positive impact on someone’s life and however small that impact was, I knew that I had to continue and to do it again but do it better.

There was this amazing community of makers that formed around the project, it was surprising and needed, especially in such a period of isolation. People messaged me asking me to teach them how to knit so that they could contribute. I set up these very weird Zoom calls where I would try and teach knitting.

“” I KNEW THAT I HAD TO CONTINUE AND TO HANDS ON DECK DO IT AGAIN BUT ALL I would have people waiting outside my house to give me yarn and knitted DO IT BETTER squares which was also a bit crazy. It

really made me understand that there were loads of people locally that wanted to build on this type of community, on this type of creative output and creative way of making and giving back.

You know how words like ‘community’ and ‘care’ are used by so many, and so often they become this abstract concept where ‘community’ is just this buzzword and it’s not about people and ‘care’ is just this thing and it’s not an action. I really wanted, with this community that I had created, to have a space for people to come together for a purpose in this non judgemental creative environment.

CRAFT IS FOR EVERYONE In the workshops we make beautiful blankets. But the workshops aren’t really about making. They’re more about connecting and creating, holding the space for people to come as they wish and bring in the energy they wish to bring.

We have a lot of people that come on their own and make friendships there.

Some people come because they want to learn the skills. Some people come because they want a chat; crafting can become very lonely and solitary. It is possible to hold an educational yet non-judgemental space where you can be creative, you can make something beautiful, but you can also have a laugh and a cup of tea.

GROWTH The second year we made around 19 blankets, and it was still very much me in my living room. Year three saw a record of 44 blankets and then, after restrictions were lifted in 2021, I started hosting monthly knitting clubs and meet-ups in Brixton. Aided by funding from the National Lottery and now Lambeth Council. We have 60 completed blankets this year already which we now distribute across four boroughs. Blankets for Lambeth has become Blankets for London.

By happy coincidence, we’ve got other AUB alumni involved. I knew Brit from AUB, we moved to London at different times, I taught her how to knit and now she’s a facilitator at the workshop, teaching others. Tobias is our photographer, videographer and works on social media. And the others just came to the workshop. It’s funny – I’ve always had AUB alumni around me, even in previous roles.

NAVIGATING CHALLENGES A big challenge was securing funding to make things happen.

I’m constantly striving to make Craft Forward self-sufficient so we can continue to provide free, creative, and accessible spaces. You’ve got to have a business mind but keep your not-for-profit heart. Making peace with these two ways of thinking is a constant learning and struggle.

Overcoming your own bias is a big one too. You suppose that you’re doing good and, because you’re doing good, it’s natural to forge ahead and do what you think is best without consulting the community you are hoping to serve. So, the very first thing was to completely unlearn everything I thought and to come first as a member of the community, not as the leader. To approach very humbly with questions before formulating a plan.

There are also other things to take into consideration. A lot of the people that we help don’t have the space to carry these types of things. People have different necessities, which I think is important to understand. We now make small blankets that can be used for children, because there are a lot of families in temporary housing, which is the homelessness that we don’t see. It’s also easier to carry if you’re sleeping rough and you don’t want to carry a full-size blanket.

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CRAFT ONWARD AND FORWARD We are expanding our workshops, having more of them and in more locations. They’ve been popping up across London! Also becoming more multidisciplinary, expanding our crafts will expand our impact. The common denominator, really, is that everything we make during these workshops goes directly towards helping a cause rather than selling things and donating the money.

The goal is to make as many creative processes as possible accessible to as many people as possible. I’m aiming for a more open, diverse curriculum of crafts. Expansion outside of London is a bit far off, but, in the future, across the whole of England is not impossible.

So in the future, mostly expansion and more blankets. Like, tonnes of blankets!

ONE PIECE OF ADVICE TO OTHER CREATIVES Art can take very different forms. You can find art in your nine to five, and you can find art in community acts.

You can find it in conversation, in relationships, and in activism, in loads of different things. So, try to have an open mind about all of this. Especially coming out of an art education.

DON’T THINK THAT YOU HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. DON’T THINK THAT YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT TO DO BECAUSE YOU WILL SURPRISE YOURSELF.

craftforward.com

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ART CAN TAKE VERY DIFFERENT FORMS

RIGHT Ryan Calais Cameron, Lewisham Broadway Theatre, Rich Tarr

WRITING Jonathan Beal

Catford’s Local Hero – RYAN CALAIS CAMERON

“It’s good to be home: it’s good to be in Catford. It’s good to be at the theatre, and it’s good to be on Broadway!”

Double Olivier Award nominee Ryan Calais Cameron cuts an unassuming figure, sat alone on stage at Lewisham’s historic Broadway Theatre. But for the up-and-coming writer, actor and director, the scene is set. The Broadway is ground zero, and Catford is home.

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To read the full edition of One Piece of Advice, register for free: aub.ac.uk/opoa-sign-up “”

returns to Catford, Rich Tarr

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