PAPER CUTS JANUARY, 2016
PRODUCED BY BATH SPA UNIVERSITY CREATE LAB
Author: Alex Moldovan
MAKING THE CUT ON the morning of Thursday 28 January, first-year students on the Create Lab module, part of the Publishing combined BA, were given their second whole-day challenge: to create a newspaper from scratch. The briefing was swift, and by 10am, the hunt for stories had begun. With notebooks at the ready, and cameras hanging over their shoulders, students made their way across Newton Park campus, and as far as Sion Hill. Luckily, it was a perfect day for photography, and the small teams were welcomed wherever they went. With only a few hours, choices had to be made on the run. Some stories were found through the oddest of circumstances – say, by noticing an out-of-place poster in a hallway, or by overhearing an interesting story about a cat – while others had been thought out beforehand. Lunch marked the halfway point of the challenge, and still the paper did not have a name. Between bites, students checked their notes and scribbled down any questions left unasked. The more material, the better. By two in the afternoon, the students had regrouped in the Publishing Labs, and were ready for the second phase. Notes were taken out and one by one, articles began to spread over empty pages. Streams of photographs were looked through in search of that one, perfect shot. Time was running out, and the paper’s name was put to a vote. Outside, the sun had begun its slow downward course. Last checks were made, and pages printed out. By 4pm, the crisp, sharp pages lay spread out on the table, for the entire team to see. The day was over, and the challenge had been overcome. Paper Cuts was heading for the press.
Newspaper Club is here to help people to make and print their own newspapers. www.newspaperclub.com
CONTEMPORARY BRONZE MEDAL DESIGNS ∙ Authors: Isabelle Britton, Alex Moldovan and Liam Jones ∙ Photos: Alex Moldovan
GIVE THESE GUYS A MEDAL Sion Hill students compete in national medal competition for their first live project OVER at Sion Hill, second-year Contemporary Arts Practice students have been hard at work creating medals for the British Art Medal Society Student Competition. This yearly event encourages both students and tutors across the country to submit work to the exhibition and, it must be said, our students’ final products are gleaming. For the competition, participants use the ‘lost wax’ process to produce a palm-sized and fairly lightweight medal. If selected for the exhibition, the final works will be sold on to the public for a rough starting price of £150, which goes straight to the artist. The winner receives £750 plus a £100 casting of their medal for the Founder’s Company Collection – an amazing achievement by anyone’s standard.
Paper Cuts caught up with a few of the applicants from Sion Hill, who proudly presented their ideas. Each of the double-sided medals showed its own unique pattern, hand-crafted by the students themselves. The designs we saw included a beetle, a house, a fried egg, various body parts and fossils. Each is a completely original design and has a story behind it. We interviewed Will Ford, whose ‘In My End Is My Beginning’ medal is a proud and bold expression of gay sexuality, taking inspiration from Mary Queen of Scots and TS Eliot. Will’s design, which he describes as ‘tongue in cheek’ features a mould of both a mouth and an anus. Upon querying his reasons for the outlandish design, he explained that his art is driven by his sexual identity. He felt that typical artistic displays of sexuality, such as phallic models, have been overdone, so he wants to embrace the ‘beauty’ of our bodies. Alongside Will, we met fellow
student Billy McGregor, whose ‘Which Came First? Boiled or Fried?’ tickles the funny bone. One side is a boiled egg, the other is fried. Billy explained that this design is linked to our human instinct to want to know things, such as the chicken-or-the-egg debate, and how it is linked to our stomachs and natural predispositions. It is clear that both of these students had put a lot of thought into their pieces and have produced some high-quality art. They and their classmates had created stunning designs of industry standard. Students described some of the specifications for their products and it was soon apparent that there was more to it than simply creating. The medals had to ‘make a statement’, according to Will, and each side of the medal ‘talk’ to the other to create a story. Each individual had put a little bit of their personality and beliefs into their design, which has made this project enjoyable for everyone. For example, one medal was a
footprint from a boot to reflect one student’s hiking hobby. This was the first live project these artists have worked on since arriving at Sion Hill, so it was an exciting prospect for everybody involved. After visiting the Contemporary Arts Practice students at Bath School of Art and Design, it is clear to see that they are in an environment designed to let them shine. The rooms are full of happy, passionate and driven young artists, with their outstanding work on display all over the campus; not only that, but their relationships with tutors are so strong, they have a fan club for their lecturer Pete, which sets a strong group dynamic at Sion Hill. We wish Will, Billy and their fellow course mates the best of luck in the competition. The talent at Sion Hill is unbelievable and we can’t wait to see more of what they can produce in the future. Find out more about the medal competition at www.bams.org.uk.