.CO.UK
INDEPENDENT FREE
CULT U R A L
J O U R N A L I S M
School of Art Contemporary Art Practice Intermedia Painting Combined Studies Photography Sculpture MA Fine Art ESALA Architecture Landscape Architecture Architectural History Art, Space and Nature MArchitecture Reid School of Music
DEGREE
28 MAY– 5 JUNE
SHOW
2016
School of Design Product Design Animation Graphic Design Design Informatics Fashion Performance Costume Film & TV Interior Design Glass Jewellery & Silversmithing Illustration Textiles
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
School of Art
28 May–5 June 2016 Stuart Bennett, ECA Deputy Principal
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e are delighted to be working with The Skinny as our magazine partner to promote the Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) Degree Show in 2016. Sections of this special supplement have been written and illustrated by our current students – within these pages you can sample the range of work from across our Schools and subjects. We hope you will be able to join us in person for what is set to be an exceptional show. Annually over 20,000 visitors cross the threshold of our buildings during the Degree Show season enjoying the opportunity to see work by a new generation of talent. Currently ECA is undergoing an exciting transformation that will strengthen our international reputation for producing graduates of the highest calibre. The University of Edinburgh is investing millions of pounds to refurbish our already world-class studio spaces and to create new state-of-the-art facilities. We believe this refurbishment has enormous potential for ECA and it is an exciting opportunity to reimagine how we teach and how we learn. This academic year our History of Art colleagues relocated to the Hunter Building and for Degree Show 16 the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA) will be exhibiting in their newly renovated Minto House and Adam House studios in Chambers Street, a short walk from Lauriston Place. While the north section of the Main Building is undergoing renovation, the School of Art students are located in the Main Building and the North East Studio Building (formerly Architecture). The School of Design students occupy Evolution House with Art, Space and Nature, and Film and TV and Animation are upstairs in the Main Building alongside information about History of Art dissertations. The iconic Sculpture Court hosts
Fashion, Performance Costume and Textiles including footage of the sold out catwalk SHOW 16. Our late openings on Wednesday 1 and Thursday 2 June until 8pm will feature performances, tours and other special events organised by staff and students from all our Schools: School of Art, School of Design, Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA), School of History of Art and Reid School of Music. Alongside the Degree Show Talbot Rice Gallery are hosting Interim, showcasing the transitional work of MA and MFA students from the School of Art, and Rediscover, where postgraduate History of Art students have worked in groups to manipulate the status, politics and narratives of the Torrie Collection. We are thrilled to invite you to explore this extensive exhibition. Degree Show 16 is open to the public from Saturday 28 May until Sunday 5 June. You can also enjoy the work of current (and previous) graduating students on our degree show website degreeshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/2016 and please help promote our Degree Show by using #ECADegreeShow on social media. More information about ECA can be found on ed.ac.uk We are sure you will find the work stimulating, innovative and challenging and please join us in wishing our graduating cohort well as they develop their careers. Many thanks to all of the staff, sponsors and suppliers involved in the realisation of the show and a very special thanks to our exhibiting students for their curiosity, invention and vitality.
Eden Hawkins (Photography)
School of Design
Jamie Gray (Glass)
ESALA
degreeshow.eca.ed.ac.uk/2016
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Tokyo Project
Editorial
Writing Team
Editor Subeditor Art Editor Lead Designer Production Manager General Manager
Rosamund West Will Fitzpatrick Adam Benmakhlouf Sigrid Schmeisser Sarah Donley Kyla Hall
Sculpture Painting Photography Intermedia Graphic Design & Illustration Performance Costume Architecture Landscape Architecture
Giulia Gentili Lauren Frost Gemma Batchelor Julia Barbour Lauren Rook Mona Lisa Maclean Rosie Milne James Trevers
ECA Alumni
Cover credit: Wanshu Li, Jewellry & Silversmithing 2016, May 2016 © Radge Media Ltd. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk | T: 0131 467 4630
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Introduction
Dominic Wilcox, Tree Branch Work Desk
THE SKINNY
Credit: Joe McGorty
@TheSkinny
TroyHolmes
Will Carey
Douglas Stevens
Natalie Howlett
Sculpture Following changes to the school building, ECA’s newly shaken-up Sculpture department is all set for a display of fresh ideas and pushed boundaries
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hat time of the year is soon approaching again: Edinburgh College of Art will soon transform into a cave of wonders to host and display the work of 2016’s graduating students. Innovation and boundary-pushing are the annual watchwords, and as it bubbles and brews, this year’s crop appears to be no exception. Following the refurbishment of the school building and with a smaller graduating class than ever, one of the college’s most highly anticipated contributions – the Sculpture department – sees quite the shake-up. The exhibiting space has been considerably reduced yet, as programme director Kenny Hunter explains, “sculpture teaches you to be adaptable.” From the corridors to the windows and the toilets, every possible space will be invaded. Due to the small nature of the class and the open plan set-up of the studios, the students have influenced each other from concept to materials. Though approaching different subjects in very different ways, there seem to be underlying intel-
lectual and theoretical threads that come with working in such proximity, that will manifest in the art. This year, one of the stronger trends appears to be self-reflection – perhaps not in the more obviously autobiographical sense but in a way that is more reflective of its place in the world. Many of the students are looking inward in order to look outward, not only to issues of our contemporary post-internet society, but also to consider the more mundane habits of everyday life. Unlike 2015’s large sculptural installations, this year’s focus seems to be more on the creation of environments which visitors will be able to walk around and interact with. The artists are responding to the art school backdrop in different ways: some will play off it and use the large distinct windows, finding a way to bring the studio environment into the exhibiting space, whereas some will opt for a more white-cube setting. Will Carey will not only be taking over ECA’s famous plaster cast collection, but also the men’s
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
Words: Giulia Gentili
toilets in order to question the anonymity of dating apps such as Grindr. Troy Holmes, on the other hand, tackles the world of online dating, as she plans a stripper hologram designed to make the visitor feel uncomfortable yet compelled. As these two artists almost anthropologically study our post-internet love lives, at the other end of the spectrum, Connie Hurley will be looking at our relationship to dirt and bodily oozes that may make us feel equally uneasy. Calling it a “performance of materials,” Hurley looks to the properties of materials such as wax and latex, and their resemblance to the grotesque body in order to question why we find these particular textures and fluids repulsive. Look out also for Natalie Howlett’s compelling videos on corporate pharmaceutical companies and our obsession with healthcare, and Douglas Stevens’ installation that looks to the documentation process of archiving activist events.
For a true preview, some work can be seen before the degree show opens. Jack McCallum has been exploring the city and our reclamation of it in order to make our mark. He has made his own mark by replacing some of Edinburgh’s manhole covers with his own laboriously crafted covers made of veining pink and sparkling white marble, glass, oak, iron, bronze and granite. These barely noticeable alterations to our streets become unmissable when discovered and can be hunted down in the Tollcross area. All in all, we await the unveiling of this year’s talent with much anticipation. Be prepared to immerse yourself, to question and confront current issues and, more importantly, to keep your eyes peeled. The Sculpture department’s degree show contribution has never been so filled to the brim. ECA Sculpture Degree Show 2016, Lauriston Campus, Main Building, 28 May-5 Jun
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Danny Leyland provides an interesting foil to the more conservative pieces of some of his peers. His work is rough and ready, almost primitive; his raw canvas (at the time of writing) stapled to the wall and covered with lashings of thick impasto. Clay and earthen-coloured oil pigment is plastered onto the canvas in a way that seems entirely natural. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but Leyland’s work certainly speaks to the maturity of his process; he maintains a style that is characterful and evocative, easily recognisable and completely authentic. The ECA degree show will present its audience with a myriad of styles, techniques and agendas that stem from the uniquely human interest to visually express oneself. It will still demonstrate the high standards we have become accustomed to from ECA, and from this fourth-year painting syndicate there will certainly be a few that stand out as particularly successful. As they begin to emancipate themselves from the embryonic phase of their artistic development, these students allow us through their artistic endeavours to partake in that moment in some small way. It is that aspect that we discern from their work which will make the degree show so compelling; a celebration of the progress they have made during the course of their tenure here at ECA. ECA Painting Degree Show 2016, North East Studio Building, Lauriston Campus, 28 May - 6 Jun
Lucy Archer
Painting A new setting provides 2016’s Painting graduates with an opportunity to deviate from the norm – we look at what’s on display in the upcoming show Words: Lauren Frost
Lily Mcrae
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his year promises to be something a little different from past degree shows, as the graduating class of Painting students display their work in what were formerly architecture studios (a consequence of a huge investment in the first phase of a renovation underway in the Main Building). Without the security of the impressive space that formerly defined the ECA degree show, and stripped of that heightened sense of grandeur, 2016 promises to be all about the painting. The exhibition will be characterised by a graphic (that is to say, ‘vivid and expressive’) style, punctuated by an undercurrent of third-wave feminism which expresses the contemporary concerns that occupy the minds of these artists, both in art and in life. The degree show this year offers an array of confident and individualised styles that will demonstrate the breadth of interest and talent of our 2016 graduates. Ed Compson’s work is strikingly different to the standard painting of most other students. He presents us with delicate geometric drawings that appear like trails of burnt thread against the raw canvas. The shapes that force their way into his
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perfect grids are minimal, and as a result his compositions maintain an elegant simplicity that demonstrates a great deal of confidence. Although Jessica Fagan has been aiming to explore that age-old question of ‘what is painting?’, her work succeeds purely on a visual level, without the need for further analysis. Her pieces are redolent of the modern Chinese ink paintings that have made their way into the mainstream of recent years; bold and calligraphic. We see how Fagan’s brush has danced across the canvas in a swift movement, although the sense of drama is partly mitigated by the small scale of the work. Alexander Haywood-Smith is a landscape painter, but not as we know it. His painting of the Roslin cliffs is a wonderful visual experience; he succeeds in projecting the element of fantasy and myth to which he subscribes without allowing his paintings to become clichéd. Instead, we feel drawn into some kind of reverie of his. Haywood-Smith has a clear identity among this year’s throng of painting students; his work demands a thoughtful contemplation from the viewer that will gently reveal the inner workings of his mind.
Ines Mulford
THE SKINNY
Photography Whether through modern digital means or good old-fashioned film, Photography offers a blurring of boundaries between disciplines and ideas Words: Gemma Batchelor
Joseph Glover
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he Edinburgh College of Art’s Photography department is physically hidden away from those within the art school, locked behind unknown doors, a maze of dark rooms and studios. So it’s difficult for those outside the department to know what’s going on – are Photography students always out on location shoots? Or are they gloved and goggled around dark room chemical fumes? Behind these doors there has been a rush of activity as final year students scan negatives from reshoots, touch up images and plan presentations for the long-anticipated Degree Show. The studio-turned-gallery spaces are now dedicated to a varied display of photographic formats, from installation to moving image, proving the broad approach to this medium. The bodies of work presented speak of political history, individual narrative and memory, as well as exploring the visual i n a more experimental way. Certainly, photography is not as strict a discipline as it might seem. Both digital and traditional analogue methods are popular, especially when the ease of digital print is combined with the glorious colour of film. Likewise, just as sculpture can verge into performance and painting can be moulded into moving image, the photographic arts blur boundaries. At times the camera might not ever be used: the only necessary tool is light. The intimate is explored through a collection of handmade books exhibited alongside black and white wall prints produced by Joe Glover. With a recurrent theme of the in-between and a sense of confusion, Glover allows us an insight into personal diaries. Through the creation of imagery inspired by extracts of these written memories, this work becomes a creative mode of self-reflection. A soft, slow reflection on the world around the artist is also found in Lottie Hampson’s delicate colour photographs. Through a focus on her mother, the artist explores fertility, femininity and growth in a way that creates a connection between the artist, the subject and, most powerfully, a female viewer. Another student, Rozee Colton, explores the personal at its most intense, with the naked body. With the body as her tool, Colton blurs the boundary between the photographic medium and sculpture, creating figural interactions within a space. Staged set-ups are also created for Eden Hawkins’ photography. With an assemblage of items from the “peripherals of the everyday,” Hawkins explores domestic space within her own home in a colourful, playful manner, embracing the commercial aesthetic.
Eden Hawkins
In a different vein, Joe Wilson’s work investigates historic narratives through his black and white landscape photography. Wilson ponders on the past and possible future changes of a woodland landscape in Ashington, Northumberland. Being local to this area, Wilson refers to it as a “peculiar arcadia,” altered hugely by man’s activities. His photographs are subtle in their reference to this history, demonstrating the power context has over an image. Landscape is involved in the work of Nikoletta Majewska in a more experimental manner. The artist uses collage of photographs and other materials such as mirror pieces to present a landscape that speaks of hope and fear, a paradox depicted in two contrasting parts of an image. From this selection of soon-to-be graduating ECA students, it’s clear there is stimulating variation found in the Degree Show; thematically, visually and in material. Yet each body of work is made more powerful by the closeness of the project to the artist themselves, as personal and intimate elements come into play in different respects. After much time spent drawing together final threads of ideas and seeing images in new ways as they fall into place, the work on display promises a great deal from this new generation of artists. Lottie Hampson
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
ECA Photography Degree Show 2016, Main Building, Lauriston Campus, 28 May–5 Jun
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Intermedia From sci-fi to retail via extreme music, the wide range of disciplines on display in Intermedia gives us cause to consider an even broader base of ideas and concepts
Words: Julia Barbour
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his year’s Intermedia degree show at Edinburgh College of Art marks the end of four years of study for a 20-strong group of artists making work in a diverse range of media. Intermedia encourages students to think in tangents, and this year’s graduating cohort will exhibit everything from paintings to musical homages to black metal. A series of projected videos and plastic works by Steph Wilson occupy an entire room, immersing the spectator in a piece that seeks to question bodily relationships to technology. Seeking to draw attention to the wastefulness of technology and the industry’s pursuit of the untouchable, Wilson’s video work exploits green screen technology to superimpose images of the human into digital landscapes. These moving images, recorded in crisp high-definition, are accompanied by sheets of industrial plastics that reference the sleek aesthetic of the screen and the barrier it puts up to perception. Anna Danielewicz’s work also exploits prefabricated and industrial materials; she describes her practice as being largely conceptual. Scaffolding and a large fish tank, housing a viciously territorial species of fish, will become the stage set for a science fiction play for four actors. Danielewicz’s writing confronts alienation and oppression in a dystopian society, not so far removed from our own, that is hyper-focused on productivity and regimentation of lifestyle. An installation by Gemma Crook uses a meticulously-catalogued collection of polystyrene offcuts, collected from a factory, to build new structures that will change throughout the run of the show. These offcuts have all been numbered and named, like characters in a heist movie. When the pieces are combined, the pairing of their names creates a new language of building that brings a sense of the poetic to the structural. A series of neon-bright paintings by Hugo Ross explores cultural product, layering the stock phrases of discount retailers over bright-eyed cartoon characters and simple shapes. These paintings, made on paper, have a sense of temporality. Temporal states are also explored in the work of Healey Blair, whose pieces capture fleeting moments; recordings of breath clouding on cold windows, or drawings only visible in sunlight. Collections of photographs and printed fabrics by Alice Meikle look at the world that revolves around the fashion industry and the bystanders that surround it. Meikle spent this year’s London Fashion Week photographing scenes outside the main shows, including shooting portraits of other photographers, and her desire to document fashion is driven by her own engagement with the industry and love for clothing. Similarly, Calum Brittain’s love for Norwegian black metal has fuelled a music piece that seeks to bring emotion and expression back into the white space of the gallery, which can cast feeling aside in favour of empty concept. He describes black metal as being a primal genre of music that can bring the listener into a trance-like state, and his own exploration of metal as being a way to find calm in cacophony. Intermedia’s aim as a subject area at ECA is to let artists work across all media, and to think divergently; the 2016 degree show will undoubtedly display that. ECA Intermedia Degree Show 2016, Main Building, Lauriston Campus, 28 May - 6 Jun
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School of Art
Alice Meikle
Anna Danielewicz’
THE SKINNY
Ben Shmulevitch
Rachel Millar
Graphic Design & Illustration There’s a wealth of eclectic ideas flowing forth from ECA’s Graphic Design and Illustration students – we throw ourselves headlong into the melee for a closer look…
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ith the 2016 Graphic Design and Illustration degree shows fast approaching, the corridors and stairs at Evolution House are overrun by bright-eyed soon-to-be graduates. Among those students leaving Edinburgh College of Art, many have plans to pursue careers related to their final show work – in the midst of this busy time, we take the opportunity to catch up with some of the graduating class and find out what’s making this year such an exciting one across both disciplines. The studios are situated opposite each other on the fourth floor, though Illustration boasts a bigger space and stunning views over the Grassmarket. The undergraduates are slotted into individual desks towards the back, casually seated at their chaotic work stations. Mhairi Braden and Peony Gent sit back to back and are first to discuss their upcoming work – like many of their
peers, they explain how their degree shows are a culmination of four years’ hard graft. Peony states that her final work will be a display of “lots of little ones” such as ceramics, own narrative, comics, sketches and photography work. In contrast, Braden’s pieces includes mono prints and screen prints inspired by her personal relationship with nature and paganism. Of the other students, Paige Collins explores a sense of place through location drawings and floral prints and Celeste Clark presents a mix of personal projects and small editorial illustrations, as well as some comics and “quirky Virgin Mary portraits.” There’s also Hari Conner, who creates screen prints as well as an animated comic based on a fantasy theme, while Molly Soar also produces large scale screen prints, in addition to record sleeves and an observational book on the theme of people throughout time.
Mhairi Braden
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
Words: Lauren Rook
Across the corridor and clearing the space in preparation for the degree show, we find Graphic Design students removing the last of the items that helped them through their final year at ECA. The once heavily cluttered studio is having its walls stripped as Fourth Years address the spaces in which their work will go. It’s here that James Crossley and Nick Merdasi talk us through what to expect this year: Findlay is focusing on ritualistic behaviour to create textiles, ornaments and a video piece, whereas Merdasi explores comic book formats to produce a personal narrative while avoiding traditional layouts. In contrast to Illustration, Graphic Design students have produced work that is completely organic and separate from what they’ve being doing in previous years: Michelle Maxwell, for instance, has been researching death and rituals
to produce a video piece and hopes to install a maypole in the Graphic Design studio, while Ben Shmulevitch is pursuing a project that he has always wanted to do by creating a book and an exhibition space on his grandfather’s experience of the Holocaust. Finally, in a nod to tradition, Rachel Millar is “rejecting computer-used stuff ” to create large scale hand-drawn type. This year’s Graphic Design and Illustration degree show at Edinburgh College of Art is tipped to be an eclectic range of skill sets and final outcomes. Challenging what each discipline fundamentally entails, the graduating classes of 2016 have successfully pushed the boat out. This is one that cannot be missed. Evolution House, Lauriston Campus, 28 May – 5 June 2016, 11am–5pm Edinburgh College of Art, 74 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh
Molly Soar
Peony Gent (Detail)
School of Design
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Performance Costume Design From epic Icelandic folktales to Caryl Churchill's explorations of feminist power structures, this year's Performance Costume graduates explore a fascinating array of sources and themes Words: Mona Lisa Maclean
Elspeth Chapman
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Zoe Longbottom
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ficionados of the performing arts, keen to cast their cultured eye over the next generation of costumers would be well served to clear their diaries between 18-20 May, when Edinburgh College of Art will be presenting their Performance Costume show for 2016. The final year students will combine their creative flair and technical prowess to mastermind evocative performances inspired by a myriad of interpretive mediums, from theatre and opera to music video and installation. Poppy Anne Richards has created projects inspired by the seminal gothic novel Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo and Robert Tressell's novel The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, integrating themes of Scottish working class history. Rosie Whiting presents an immersive, theatrical experience in which the audience dine alongside figures including Louise Bourgeois, Nina Simone and Emmeline Pankhurst – a performance that questions the relationship between women, work, fame and finding a place for feminism in the 21st Century.
Zoe Longbottom uses design to reimagine the traditional context of a story. Her reincarnation of Peter Pan takes place in a nightmarish post-apocalyptic world which twists the perspective of the story, imagining Peter as an evil spirit that steals children and takes them to Neverland. Drawing inspiration from the LaxdĂŚla Saga, an Icelandic folk tale, Jessica Van Tromp's first project focuses on the romantic epic's central love triangle. Georgia Adele Noble was inspired by Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants, a 1930s love story set in the vivid world of the circus. Informing the work with rich embellishments, contrasting colour palettes and exaggerated shapes, the circus's rich aesthetics are only added to by the enigmatic characters. SHOW 2016 : Fashion / Costume / Textiles, Edinburgh College of Art, Sculpture Court, 74 Lauriston Place, 18-20 May, Sold out eca.ed.ac.uk/eca-home/news-events/show-2016-fashioncostume-textiles
THE SKINNY
Fashion ECA's final year Fashion students present their work in the sold-out SHOW 2016 before heading down to London for Graduate Fashion Week
Alice Firman
Shoot Credits Photography: Bethany Grace bethany-grace.co.uk Make up artist: Jak Morgan jakmorgan.com Hair: Sophie Laidlaw Model: Georgia @ Model Team modelteam.co.uk
Menzie Zhang
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
Megan Mitchell
School of Design
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Design, Film & TV and Animation Across Design disciplines, Film & TV and Animation, it’s all about experimentation with traditional techniques and cutting edge technology, ringed by a sense of social responsibility Words: Adam Benmakhlouf
Filipe Caeiro (Film)
yourself.” Built up from seed- or pod-like forms which quietly clack together, the meditative noise of their subtle contact is – just like the scent – for the wearer only. Tania Ortega’s wearable technology is also designed to alleviate anxieties, but specifically deriving from DNA mapping. Coming from Design Informatics, her final work is heavily theoretical and connected to her dissertation. Researching the human body as an analogy for data storage, she found that people didn’t want to know their health dispositions. Addressing these concerns, Ortega proposes a device that is worn and lights up when it encounters another person of similar genetic disposition – an attempt to solve worries about personal health through social means. Thinking about technology’s impact on the design process itself, Product Design student Sorcha Sutherland has designed bowls via an experimental making process. Starting with a ceramic form, she pinches and forms using traditional techniques, then 3D-scans and prints the results, making a mould to take to cast in the glass workshops. Using this technology paradoxically gives the impression that the molten glass was somehow crafted by hand. Jumping department to Animation, there are more craft/tech hybrids to be found. Mark Boston’s films combine painting technique with digital photography, as he explains: “One is a frame-byframe stop-motion of painting on glass. Each layer is rubbed away then repainted.”
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e’re knitting together Kevlar thread, then blowing the structures like glass, embracing technologies like the laser cutter and 3D printer. But there’s also people who want to learn to spin again.” That’s Lindy Richardson, Head of Textiles at ECA, giving an indication of the multidisciplinarity that’s got this year’s graduating students toiling over their subject specific courses. Grabbing at all the facilities and techniques they can get, the class of 2016 are cooking up igneous rock (Toby Starr, Product Design), new coral life (Jessica Gregory, Product Design), plans for your unwanted garage (Annabelle Ruddell), and – how best to explain it? – the chair that can play havoc with your Facebook and online banking if you mistreat other furniture (Mariella Barzallo, Design Informatics). Product Design sees some of the most diverse interests and media put to good use. Emily Annand’s work might easily be mistaken for fashion jewellery or a smart interior accessory, but this is a strategic aesthetic, blending technology that alleviates Seasonal Affective Disorder with necklaces and portable lamps. Sensors are hidden deep in attractive jewellery, which vibrates to let the wearer know they could do with a quick lamp session. Annand draws a nice yet accidental parallel with the work of Jewellery student Sophia Harrison-Hall. Her bracelets and necklaces go towards stress relief, as she explains: “There are herbal and medicinal plants inside them; lavender, peppermint, chamomile and geranium. They are scented, and you can spin them to distract
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Patrycja Paczkowska (Animation)
THE SKINNY
The stop-motion has then been combined digitally with music and time-lapse elements, in this instance telling “a tale of a child lost in the city [where] everybody has forgotten the existence of the sky.” In another film, he tracks the making of painting on canvas, each layer a frame in stop-motion animation. Also graduating in Animation, Alison Macpherson describes her own hand-drawing processes: “I’m making a five-minute film that’s about where I’m from on the West Coast. A fisherman rescues a horse from an island, but it’s about the journey and getting back.” As she explains, most important for Macpherson is representing the landscape and environment. This travel-based work might make a nice accompaniment to Ramón Durman’s experimental film. His degree show piece, he tells us, opens with a newspaper story from 2005: “A guy ended up washing up [alive] in a South English coastal town. He didn’t speak for a month.” While on the way to shoot the script he’d written, Durman shot footage on the ferry and from then on the project remained minimal and simplistic. Referencing the dissociative disorder of the man from the original story, Durman employs a professional voice actor to read out the DI questionnaire over a single shot from Aberdeen harbour to Orkney (“It’s available and you can take the test online,” he adds). Once he began talking again, the man in the story turned out to be from Germany, leaving the artist with one thought: “It’s socially acceptable to dissociate every day in some ways, but what does it take to get to that extreme?” There’s more experimental moving image in the Film department, where Filipe Caeiro sets the question of what might make a young woman join the Islamic State. Disagreeing with the suggestion that he’s made a straightforward activist film, he clearly states: “The agenda is there’s no agenda.” Also handling pressing topical issues, Design student Christina Arbenz has been rethinking the potential of the ECA as a site of community and education for refugees. She’s picked out a nearby building as a proposed space to “integrate refugees, with studios, a café, exhibition spaces. The back is for accommodating people in a one-anda-half-year training programme of further education.” It’s a thoughtful look at space and place, and finds room for radical potential within the university. Engaging just as thoughtfully with her immediate context, graduating interior designer cum aspiring property mogul Annabelle Ruddell spotted her niche in the New Town. “In Edinburgh, there are masses of freestanding garages,” she says. “In New Town, they’re on a heritage site, so the owners don’t have planning permission to rebuild. They can’t fit a Mondeo car, and people can park on the street so they don’t want them.” So it is that Ruddell made an interior design for pod living, inspired by Scandinavian design trends. Since all the garages are identical dimensions,
it can be easily replicated across the whole city – to the future delight of Airbnb-dependent festival-goers. Also looking at the future of real estate in Edinburgh, Jewellery student Isabel Archer has taken her cue from the Quartermile. More generally, she refers to “modern architectural concepts and designs not yet made” through her glass and metal compositions, which comprise geometric shapes that are hinged to one another, incorporating movement. Archer sums up her aesthetic concerns as “simple and basic composition, spacing, placement and balance.” While Archer looks towards large new commercial developments for visual references, Textiles student Jennifer Duncan looks inside the new office environments of companies like Google. “I’m creating tactile tiles for shared workspaces to make an adult play area,” she says. Laser-cut bases are embellished with different textures, with various textile techniques put to use: “The idea is to have the tiles to touch and look at, and increase creative productivity in employees.” From work to homelife, we consider the work of David Mahoney in the Product Design department. Unlike some of the other more proposal-based and theoretical presentations, Mahoney has made a showerhead and boiler attachment that could amass household savings of £200 a year. “There are no controls,” he says, “they connect to other home technologies, like the lights and thermostat,” allowing his project to limit behavioural waste such as “just spending too long in the shower.” Crucially, he explains, “it’s hi-tech without looking hi-tech. Parts are built directly in the boiler room, without a remote. There aren’t displays or LEDs.” He’s avoiding the stigma of frilly futuristic-looking gadgetry, and also the label of eco-product. Keeping up the environmentally friendly vibes, Mahoney’s classmate Jessica Gregory displays an arrangement of coral skeletons across her desk, and has big plans for them. “There are huge problems of deceased populations of coral, caused by human impact,” she says. “I’m making coral farms from calcium carbonate coral skeletons, where research shows coral is more likely to settle.” She’s sent her prototypes to the Horniman Museum in London to see if the coral will settle on them. If all goes well, she imagines a kit made from the same substances, providing an opportunity to create coral reefs at home. Next we take a look at Chloe Gillbanks work in Textiles. She started her days at ECA as a Costume student, but after transferring she draws inspiration from narratives and storytelling. For her degree show, she’s made up a girl band who hate the heat and sun. Set in 1976, during a particularly hot summer, their clothes are made so as not to catch any rays. Each member has a playlist and moodboard, and there’s a zine with plenty more drawings and context.
Mariela Barzallo (Design Informatics)
David Mahoney (Product Design)
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
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Also with a punky DIY outlook, Holly Graham’s Textile work comes from her visits to the botanic gardens: “I was taking photos of texture and colour and it started to influence my work.” She started doing drawings that led to small scale sculptures, with beads and different elements being crafted together into complicated embellishments on silk and voile. They’re brightly coloured, evidencing time, care and skill. “I want to make high end fashion. You either love or hate it.” Also working to combine different everyday materials with more precious ones, Orlaigh Murray’s jewellery collection references fishing and harbours. In her own words “I’m using rope and fishwire, plastic and brass painted with salt and ammonia, taking bits off and filing back – putting them in solid plastics to play with visual illusions.” Brightly coloured neon fibres used in fishing and sailing have been hand-crocheted and little miniature buoyancy aids are made from brass.
“ Technology, paradoxically, is being used to reproduce handmade impressions faithfully” From sailing equipment to sports apparatus, there’s the work of Molly Buesnel, who makes pieces from silicon and silver, patterned with the properties of silicon. “The silicon sits in the silver metal frames, and can be layered and changed,” she explains. Their forms reference the pictures of arenas and swimming pools that can be found dotted around her work area. For Fiona McLay in Interior Design, sport equipment is a negative reference. She’s designing a brand new way of getting fit and staying fit: “For a lot of people, there’s a mental barrier to going to the gym. It’s a chore. But remember when you’re a child, and it’s instinctive and fun to run around – there’s not that barrier to being active. Gyms now are clinical and industrial.” It’s intended to be built in a Glasite (old Scottish religious sect) Meeting House, and so includes both outdoor space and a food area inside. In renderings of her proposals, there are living walls and artificial nature, with group classes taking place in engaging environments. The students mentioned here represent a small part of their respective classes, with plenty more products, beautiful designs, and innovative, thoughtful films to be found across ECA’s various departments. Just one final warning/ reminder, though: beware the phishing chair.
Ruoyan Wang
ECA Design Degree Show 2016, Evolution House, Lauriston Campus, 28 May - 6 Jun
Fiona McLay, Reception space
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School of Design
THE SKINNY
Landscape Architecture Words: James Trevers
This year’s crop of Landscape Architecture students are all set to disprove the art student stereotypes with a dynamic and ambitious show
Andy Cumming EMiLA
L
ike us, you may already be acutely aware of the clichés concerned with the life of an art student. More specifically, the life of a Landscape Architecture student – the caffeine-fuelled evenings washing drearily into early mornings, or even the brutal ‘crits’, the landscape architect’s chosen form of anguish and assessment. Despite all this, the exhibition at this year’s degree show promises to be a remarkably polished reflection of five years’ work. Tucked away in an exhibition space in Adam House, Chambers Street, the degree show is a chance for ECA’s graduating cohort to show friends and family that their last five years of their existence weren’t devoted to a ‘fancy gardening course.’ Despite the conceptions of many, Landscape Architecture students are not all protégé Alan Titchmarshes, demanding nice water features to be knocked up by junior Charlie Dimmocks. Instead, as soon-to-be landscape architects, they
are concerned with a myriad of variables: ecology, urban planning and geology to name a few, but always with design at the discipline’s core. They attempt to direct a series of experiences and views for people to appreciate, possess and question, with the added dexterities and nuances of weather, season and time. While this may seem somewhat poetic, the discipline is coming to the forefront of many people’s ponderings of how a future world may look. The range of projects at the degree show is perhaps the best example of what landscape architecture represents as a discipline. On one hand there are the more classical plans of urban renewal and park design, where the student’s selfelected sites take an increasingly indefinite and ambitious view of the landscape architect’s role – an ‘unconsecrated concentration camp’ and a study into a whole island system are but a couple within a wide range. Andrew Cumming’s project
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
– Finding the Bidasoa – reflects how the discipline is able to shed its traditional skin and emerge on a global-political scale. Cummings looks towards a redefinition of the border landscape between France and Spain, as an area formerly demarcated as one of war becomes ‘a living monument to non-conflict.’ Within his design, shared space is formed through the interplays between hydrology, ecology and an existing railway infrastructure. These interventions create a porous border; a celebration of free movement along a river. Indeed, the draw of working with or near water, and the childlike wonder inherent in looking out across oceans, feature in many projects. Katie Kelleher, in her investigation of the River Severn, explores the gradations of decay that water inflicts upon shipwrecks. As iron turns to rust and the effects of time ensue, the balances of a maritime past and a future use provide an intriguing narrative for her project. This nature
James Trevers MLA2
of foresight is consistently seen throughout the works of students, however, and taking equal focus are the processes of memory and forgetting. All but a handful of the students were tasked with the site of SS Lager Plaszow, Krakow, where the elective amnesias of a local populace have seen the Holocaust landscape immortalised by Schindler’s List neglectfully corrode into a meadow. The tormented history that infects Plaszow manifests through broken gravestones or the concrete footings of barracks. This history dictated a painfully intricate challenge of design for all those involved, eight of whom have been selected to exhibit in the Schindler Museum. However, rather than a select few projects, the degree show will as much be about the individual students as it will be a spectacle of the whole – the sum of its various interwoven and nuanced parts, touched upon here, will surely be the main charm of the event. ECA Landscape Architecture Degree Show 2016, Adam House, Chambers St., 28 May – 5 Jun
ESALA
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Architecture As the Architecture Degree Show looms closer, step into the studio and take a behind-the-scenes look at the work that will be on display
Words: Rosie Milne
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o step into a studio at Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture is to step into a world of imaginings, each one daring to envisage what the built environment could be. The studio is a place between reality and fiction; things that are and things that are not. Or at least this is how we feel as we walk in on a fifth year crit (or critique) – a vital part in the conversation between tutor and student which drives architectural education, and something the fifth year M-Arch students are well used to by this point. The products of a hard year’s work are scattered across the desks, including everything from giant site models to intricate and occasionally peculiar conceptual devices, to delicate laser-cut and 3D-printed models. The walls are filled with beautiful, meticulous architectural drawings, patiently waiting to be presented to the critics for feedback. This moment is crucial as the students approach the Degree Show in May, which represents the overcoming of the first hurdle on the undergraduates’ way to professional qualification. For M-Arch students, meanwhile, it’s the crossing of the final hurdle in architectural education – the culmination of everything they have learned to date. Architectural education is somewhat unique in the way it allows for both breadth and depth of study – students must engage in a wide range of subjects that on first sight may have little to do with designing buildings. Each new project is an opportunity to be immersed in a new subject. The result is that the word ‘diverse’ doesn’t even begin to cover the breadth of projects that will be on show; even within a single brief, responses can be so varied that moving between projects feels like moving between realms – sometimes quite literally. For instance, the fifth year students have been tasked with creating hauntological responses (yes, you read that right and no, we didn’t realise hauntological was a word either) to individual sites in Tokyo, with the aim of designing for an isolated risk or potential disaster. One response takes inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel on location, with the design surprisingly manifesting as an elegant veiled skyscraper – almost as a bride to Wright’s spectre which is imprinted on the location. In contrast to the ethereal nature of projects like this, others address more social issues through their projects, responding directly to the risk of the elements such as the fire and the flood. One student chose to design for a town in Tokyo, essentially rendered a ghost town after being completely destroyed during the 1923 earthquake. In its re-colonised state it consists of shack-like structures which pose a high fire risk. Through a thoughtful design response which examines the temporal nature of the site and blurs boundaries between temporary and permanent, the design seeks to return a sense of self-determination to the inhabitants through a flexible architectural framework. While art teaches you how to see through making, architecture teaches you how to think through making. Studying architecture is about engaging in a process where thinking informs making, and making informs thinking. This is obvious when looking at the work this year's graduates have produced, which is thoughtful, insightful, adventurous, and occasionally even whimsical or other-worldly, made of the bricks of dreams. Still, having seen the work in the studio – hauntological speculations and ghosts of what could be – it will be exciting to see how the students bring their work to life in the Degree Show this May. Minto House, Edinburgh, 28 May – 5Jun, 11am to 5pm
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ESALA
Tokyo Project
THE SKINNY
Today, the software is utilised by top film and game studios worldwide and featured in numerous games, films and TV series such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, Far Cry 4 and Finding Big Foot. The company has grown to a team of 10 employees and has received various grants and awards such as Edge Higgs and SMART, as well as being part of the High Growth Programme of Scottish Enterprise.
“ Sewing your entire collection alone... is unique to ECA” Morwenna Darwell
John Mclean, Slow West
Thomas Aquilina
Katie Paterson, Timepieces
Rachel McLean, Freedom!
Life After ECA Edinburgh College of Art Graduates have gone on to successful careers across the creative industries around the world. We catch up with a few of them
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ou may not know it, but you’ve probably already seen the work of ECA graduates – it’s everywhere. They create the costumes in the TV shows you are addicted to, make the sound effects for the computer games you can’t get enough of, design award-winning buildings, curate exciting new exhibitions and produce thought-provoking art which is recognised internationally. Some names you might know, such as Katie Paterson, whose new exhibition Syzygy runs until mid-July at the Lowry, or Rachel McLean, one of the leading lights of British Art Show 8. Some films you might have seen, such as John McLean’s Slow West or Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, which opened the 59th BFI London Film Festival. This year you might have listened to Django Django’s new album Born Under Saturn or worn an item designed by ‘Queen of Prints’ Holly Fulton. If you’re a graphic design professional, you won’t have missed the Graphic Design Festival Scotland, established by 2014 graduates James Gilchrist and Beth Wilson. The contribution of ECA graduates to the cultural life of Edinburgh is immeasurable. Rhubaba, The Number Shop and Embassy were formed and are run by ECA graduates, and provide an invaluable starting point for artists beginning their careers as well as a great foundation for a growing arts scene. The work and talent of ECA Graduates also makes a difference across the city’s other arts institutions, and to independent cultural journalism all across Scotland. Many of the founders and the current team at The Skinny came from ECA.
Last year’s Degree Show was a great springboard for 16 students who were chosen to exhibit at the RSA New Contemporaries showcase. Four of those students (including Emily Binks – see below) won prizes, giving them a huge boost as they develop their creative practice. Make sure you take the opportunity to see the work of the students who are leaving us this year, because they are going to do some great things. Here is a taster of the experiences of five recent graduates from across our diverse range of subjects.
Emily Binks
Graduating last year from the BA (Hons) Sculpture course, Emily Binks won the Glenfiddich Artist in Residency Award at the RSA NEW CONTEMPORARIES exhibition Out of the blue, two weeks before the opening of the RSA exhibition, I got an email from The Suttie Arts Space in Aberdeen. They had seen my work in the ECA Degree Show and tracked me down to commission me to make a new sculptural piece for them, to be on display for eight weeks from the beginning of May 2016. My first ever paid commission. My biggest achievement since leaving has been the Glenfiddich Artist in Residency Award. It is an unmissable opportunity to completely immerse myself in developing my artistic practice further by providing me with a house, a studio and a budget for making new work. As an emerging artist there really isn’t anything greater than what Glenfiddich are offering me; total creative freedom, and the space and time for it to thrive.
Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2016
Words: David Simpson
Morwenna Darwell
BA (Hons) Fashion graduate Morwenna Darwell left ECA in 2013 and now works as a designer for Gucci in Rome. She was listed by Wallpaper Magazine as ‘one to watch’ Edinburgh College of Art gave me extremely thorough groundings in design. It still impresses me that we went from learning how to thread an industrial sewing machine on the first day to designing and sewing our entire collection three years later! Sewing your entire collection alone, something that is unique to Edinburgh College of Art, was a huge task but well worth the elation in achieving it! Everyone in my class was very talented and dedicated, so there was a real pressure to constantly raise your game, by peers and teachers alike, but it was always a really supportive environment.
Orfeas Boteas
While at ECA, Orfeas Boteas, who graduated from the MSc Sound Design programme in 2012, developed his business with support from the University of Edinburgh’s Launch.ed programme I was able to develop a Dehumaniser prototype as part of my MSc Sound Design at Edinburgh College of Art. Operating as a vocal processor, Dehumaniser develops high-quality creature sounds in real-time using one’s voice. While still a student project, it received extremely positive feedback from various industry professionals, even some names from Hollywood, and I decided to take it a step further and create a commercial release.
Thomas Aquilina graduated with an MA (Hons) in Architectural Design in 2012. He has worked in architectural practice in London and at UN-Habitat in Nairobi. Last year he was nominated as one of twelve RIBA Role Models. Below is an extract from his RIBA profile My time in Nairobi was a formative experience because it exposed me to runaway urbanisation and stimulated my interest in how space is used in an emerging urban context. I went on to win the RIBA Norman Foster Travelling Scholarship, which meant I was able to travel to half a dozen other African cities, conducting a comparative analysis to understand better the growing distance between urban renewal and street life. The people I interviewed were curious about where I come from because I looked a little bit like them and a bit like someone else. With a Jamaican mother, Maltese father and having been born in London, I have three possible identities right there. This ambiguous heritage and diffuse background offers me access to places and conversations that I wouldn’t otherwise have. How is that relevant to architecture? It allows a level of empathy, insight and connectedness. We need to highlight stories of diverse students from diverse backgrounds to show that it’s possible for people to progress and thrive within architecture in their own way. I am from an ethnic minority, neither of my parents went to university and my family didn’t have a lot of money – you need examples like this to show what’s possible, to challenge convention and confound expectation.
Matthias Pfaller
After graduating from the History of Art, Theory and Display MSc in 2014, Matthias Pfaller subsequently won internships at three renowned institutions including MoMA and the Getty Museum Getting to know so many wonderful people from all over the world enriched my life a lot, especially when I meet my friends again in the most random places on earth. For example, my Chilean flatmates introduced me to a whole new world of South American culture during my time at University, which I then was so interested in that I wrote a paper about it and presented at a big international conference. There are so many opportunities ahead and the best always turn up when you least expect it, so I am very curious about where I will be in two, three, four years’ time. The most important practical reason that got me into all three internships was my specialisation in photography, notably my dissertation on Emerging Photographers’ Websites. The course allows you to find your niche within the syllabus and the teachers encourage you to find your own topics. To learn more about ECA alumni visit eca.ed.ac.uk/alumni or email our Alumni Officer David Simpson at d.simpson@ed.ac.uk
Alumni
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2 Main Building 74 Lauriston Place Edinburgh EH3 9DF
Sculpture Combined Studies Photography Film & TV Animation Intermedia MFA Contemporary Art Practice History of Art Fashion Performance Costume
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elvilStudio le Driv 3 North East Building e 74 Lauriston Place Edinburgh EH3 9DF MFA Contemporary Art Practice Painting BA & MFA Combined Studies
4 Minto House 20 – 22 Chambers Street Edinburgh EH1 1JZ
MArch Architecture
5 Adam House 3 Chambers Street Edinburgh EH8 9YL
Go to the theskinny.co.uk/art for more Degree Show coverage
Landscape Architecture Architecture BA & MA Music
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