The ‘Other’ Playground: An Interactive and Heterotopic Right to the City

This project speculates about the exercise of the public’s right to play in the city through an interactive three-dimensional design proposal. Developed out of a rich understanding of the host space, the project combines the ideas of community gardens and sculptural playgrounds, to convert a previously in-between, overlooked or interstitial space in Glasgow into a site of rich cultural activity.

Through embodied experiences of play, the design aims to engage and stimulate an interaction amongst the local population and the site; improving and enhancing the relationships between the body and the urban fabric, whilst giving the users a voice to celebrate their own imagination and creativity.

Based in Possilpark, the project takes advantage of growth opportunities and embraces innovative ways of working to develop a model for finding sustainable, attractive and economically viable ways to re-engage interest in lost and forgotten civic spaces. Until around 1870 Possilpark was no more than a mansion house and home farm with few residents.

Since the 1950’s Glasgow, as with many cities across Scotland, has seen the demise of its industrial sector. The inter and post-war period was the most traumatic for the industries and although Glasgow clung onto being the “workshop of the Empire”, by the 1990s most of the engine shops were derelict and the shipyards reduced to wasteland. The most rapid deindustrialization took place during the 1970s and 1980s, with many of the traditional industries drastically shrunk or completely closed down. Although many initiatives promised revival, a shift towards a new service-oriented economy emerged to replace traditional heavy industries. This left many Scottish cities peppered with derelict spaces and industrial wastelands.

Possilpark was unable to avoid this pattern of urban decay, and today 100% of residents live within 500m of vacant or derelict land. The district is also one of Scotland’s most deprived areas with 15% undeployed.

The site is located on the intersection of Allander St and Barloch St in Possilpark.

Previously supporting the east corner of a tenement block, demolished in 1970, the stalled space currently functions as a car park.

Along with the scale and derelict condition of the space, which provided a huge canvas for the project, the fundamental reasons for choosing the site was its location in Possilpark and the area’s social demographic context. At the epicentre of one of Glasgow’s poorest neighbourhoods and running parallel to Saracen Highstreet, the site provided the opportunity to benefit an extremely diverse and deprived community.

The site, as with many streets throughout Possilpark, had become an avenue of anonymity, rather than a place of rich culture and activity. After visiting the site and talking to local residents it became apparent the traditional sense of a community had broken down. The increased transience of people in and out of Possilpark had developed a situation of people living in close quarters to each other but operating very isolated and separate lives. This ultimately breeds fear, contempt and frustration, bringing on a sense of alienation and powerlessness within the community.

This observation drove the development of a community based, public spaces project. These spaces are important assets to the urban fabric, providing people with opportunities to come together and engage with the community. When successful they can become a ‘self-organising public service’ for everyone in the society to participate in, learn from and to help create local attachments.

In Topographies of Contemporary Architecture Ignasi de Solà-Morales says architecture has gone silent. However, have we in fact just become deaf to the spaces around us through a lack of interaction and embodied experiences of play?

Relying less on visual stimulation and targeting a wider range of sensory stimuli the proposal shows how adding something new and enhancing the existing can positively change the way we experience and interact with the built environment.

The visuals explore the finer details of the design, whilst showing the inhabited capacity and tactile nature of the space from four different perspectives. To represent the demographic of people in Possilpark the images are populated with a range of figures, of varying heights, body shapes and abilities. These figures animate the design; suggesting how the space could be used and the rich variety of experiential goals the design can yield.

The project did not explore the technical details and specifications of the designed objects; how they would be made and what they would be made from, however, the visuals suggest a pallet of materials and textures which would achieve the goals of the space and design.

A conscious decision was made to crop the images and shape the field for view. Stepping away from a rectilinear frame not only avoided traditional presentation aesthetics, in line with the motifs of the project but also listened to David Hockney’s criticism of ‘traditional’ photography’s static field of view, revealed during early research into collage. Furthermore, the use of organic shapes to frame the visuals playfully focuses the attention on the designed space, drawing the eye into the centre of the space and reducing the attention given to the surrounding buildings.

After graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 2019 with a first-class in BA (Hons) Interior Design, I am extremely proud to have completed my masters of Architectural Studies at the Mackintosh School of Architecture.

Having spent the last two summers interning at Interior Visions in Thailand and Waldo Works in London, I’m currently looking to widen my knowledge and experience within the growing discipline of design and architecture.

‘Connecting New Centres for Tradeston & Laurieston’

How might hierarchy of urban form introduced into Glasgow’s gridiron diversify pedestrian movement and experience? is the question to the design project in Tradeston & Laurieston located across river Clyde in south-side of Glasgow city centre.

The non-hierarchical system gird has the overall similarity of sizes and visuals on most streets, which makes harder for pedestrians to perceive a sense of hierarchy and difficulties pedestrian movement.

In Consequence, the author believed a city without the sense of hierarchy of urban form reduces the diversified pedestrian experience.

Recognised by the street user, the quality of varied diverse experience of pedestrians because people remembering the image of identity of different places. Glasgow’s gridiron which is essentially a non- hierarchical urban pattern, lack of the hierarchy of urban form. Missing of the secondary and tertiary street, the city loss the opportunity to introduce more diversity in the street network.

The hierarchy allows for the great decision by the pedestrian when travelling from their location to destination. The variety of street types have corresponding building typology that enclosed the space between buildings.

This design project aims to investigate how pedestrian movement between two neighbouring districts of Tradeston and Laurieston in Glasgow has been affected by an existing grid-iron morphology.

The project introduces a hierarchy of urban form including central square with primary public buildings; primary streets, mid-block lanes to plays as shared space and building variety at the scale of the block into the Glasgow grid-iron system.

Reflection on the success of the design project will allow conclusions on the applicability of a similar method to the understanding and transformation of other locations of under-performing gridiron morphologies.

Sushmitha Srihari is a Postgraduate student at Mackintosh School of Architecture. Through the work experience as an architect, she believes the built environment is the key element which shapes the city and its people. At GSA, she has been learning the concepts of Urban design and their applications in today’s world.

The research and design project is focused on urban issues such as i) tension between the future of markets as a city-wide ‘destination’ versus neighbourhood or local amenity ii) Importance of socialising space in the city. The research conducted shows the study of 19th C market building typologies in the UK and Socialising patterns or usage of markets in the daily lives of the people.

This project studied and combined sociological, historic and architectural research to envision one of the most complex spaces in the urban fabric – the market place. Each of these aspects can define and impact the local economy and trade as well as how public open spaces are perceived. The project is aimed to understand how to successfully regenerate the market place as a lively functional and economic community space in the urban setting.

Clutha is one of Glasgow’s first bars and has long witnessed the development of Glasgow. Over the years, the disrepair brought about by history has become an obstacle to the development of Clutha, and many problems have gradually surfaced. The project will start with an in-depth analysis of the historical context of the site from the historical culture of the area where Clutha is located, and find the uniqueness of Clutah. While analyzing the regional conditions, the unique network of Glasgow’s music development was analyzed, making the project have a good internal music network system architecture and become the core of the new Clutha. Next, the project reconstructed the function and form of the building from each floor in turn, incorporating a richer space and Clutha’s unique musical attributes into a limited space, thereby building the new Clutah into an emerging music and cultural center in Glasgow.

The following study explores a new form of urbanism that can take over the Glasgow city center. The study is based on observations and modeled with reasoning studying theories that back the reasoning. The study looks at modeling an architectural form that amalgamates architecture and play using an array of curated elements, thresholds and functions. The study is developed in 3 stages:

Stage 1: Observations The observations collected have been collected post exhaustive exploration of Glasgow’s city center, especially its history, culture and development over time. The site was analyzed for its land use, junctions, accessibility, density, pedestrian and vehicular traffic, larger city connections as well as the differences in elevations. These observations culminate in raising a series of questions. These questions, in turn help in pointing our certain obvious issues with the urban fabric. The lack of open to sky spaces, the rising levels of density, the lack of breakout spaces and the diminishing centers of public assembly. Conversely, the observation couples with questions helped the analysis of site in terms of identifying its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Moreover, the observations, lead to the exploration of play as an architectural element. The observations prove to be an important stage of our study as they are notes to fallback on and model design developments from the perspective of children and adults, in adherence to their movement and activity across the site.

Stage 2: Literature Primary and secondary data collection was all done in adherence to references and citations that have explored similar strategies in similar situations to create new forms. The study of literature culminates in the analysis of site that provides us with a formidable hypothesis – architecture and play can be amalgamated to create an urban form. The urban form itself is developed from experiments around expansion and contraction of spaces that respond to changing vision cones. The composition and organization of architectural elements is curated to efficiently engage user groups and functions. Furthermore, the parameters set for data analysis emerge from the surrounding buildings and site barriers, thrusting the study us to adopt and iterate Stallan Brand’s design proposal.

Stage 3: Modeling parameters The architectural language is developed as a result of user movement, site massing, and composition of the form. Plot divisions, accessibility, and functions give an order to aesthetics and design. The massing itself is a response to the urban fabric. It is an attempt to play with surfaces that integrate seamlessly into one another and the streetscape. The urban form generated as a result of design development addresses the notion of play at varying thresholds. It imbibes the childlike wonder of being in spaces, exaggerated through modeling of masses, portals, and thresholds in accordance with a user experience that looks at users to develop their own navigation system based on the order the form adopts from materiality and color. It is an attempt to curate scales such that it creates a paradigm shift in the way we look at Glasgow’s urban fabric.

Conclusion

The form is majorly modeled to be an open public space that curated movement by instilling a sense of navigation on its elements. The entire form can be collectively viewed as a coming together of the smaller kits of parts and engage with one another at varying scales. Each part has a certain role to play in hosting children and adults and activating multiple functions using materiality and color.

The integration of play through the urban form is rooted within the response the form offers by opening up its ground plane and terraces (both of which are internally connected as well). The permeable nature of the built form, in terms of both structure and the skin, develops from contracting and expanding spaces based on the site parameters and the surrounding built form. Furthermore, distinct circulation blocks double as navigational nodes that engage users and help them develop a sense of wonder through navigation.

The attempt is to create a new sense of urbanism amidst the city center, one that is more inclusive and active in its approach and management of users, that provides breakout spaces at varying scales and forms to develop niches that can best activate the structure in terms of aesthetics and functionality. There is a careful consideration given to threshold treatments and their engagement with the user is particularly curated to create memorable experiences through exaggeration of scale and modeled features such as furniture, walls and openings. Holistically speaking the urban form is an experiment that stemmed from the observations of Merchant city’s urban fabric. It is an attempt at bringing curiosity back into the users by appealing to everyone’s sensibility, vision and movement to narrate a sequence of urban play.

Activating Edges and Shadow

Resolving the Western M8 Corridor in Glasgow

Glasgow’s City Centre has the majority of its area devoted to roads and parking. In order to prioritise social and spatial justice, Glasgow needs to manage its walkability, safety, sustainability and quality of public spaces and places. This is how the city will be able to tackle current challenges, as well as creating robust infrastructures which allow flexibility for future needs and uses.

The lack of quantity and quality of public spaces across the stretch in study creates a hostile place to be. The traffic of motor-vehicles dominates the surrounding areas, leaving pedestrians to dark underpasses or bridges, neither being DDA accessible. In order to enhance quality of life and attractiveness, Glasgow needs to promote healthy lifestyles through its surroundings. The control over noise and air pollution is also essential to create welcoming and pleasant spaces for people. Increasing the amount of open green spaces which also work as connectors between neighbourhoods could transform the city boundaries and shadows from hard & dead, to soft & vibrant places.

Could the activation of the M8 Motorway corridor in Glasgow resolve its unjust, segregated and car-dominated city fabric? This is the current thesis aim when activating the West M8 motorway corridor in Glasgow.

‘Edges’, through the knowledge from Kevin Lynch (1960), this author understands the M8 corridor as the fragmented edge of Glasgow, segregating and isolating neighbourhoods and uses. Therefore, when ‘activating edges’, new purposes and uses are introduced to the M8 corridor, ‘stitching’ the urban fabric and aiming to transform it into a uniting seam.
‘Shadows’, in this context, being the forgotten undercroft spaces from the M8 corridor, having the understanding of the great spatial qualities inherent to these spaces with the intention of also integrating them back to the urban fabric.

The research for this design project includes three main methods: expanding knowledge through key literature; analysing case studies; and utilising methods of engagement with citizens from the areas adjacent to the M8 corridor.

Important concepts from Henri Lefebvre (1971), Edward Soja (2010), David Harvey (2012), Richard Sennett (2006), Christopher Alexander (1977), Jane Jacobs (1961), Jan Gehl (2010) and Kevin Lynch (1960) have been noted. The case studies selected have similar physical settings to the current proposed site, which means, case studies of car-dominated barriers between neighbourhoods or between city and river. Lastly, a community engagement study gathering public opinion over urban settings was undertaken in Anderston, one of the neighbourhoods next to the M8 corridor. This study was made in partnership with the community centre ‘The Pyramid’ based in the same neighbourhood. This study utilised of an online map of the neighbourhood, where citizens could add comments at locations which they felt needed improvement. The project created by the Glasgow City Council called ‘Connecting Woodside’ was used as a key reference.

As a result of this investigation, this research found how important open spaces are to deliver greater justice within urban environments and how the human dimension should be a priority when coming to urban design. It also found how adaptability, flexibility in program, relationship to its surroundings and placing essential amenities are important to deliver density, and therefore diversity to the chosen site. Lastly, this design proposal has answered successfully, within its own means, the research question: yes, it is possible to achieve better justice, integration and pedestrian-friendly city fabric through the activation of the M8 Corridor in Glasgow.

However, there are points in which this proposal could be further developed. This author understands the need for deeper community involvement. The current research, due to COVID-19, could not deliver the full picture through its current methodology. This author also understands the degree of importance of topics such as gentrification and policies in order to truly deliver justice within cityscapes, therefore, further studies are necessary in order to implement this proposal to Glasgow’s urban fabric.

Revealing Peripheral Space: An analysis through drawing of threshold spaces  across the buildings of the Maiden Lane Estate

The goal of this research project was to explore the threshold spaces within housing which are peripheral to the dwelling spaces themselves. The analysis is focused particularly on public housing, or council housing, in London. This analysis was undertaken as a series of drawings which isolate these peripheral spaces across several development stages of the Maiden Lane estate in London. By abstracting these spaces from the housing blocks the aim was to reveal the various types of threshold spaces present and their arrangement across the different development phases.

The estate had originally been planned as one large development, designed by Benson and Forsyth, but was realised in three different phases. Phase one was a reduced version of Benson and Forsyth’s original plans, built by Camden Council and completed in 1979. Phase two was also designed by a team from Camden’s architect department but without Benson and Forsyth. This phase was overseen by Daniel Usiskin and was completed in 1983. The third and final phase of the estate is much more recent, completed in 2017 by PRP architects with Camden Council as the client.

Each phase of the development has been categorised by the house or block typology. The block have then been drawn in plan, isolating only the peripheral spaces and layered across different storeys. These plans have formed the templates to produce a set of axonometric drawings, coloured coded to show the various types of threshold space, along a scale of public to private. These drawing highlight the differences in spatial design across the different phases of the development. The resulting drawings provide a comparative study of the earlier and later phases of the project. Shown here is a selection from the complete set of drawings. The accompanying design report can be found via the link below.

The rapid development of the global civil aviation industry has led to a surge in the number of airports. Airport departure hall consumes a lot of energy throughout the year due to their large size, complex function, busy business and long operation time. Among other functions the energy consumption for artificial lighting and air conditioning is one of the main factors leading to high energy consumption in the terminal. Skylight lighting, as a common way of lighting, is also different from ordinary buildings when it is applied to departure halls. At the same time, there is a special relationship between the energy consumption of air conditioning and the energy consumption of daylighting due to environmental conditions in low latitudes, and skylight lighting has a better energy saving potential in low latitudes. In view of this, this paper studies and analyzes options of skylight design for a typical airport departure hall form and layout. Based on the study of the design of departure halls and the theory of natural lighting design, the elements of daylighting design of skylights of the departure hall are summarized, and the natural lighting effect of the three skylights are discussed.

I created a new Collection with the interests and the feelings of mine which inspired by sound and silence and focused on the whole process of design through the studies at GSA. I became a surface led student and focused more on textiles in the whole year. I did much more textiles works than before and got much more than my expectation after the whole year studying in GSA. I explored the working method of fashion design and created my personal aesthetic.

I was inspired by the Artist, Film and Muse research project a lot. The muse in this project of mine is Brian Eno who works as a musician. Music gives me a fascinating world in my life, and I would like to create a relationship between music and clothes for a long time. So I was really excited to start this project. The project I was working on is to translate music and sound into garments. It was a pretty exciting project but with many difficulties, and I created a relationship among the sense of hearing and seeing by my own understanding of music and garments.

My project consists of three parts, sound part, visual part and the part of “sound” and “silence”. Throughout this project I undertaken  an in-depth research. In my previous project I took little time on research，so the outcomes were limited by my limited views. In this project I did research by the whole time in stage 1 and got much more than my expectation. So my work in stage 2 was making a selection of stage 1’s works to further my project, instead of continuing working difficultly with the limited ideas. I explored the sound materials and silent materials in stage 2, and I found flexible foam which is interesting to work with it on garments. It was my first time using an untraditional material on fabrics and it was an exiting start for my future projects.

Menswear designer Wentian Song released a mono-material Menswear range for his Master collection at the Glasgow School of Art.

Being inspired by melting ice caps and the effect this is having on the planet, Wentian Song explored different forms of primary research by freezing garments and different objects, such as silicone blocks, few pins and photos, which related to his secondary research where he looked at historical photographs of workwear.

With consideration of maximizing the recycling of garments and making garments more easily degradable, Wentian Song applied mono-materiality into his design, by using straps and knots in his garments instead of traditional buttons and elastic bands.

In order to maximize the application of mono-materiality, Wentian Song deconstructed a pair of second hand suspender trousers and removed the original trouser legs to the armholes and sewed them into an oversize jacket. Then he sewed the pocket linings as a high collar along the neckline of the jacket. Similarly, after he got a first idea, he continued to do the second one and the third one until he got the oversize silhouette and the street look balance that he want.

Where it was necessary to use multiple fabrics, removable elements were designed by using buttons and zippers on the hem to connect the linings instead of sewing them together directly, this is so the components could be removed so the jacket could be recycled more easily.

Inspired by the shape and structure of architecture and influenced by the Bauhaus Movement, Carolina De Jesus designs and produces intriguing, colourful garments that are environmentally conscious.

Her work stems from the simple method of hand wrapping fine threads to create abstract layered shapes. She is fascinated by challenging the boundaries that arise when producing art formed from the winding of vertical and horizontal threads. The choice of threads and colour influences each shape to respond uniquely to the surrounding light, creating compositions with innovative shapes and three-dimensional effect.

Carolina continued developing resources and techniques to perfect this craft and also constructs commissioned wall art in a range of colours and sizes.

With the purpose to produce sustainable clothing in the forefront of her mind, she carefully mirrors this technique onto fabric by decisively cutting, folding and directing squares three-dimensionally.

These patched designs have traditional suggestions that emphasise its classical and timeless element. The patchwork technique clearly articulates Carolina’s personal design aesthetic, whilst creating opportunities to revive discarded fabric, in order to produce vibrant long-lasting clothing.

The designer graduated from Master of fashion and textile in Glasgow school of art. With the main direction of silhouette design, her design is focusing on the relationship between human body and clothings and balancing traditional tailoring elements with dramatic design ideas to achieve the purpose of both wearable and conceptual design.

The name of the project is “Body in desire”, which came from the story of lustful people transformed into monsters in the anime “Devilman Crybaby”. Therefore, the designer used the change of human bodies in desire to combine with the elements from traditional tailoring jackets to present the influence from desire to human bodies by the hyperbole and abnormal silhouettes of the design work.

The designer thinks that everyone is equal in front of desire, there is no difference of gender, age, nationality and body shape, thus, she wanted to do gender less design with not only oversized clothings, but the garments structure that independent from human body, so the visual effect won’t be influenced by human body shapes. Therefore, all the datas came from different body shapes with various sized, height and genders, so the prototypes were also tried on various bodies to achieve the most balanced result.

Yasmine Amani is a textile artist and expert embroiderer, specialising in hand embroidery and embellishments. In her work, she combines traditional hand intensive embroidery methods with contemporary and current concepts, aiming to entertain and captivate the viewer. She has previously worked on commissions for the BBC, including embellishing a jacket which was worn by Susan Calman on BBC Scotlands’ Hogmanay.

Inspired by iconography and the decorative opulence of Faberge eggs, Yasmine Amani’s Master’s project looks to turn the chicken into the icon of the 21st Century. Inspired by films such as ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Marie Antoinette’, she aims to reimagine the chicken with a new found sense of sophistication, glamour and grandeur.

Through a limited palette and material choice, subtle changes in the differing tones, weights, textures and transparencies of ribbon can be detected, echoing the beautiful plumage found in chickens. Influenced by designers such as Simone Rocha and Valentino, her fashion visualisations aim to manifest a sense of importance in its wearer.  With an emphasis on volume, her textiles are integral to mirroring the voluptuous qualities and plumage of the chicken, adding to the overall impact of the garment. Additionally, with the exclusive use of hand embroidery methods, she creates the look and feel of a sumptuous body of feathers throughout her collection, elevating the once humble chicken to a level beyond its popularity as meat.

Yasmine practices responsible methods in her work by using second-hand materials wherever possible, sourcing these through Ebay, charity, thrift and vintage shops. Additionally, by exclusively using hand embroidery methods in the making of her textiles, this excludes the need and use of machinery for the whole textile process. Furthermore, due to her style of embroidery, it would be hoped that the longevity of the item would span out many years and cherished by whoever it remains with.

Shanxu Cong, also called Vivien.

As a women’s wear designer, she is concerned about women’s freedom and protection, and she also explores the development of underwear style structure to convey women’s pursuit of free life attitude.

In her opinion, the sexiest moment of a woman is the moment when she comes home, takes off her clothes one by one and lies lazily in her delicate bedroom. With this in mind, she conducted an in-depth visual photographic investigation of the process of undressing.

This is the moment to show the beauty of the female body line, but it is not limited to age and figure. The structural change of folds is a good way to express these body lines. She loved the wrinkles, whether they were in the fabric of clothing or on human skin, and she didn’t see anything bad with them. Just like she loves everything about herself.

There are some moments you can’t distinguish between reality and illusion. There are some blur and distant memories you are not sure they really happened or just imagination. Xiang Yu’s inspiration came from a sentence of French “Déjà vu”, it is the feeling that one has lived through the present situation before.

She explored her personal childhood memory photos and family photos, obfuscated and blurred them. Then she took a set of photos through long time exposure photography and partial lighting and extracted the blurred silhouette in these photos. She tried to twist and deform the loose and oversize garment inside by adding a slim and tied transparent vest outside to express the sense of blur. Meanwhile, she used a lot of hand sewing methods in this project. Such as running stitch and embroidery stitches, which are designed for decorated and seamed.

Yufei Cai is a high-end womenswear designer specialising in clothing with a romantic style, aiming to offer a different analysis and concept of beauty. She explores the silhouette by utilizing flowers as a research object, breaking through conventional clothing construction by using sculpture to show the effect of blooming. The entire series of work is visual and powerful, and she prefers traditional handcraft sewing methods to make clothes. Though the use of textured fabric and fabrication techniques, she explores sensory interaction with three- dimensional garments. This is enhanced by responsible design through designing innovative womenswear that considers functionality and aesthetic so that the designs can be worn by people with impaired sight.

I am a multidisciplinary artist utilising skills in Film Making, Photography and Visual language as my primary method of storytelling. Adhering to an underlying ethical code within my practise is a required part of acting responsibly as an artist, designer and a consumer, something I needed to be keenly aware of, given the sensitive nature of my work. This is no longer a choice or privilege, but a commitment everyone carries with their actions and Communication Design challenges me to ensure these values are upheld.

For the film “Mektub” I followed the animal welfare organisation “Ims’one Project” based in Morocco who seek to vaccinate, sterilize, tag and release street dogs as well as house the most vulnerable in the region. The documentary highlights the general situation facing street dogs in Imsouane, Morocco, and the attempts by local animal welfare organisations to introduce legislation combating the inhumane mass culling by authorities as an attempt to control their population. Woven alongside the issues facing dogs is also the personal portrait of Fran Belle, founder of “Ims’one Project”. Fran has to care for them as humanely as possible with limited resources, relying often on little more than her own relentless determination and immense self sacrifice.

Jiayi Cai was born in Guangdong Province, China. She studied fashion design and garment engineering in China before completing the Master of Design in Photography from Communication Design at the Glasgow School of Art.

After graduating from university, she decided to come to the UK to study fashion photography. In stage 1 and stage 2, she devoted herself to finding her visual language and working hard to learn to create narrative fashion photography works.

She works across disciplines, her practice is process-led, trying various methods and techniques to develop ideas. She likes to dig out the relationship between fashion and humanities and create emotional works on this basis.

Giorgia Tonolo is an Italian Graphic Designer mainly interested in editorial design. She graduated at IUAV University in Venice in 2018. She has also experimented professional life for a year in Italy, where she learnt to deal with clients.

She is organised and determined, she offers refined and minimalistic design projects, based on a clear structure. During her master at the Glasgow School of Art, she experimented more, trying to break the mold. She changed her way of thinking, by starting designing and thinking through the making. As a matter of fact, this year helped her experiment with new printing and binding techniques. She experimented even more in her last project. Starting from a science experiment she made, she made some mould grow and then she decided to recreate their texture and shapes through the embroidery, learning it by making. This experimentation lead to the realisation of a fabric poster and a small publication.

She worked on different topics, from daily psychological obsessions to moulds and science to common and anonymous objects. She changed her approach to the graphic design field, by focusing more on conceptual works, based on a strong visual language. In the future, she would like to deepen the type design field, as part of her passion for book design.

THE AMAZON IS ON FIRE. SAVE AMAZON.

In recent years, Coronavirus, Australia fire, dramatic temperature change and amazon rainforest destruction rate have returned to their peak. The frequent occurrence of disasters on earth made me start to think about human beings and the environment. How to balance the relationship between human and nature? How can the situation of the “future” not be worse than that of the present?

My topic is about the deforestation of Amazon rainforest. The number of fires in the Amazon rainforest increased 30.5% in 2019 from the previous year, while deforestation rose 85%, according to recent data released by Brazil’s space research agency INPE. The Amazon rainforest is far away from our lives, but its roles the lungs of the earth. Where would we be without it? My project is to make a publication–THE AMAZON IS ON FIRE( bilingual edition in Chinese and English)–to make more people aware of Amazon rainforest.

“The Fire” does not only fire in the Amazon rainforest but more importantly, the amazon is in a state of emergency and need of rescue right now.

Yingjie is a graphic designer. He usually uses illustrations and typography to reflect the concept of his work. Sometimes he will use almost crazy methods to achieve his goals. Some of the concepts of his works may seem naughty or even lazy, but he hopes that the audience can find something deeper behind these.

After coming to GSA, he focused on exploring more interesting things and concepts that people usually don’t notice easily, and try to use crazy ways to transform these concepts into his works. ‘Films in 1994 ’ is a good example.

As a Chinese, he understand the environment and current situation of Chinese art. He especially admire the artists from the 1970s to the 1990s. They worked hard to find their own artistic value and dared to fight for their purpose under the circumstances that the social environment changed very quickly. The spirit of confrontation is very worthy of the current artists to learn. Yingjie is also attracted by this spirit and hopes to make a work to commemorate it.

email: yingjiezhou1220@gmail.com

Pauline Levy is a French multidisciplinary Graphic Designer, currently based in Paris. Keen on experimentation, she explores different mediums such as sculpture, drawing, and photography, and plays with materials and colours, as part of the research process. Publications are often the outcome of her projects, because of her high interest in Editorial and Type design, discovered during her bachelor degree in Art Direction at Penninghen (Paris). Meanwhile, her passion for Dance, and more widely performing arts, led her to focus on movements, space, and body. Feet were her main interest of studies during this year, bringing her to a developed and various reflection presented through two different supports: a publication and a dance performance. At the moment, the dance performance is presented as a score, and will evolve into a video, in collaboration with some dancers. Next steps for her are to increase collaborative and interactive projects, in the dance field in particular, and to discover more in Type and Set Design.

Xiaoxin Wang is an illustrator and visual designer from China. She is currently working as a freelance illustrator. She explores the use of comics to tell stories about what happens around her. She uses irony and humor to take us into a surreal space. Her work aims to give the reader an emotional identity. She was shuttling back and forth between reality and the surreal.

Xiaoxin graduated from Hubei Institution of Fine Arts with a degree in Visual Communication Design before completing her GSA master’s degree.
“My works focus on the study of all kinds of emotions brought by the society. Through the observation of the people around me, I find that some of the pressures brought by the community are very subtle by looking at these stories and adding some emotional content. It is the most exciting thing to let the work wander between the real and the surreal. “

I have a deep passion for trying to tackle the climate crisis. I consider it my way of contributing to that, by acting as a communicator and advocate for the greatness of change and alternatives that lie ahead of us. As an Illustrator, I want to utilise the ability of art to tap into people’s emotions and reach their guts – to influence a decision-making process and to motivate people to fight apathy and to find perspective. What I personally like so much about art, as a tool, is that it can easily be used to show a way of growing out of, instead of fighting against, whatever has to be changed. This follows the principle that whatever you give your attention to will expand. It is the perfect possibility to generate a new reality by feeding people‘s imagination – making something that might be yet invisible visible. “Homo sapiens rules the world because it is the only animal that can believe in things that exist purely in its own imagination, such as gods, states, money, and human rights.”, says Noah Yuval Harari in his book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”; hence, all systems on our planet earth (except for the ecosystem) once were just ideas in someone‘s mind who then acted upon them, convinced others of the ideas‘ strength, and therefore created a new reality. With all of my projects, I aim to contribute to creating such a new reality; one that is not based on exploiting people and planet, but one that is built on social, sustainable, and equitable values.

If this made you curious about more: Chrysopoeia is my recently launched caboodle of work where I will showcase all of my future projects.

Topic: Creating a vision of multicultural coexistence in community.

This research project aims to propose a hypothesis about the community designed for people with different cultural backgrounds. By creating a narrative and exaggerated multicultural community through overall planning, to explore larger aspects from a broader perspective, in order to stimulate a diversity of thought in community identity. The purpose is to provide a new perspective and strategy for the integration of multi-cultural communities. It’s more like a metaphor of the cultural coexistence. Moreover, this approach can open up discussions about multicultural communities and trigger new questions in areas like interior design theory, and apply to any other cultural communities.

Supervisor: Thomai Pnevmonidou

Mengqing Wu is a Spatial Designer who was graduated from Decoration Design in Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts(China) before obtaining in Master of Interior Design in Glasgow School of Art. She has studied in many art-related fields and has been extensively exposed to sectors of spatial design such as installation and artwork, giving her a different perspective of architecture and interior design. As an amateur photographer, she focuses on the composition of geometric elements as well as light and shadow and its relationship with architecture. During the master study, she is keen on exploring the relationship between culture and architectural space based on the context of the social issue.

Folding Beijing creates a more extreme scenario, where China’s population capacity explodes in the future, and the population does not live on land. So around the 22nd century, space was divided into three levels, with different people occupying different Spaces and allocating each 48-hour cycle in different proportions. So in the inherent space can we expand and compress the space by folding.

Lost cube

“Everyone is unusual ” When you find your way, you will no longer be lost.

During the isolation time of the new coronavirus epidemic, I watched many movies. What impressed me more is the movies about autism, such as “TEMPLE GRADIAN”. Why is the feeling deep? Because this film tells a story about a person with autism who was never understood until the final success on the growth path, it also reminds me that wearing a mask during the new coronavirus epidemic is not understood by some people. This is also me. There are many different views on autism in today’s society. Some people think that it is a disease, while others think that it is nerve diversity, not a disease. I think people don’t know enough about autism, and they don’t let everyone really understand autism. In my next design, I hope people can understand autism, no matter what point of view. So I started to study autism, so as to reduce social discrimination against them.

Windsor participated in the MDes Interior Design course after completing her BA Hons degree in Interior Design at Glasgow School of Art. She grew up in America and was highly involved in the performing arts, which initially sparked her interest in spatial and interior design. She still works in the performing arts as a dance teacher and choreographer between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Her design interest include movement through space, interior mise-en-scene, scenic design, fictional interiors and places, and experimenting with alternative ways to present and understand interiors through elements like sound and film. She investigates ways to re-see interiors and space by applying techniques and theories such as defamiliarization, The Uncanny, and studying the mise-en-scene of film especially in the horror and sci-fi genre.

Project: A Glitch in the digital world is a temporary malfunction or fault, but when applied to a different context the term glitch takes on a new meaning. A glitch in the physical form or glitch in the universe (space and time) is an unfamiliar thing or coincidence that grabs our attention, and could possibly be rationalization for unexplained occurrences or alleged paranormal encounters. Once we are in the fourth dimension and beyond there can be an overlap of dimensions causing or appearing to be what I claim is a physical glitch. This opens up an argument of an un-tangible space where mysteries, conspiracies and the paranormal could possibly be explained. This also allows the concept of time and gravity within space to be considered essential elements of the experience of the interior.

Can the reflection and defamiliarization of self and space be used to gain a higher understanding of and effectively develop fictional space? Can a glitch act as a portal or communication to a new dimension, resulting in an uncovering of what cannot be explained? Does a glitch make us more aware of reality and our existence, including the space around us and elements that surround it? For my project, the protagonist The Glitch is the evolution of a human subject, myself, once inhabiting another dimension deemed The Graveyard of Molecules. I am using myself as the subject for the project as a metaphor for The Glitch, which will be the protagonist in a personally developed narrative in order to provide a relatable framework for the definition of the glitch. I am also considering the digital glitch’s purpose in relation to the physical glitch, and the possibility that the digital glitch is an attempt of communication from the other dimensions.

Through this project I am challenging the boundaries of interior and spatial design by seeing if it is equally as relevant to occupy a non-tangible space, and if that is possible to effectively visualize while also challenging the relationship between the body and space, and how they affect one another. I have embarked on a journey to discover self-identify reflected in space, using defamiliarization of self and space to gain a higher understanding of the concept of space. My own narrative brings understanding to the experience which is developed through different elements of lived in interiors of my past, mixed with newly designed scenes from the future. These designed visuals create the mise-en-scene of my narrative, influenced by scenic design and my personal art direction.

Forgiveness space

Forgiveness Space is a natural space to promote the family relationship between children and fathers. Through interaction, immersive experience, and joint participation, promoting excellent communication between fathers and children and understanding each other better is achieved. The patriarchal system is a widespread problem in society since ancient times.  Although it is a matriarchal society in some areas and periods（For example, Minangkabau, an indigenous people located in the West Sumatra Plateau in Indonesia, is the world’s largest matriarchal society）, in most families, the father still occupies the central leadership position.  Long-term inequality between men and women has led to a series of problems, such as the mother’s weak presence in the family under the oppression of patriarchy, which leads to the lack of protection in the child’s growth.  This lack of the mother’s care and protection will lead to some personality defects, such as depression, sensitivity, irritability, paranoia, etc.  Although the status of father and mother in the family tends to be the same day by day, because patriarchy has dominated people’s thinking for too long, the shadow of patriarchy still exists in life.  The existence of patriarchy not only affects children but also puts pressure on fathers.  The standard definition of the father; they need to be the person who makes the most money in the family; they should always be rational and not emotional, and so on.  In order to satisfy the stereotype of fathers in these societies, fathers themselves are under pressure, which also causes a series of problems. For example, it is difficult for fathers to have enough time to care for their families and accompany their children’s growth.  This phenomenon is also why it is difficult for fathers and children to communicate and create barriers, and the problems that need to be solved.

Keywords: forgiveness; communication bridge; time machine; door; love; experience; understanding

This project wants to study the changes and trends in the design of entertainment under the continuous prosperity of the single economy. Because of the continuous changes in work styles and online communities and the awakening of people’s self-awareness, part of the development of the online community has eased people’s feelings of being alone, and large-scale social activities are no longer a necessity.

These phenomena also caused some social problems. During Covid-19, people who cannot go out and focus more time on social media, become more extreme and paranoid than before. People can easily judge some people or things by misleading information on the internet. Many people are surrounded by social media group emotions and lose their ability to think independently. When we use social software, we easily repost the opinion from some KOL. Have we seriously thought about it? Every extreme point of consensus has a strong potential for violence, and people unconsciously become the perpetrators of cyber violence. In the public opinion argument environment of the “post-truth” era, in the era of smart media that has long been housed in an “echo chamber” built from similar information, people lacks the ability to think independently and make rational judgments.

People need solitude. When people are just thinking alone, their thinking belongs to themselves; when we are surrounded by ideas with group emotion or secondary processing, we will instinctively imitate the opinions and ideas of others. So how can we keep our thinking independently? Single-player games, especially text adventure games, used to be the completely self-thinking and self-selected experience. It is a very ego and undisturbed field. However, the current trend is a variety of puzzle-solving strategies, spoiler barrage appears randomly in the game. More players are no longer willing to play games by themselves, and more choose to watch youtuber videos online, losing the process of solving puzzles and choosing in person.

With the continuous development of AR and VR technology, the real game space has increasingly become a space that can bring people entertainment, inspiration, and thinking. Today, when the single economy is constantly being mentioned, reducing inertial thinking, keep independent thinking, and forming a logical cognitive structure to make rational judgments are still things people continue to pursue but it is difficult to achieve. This project relies on the way of realizing single-player text adventure games, hoping to make some excellent stories full of reversals through a multi-layer narrative method to enable players to optimize their way of thinking, independent thinking, and rational analysis in the game experience. I hope that players by challenging the game, know how easy it is to cheat people by playing with text trap, and understand that the angle of a thing is complex and multi-faceted, not black and white. In a group environment, you can follow the consensus less but think more.

Urban and Rural Communication Space

The Tide phenomenon is the periodic motion of seawater under the action of the moon and the sun. The same phenomenon can be observed in Chinese society, which has a similar periodicity. In each cycle, the house is built, decorated, and demolished, then the next cycle starts. It is an endless process. The buildings have very short life spans. If there is an interrupt in the whole process. The buildings are easy to be unfinished ruins. It happens because people make the wrong decisions, and it happens in an unpleasant way. And in a modern city, It’s not in harmony with its surroundings.

The unfinished ruins are also a kind of barrier for people. Different buildings have different languages and functions which can give people different feelings. People will have different subjective assessments of these buildings and know the functions of these buildings. However, unfinished ruins can be confusing for people because people even don’t know the functions of them. A barrier can block two objects, in this case, the confusing function is the barrier between the people and buildings. But from another point of view, the barrier is not only an obstacle but also a connection. The question is how to strengthen the connection and reduce the obstacle simultaneously. There is another barrier between people near the unfinished ruin site. It emerged because of the expansion of the city; the rural people had to enter the city life, the urban people also had to accept the rural people into their lives. There are many barriers to the formation of a new life circle between the two groups. Therefore, I hope to weaken the barrier between rural people and urban people and strengthen their connection by using the barrier of unfinished ruins as a bridge between urban and rural areas.

There are two ways to weaken barriers and strengthen connections. One is to be a field experience, where countrymen can still grow crops in cities. So that those countrymen whose main skill is farming can retain their original way of life after entering the city, rather than feeling confused and blocked by entering the city life. The other material is a lens. Although it is transparent, its image changes depending on the distance. It will bring people different visual feelings, such as a convex lens. Viewing from a distance will be a blurred and magnified inverted image, which is a kind of barrier from the perspective of vision. But when you get very close to a convex lens, what you can see is an enlarged image. However, you and the image are separated by a lens as if it were in front of you. This phenomenon can be regarded as a reinforced connection from the perspective of vision.

As a designer, I try to use the environment to tell stories to build a connection between people and space. I like old places in cities because there are always stories behind them. Space is a powerful narrative vehicle because of its multidimensionality. Now, I am exploring how to apply this spatial narrative method to exhibition design.

In this project, I tried to apply a nonlinear narrative to an experimental exhibition about the novel Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino 1972), and transform the description in the novel into the atmosphere, experience, and sound in the space. Compared with an exhibition with only one fixed path, a non-linear exhibition gives visitors more possibilities to piece together and explain the content. Visitors may go around in the exhibition, and all narrative order becomes uncertain. By doing this, it gives visitors more power to express their own meaning and independent understanding in the exhibition. Besides, the project changed the traditional experience in literary exhibitions that visitors just read text while standing. The translation of the novel text into spatial scenes provides visitors with a multi-sensory interpretation.

From the perspective of the Heterotopia (Foucault, M, 1967), the parasite architecture act as a long-term intervener of the city. The pandemic is a warning which tells that the town we live in today is large enough. What we need when an epidemic occurs is not making any more high-rise buildings, but converting as much space as possible. The outbreak has brought a ‘new normal’ to our society which triggered people to think about the changes in living areas, lifestyles and relationships between each other.

The implementation of the quarantine policy has pressed a ‘pause button’ on people’s lives, which has forced people in isolation and re-examined their surroundings. The lockdown policy has enforced for nearly half a year. It has imposed an impact on people’s psychological state of social interaction. According to the questionnaire, the most common mental activities during the quarantine have two categories: one is the urgent need to interact with others to release one’s loneliness; another is the fear of social interaction after being quarantined, which leads to the autistic state.

In this project, the spatial connection explored with the window is a metaphor for the relationship between people. The existence of the window is embodied in both public and private sense when two hidden spaces behind the window are connected. It has formed a spatial intimacy, which has reduced the boundary of the space and encouraged people to get across the loneliness and the state of the autistic state.

As a designer, not only should be able to find problems, these problems may be hot spots around or be hidden dangers in the future. But also should provide an optimized solution, which meets the engineering conditions and the user-friendly experience.

This project aims to deal with the excessive stress and mental problems suffered by people as a result of self-isolation during the epidemic. This product adopts a wearable camera module to provide motion-sensing interactive games to help people increase indoor activities, reduce stress, and increase social contact.
The hardware of the product consists of two parts: a band with a sensor and power supply and a camera module that can work independently. When the user wants to play the somatosensory interactive game, first use the camera module to connect the projector. After successful pairing, open the band, put the camera module at a suitable place, and then close the band to select different motion modes to play the game.

This product is for special people in a special period (self-isolation, single person in the city closure period), so the use scene is indoor, at the same time, it needs to cooperate with the projector, TV screen, and other equipment to obtain the best user experience.

According to the data from CIPA, the global camera sales drops 87% from 2010 to 2019. With the huge improvement of smartphone camera sensor. The traditional camera market has been compressed a lot. The main reason is that the portability, usability and travel experience of smartphones are much better than DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. However, the image quality of traditional cameras still has an absolute advantage over smart phones. Some travel photography enthusiasts and photographers must carry heavy equipment to shoot in order to pursue the ultimate image quality when traveling which greatly reduces their travel experience. Besides, the camera is difficult to access while the user is moving. In addition, the structure of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras lacking ergonomic design in some aspect. For instance, insufficient adaptability for different shooting positions, the selfie holding experience are not considered. The last but not least, in order to get clear images in low light conditions, travel photographers usually use a tripod to stabilize the camera body, but the tripod is inconvenient to carry and setup. This product is designed to improve the travel experience and better ergonomic design of traditional cameras. To let travel photography enthusiasts and photographers use the camera more conveniently during journey. The portability and usability of the camera are enhanced through redesigning of the camera’s shape, structure and holding gesture. The solution is designing the camera body as a cylindrical shape so that users can put the camera in the side pocket of the backpack and use a rotatable quick-release grip to achieve multi-angle shooting capability. The grip can be easily setup as a tripod as well.

PROTECTOR

A pair of smart rings could remind you to do not touch your face and wash your hands for 20s

About my design: These smart rings mainly have a fluid sensor and a Three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope sensor. It can detect the tendency of face-touch behavior and also the handwash case. when you have the tendency to touch your face it would vibrate 0.5s to remind you that you have the unconscious face-touching behavior. when it detects that you are washing hands it starts to count and vibrate for two seconds at the twentieth second to tell you that you can finish washing your hands.

Background: People are worried about back to work as the epidemic is not over yet. I also found that people would quickly adapt to the work environment and their awareness of self-cleaning protection may decrease although they said that they are worried about back to work at the beginning. During the observation, I found that what we really need attention is the potential danger of our unconscious face-touching behavior, besides wash hands for 20 seconds is also needed to reduce the risk of unconscious face- touching behavior but most people can’t accurately account to 20s for hands washing. So what if people could be reminded to do not touch their face and also could know whether they have washed hands to 20s.

How to use: As for how to use it, if we start it for the first time it will automatically go into setting mode, and what we need to do is to follow the instruction to record two positions, and the red led would flash to lead you. once you complete set you can start to use it and next time you can click it three times to reset the positions again if you want. Now we can start to use it, we don’t need to do anything in this stage, just wear them on our hands, once you have the tendency to touch your face, it would vibrate 0.5 seconds to remind you, of course, you can choose to continue touch and put your hands down, if you choose to touch your face it would not vibrate, cuz at this time you already realize that you are doing the unconscious face-touching action. And it would only vibrate again the next time you have the tendency to touch your face. And for the wash hand vibrate remind, once it detects that there is handwash liquid and starts to count, and once you use it wash for the 20s it starts to vibrate 2s to remind you that you can finish washing.

My portfolio:

Portfolio of my final project, more details information about my design process and also the product

I am a MSc Product Design Engineering student originally from Toronto, Canada. I have a bachelor’s degree in Systems Design Engineering at the University of Waterloo and over 3 years of work experience as a Software Developer and Systems Engineer. Before starting my master’s degree at the Glasgow School of Art, I spent the past year and a half leading a cross disciplinary design team – specializing in designing websites, mobile and desktop applications. It was during this employment that I found myself more interested in design and user experience.

For my MSc Major Project, I worked in collaboration with the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery to develop a museum display case to tackle the issue of displaying light-sensitive objects in the presence of natural light. Through stakeholder discussions and a user centered design approach, the Setaka Smart Display was created. The final product uses two types of smart glass technology as well as an integrated IoT system to protect artifacts from both natural and UV exposure.

More examples of my past project can be found at: https://www.thanuree-pathiranawasam.net/

If you are looking for full time hires for September 2020, be sure to email me at: tppathir@gmail.com

As the second biggest cause of sick leave in the UK, arthritis can severely affect a person’s life. More than 10 million people in the UK are living with the daily pain and fatigue of arthritis. It is not just about the almost constant pain, it is about losing independence and confidence, and not being able to live people’s life the way they want to. Enduring this type of ongoing, daily pain impacts every aspect of a person’s life, including in their jobs, relationships, finances, and their self-esteem and health. Living with arthritis isn’t easy and carrying out simple, everyday tasks like cooking, bathing, doing laundry and moving around the house can be challenging and often painful. Kitchen tasks are commonplace in everyday life and can therefore be prohibitively difficult for those living with arthritis.

The project proposes to enable people with arthritis to open jars that are essential to living an independent life. The project exhibits an innovative lid design which can be fitted to any jar and enables those with arthritis to open and re-seal a jar without experiencing the pain they commonly encounter at present.

The specific objectives of this project are:
Lightweight and easy to use design; Good airtightness performance; Significantly small force exertion (reduce torque to less than 2 Nm) required, thus decreasing impact on joints; Fit to any size of jar; A decent price product for household use.

The full design process journal file at google drive link below.

The product is a building game product that helps children with physical isolation contact their peers or friends. Using the combination of physical toys and virtual experience, the remote interaction is achieved by building different building blocks in a cooperative mode. The combination of entity and virtual makes children meet the needs of remote interaction while increasing the sense of participation. When a certain goal is reached, the entity module will give users feedback with different lights, which will increase the fun of physical toys and the interaction between products and children. At the same time, combined with the use of intelligent devices, children can integrate their own toys into the built city and share them with friends, which increases the fun of products and deepens the communication between users.

Daniel graduated with a 2.1 in Aero-Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in 2018, before spending a year working as a freelance photographer, videographer and visual artist in Glasgow’s thriving punk and alternative rock music scene. Having had work commissioned by or featured in a range of editorials including Noisey, NME, Dork, The BBC, Dr. Martens and many more, Daniel made the decision to return to university for the Product Design Engineering postgraduate MSc. course at GSA, allowing him to combine his passion for design and creativity with his already established academic ability in engineering.

While studying at GSA, Daniel has developed a focus on user-centred design, with a particular interest in user experience. Throughout the first semester of study, he contributed a crucial role on Teamentia, in the development of the Remelodies project. This project centred around carers for, and sufferers of dementia, finding a way to remove the clinical element from their pre-existing relationships, be that husband and wife, mother and daughter, father and son, two friends or any other possible combination. The project received notable praise from an expert, a Glasgow based dementia events co-ordinator, who was consulted throughout the project and later was highly commended in the SIE Fresh Ideas competition.

Daniel’s major project also centred around user experience, this time with the aim of finding a way to minimise the disadvantages faced by dyslexic students in education on account of their lesser reading rate when compared to their non-dyslexic peers. The final design solution (the Minstrel) is an audiobook reader with an enhanced user experience, allowing users; improved navigational controls, improved feedback on progress through a text, a method of highlighting from an audiobook and a way to avoid their place being lost should they lose focus on the audio-narration. Three diagnosed dyslexic students and one expert, a product design engineering lead from Rakuten Kobo, were consulted throughout the project. The final design solution was commended as an intuitive solution with solves a major problem.

Hi everyone! I am Adarsh Vijay and I am a Product Design Engineer with a background in Biotechnology engineering. My ambition is to work in the medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics sector. Design for the medical industry is my aspiration. Designing equipment and devices interlaced with biological processes and human anatomy and morphology makes up for my redefinition of User-Centred design. If you would like to know more about how my services can help your company, please send me an email at adarshvijaykl@gmail.com

About the project:

Sharps are medical devices that are used to puncture or lacerate the skin. They include hypodermic needles, scalpels, contaminated glass, guidewires and other medical devices. The World Health Organization estimates that 16 billion injections are administered world wide every year.

The major problem with sharps waste is sharps injuries which causes transmission of Blood Borne Viruses such as HIV, Hepatitis, Epstein Barr virus among many others. Sharps injuries are responsible for 16,000 HBV; 6,600 HCV and 5,000 HIV infections worldwide annually.

From 2012 to 2017, NHS had 1,833 injury claims which cost the NHS £4,077,441. NHS estimates that 40,000 needle stick injuries occur within the workplace per year and recognizes that the true figure may be twice this due to under reporting of injuries.

The main causes of sharps injuries as listed by the NHS are:

Non-compliance with standard infection control precautions
Inadequate disposal of clinical waste
Overfull sharps bins
Not using safer sharps and
Not using Personal Protective Equipment.

My design is that of a sharps bin that uses a needle remover to immediately isolate the needle to prevent further injuries to Health care workers and sanitation workers. It also helps to segregate the wastes. The product itself can undergo steam sterilization for disinfection thereby making it reusable. At the end of life, the DSharps bin is recyclable.

This product can help the NHS to eliminate sharps injuries through a sharps bin and create a safer environment for the Health care workers. With the ever increasing mountain of plastic waste, this immediate segregation of wastes will provide more options for recycling thereby help saving the environment as well.

In solidarity with those embroiled in complaints against GSA we present a collaborative piece of writing that came about as part of a conversation responding to Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s text ‘The university (last words)’ and our own experiences of the institution.

This text is available to listen to as a special edition of the Art Writing Soft Shell podcast here.

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hang on can’t hear back in a sec 
Radically detach
Rejecting the gowns the dress
I think just stop paying
the feedback is the grades / collective feedback takes its place
If we accept
experience economy
Access to your peers
in a pragmatic way
undermine value of credential
What is required
Using the university as a hermit crab shell
university as hermit crab shell
university as a hermit crab shell
occupy
carapace
Any kind of shell
something useful that can be carried off
steal from the university
Access to each other
beep
you’ve all been expelled
refusing
refusing to end
Refusing the discipline
sticky question
extracted as currency
extracted from you as the university’s currency
Submit awful work
Do your best work in secret amongst each other
do your best work in secret
then you lick it
the university as guard of resource
University as guard to be undermined
break down barriers of access
Disperse them outwards
I can let anyone into a zoom
physical barriers
Robin Hood it
What they hold
authorship
people on the inside giving away for free
Intellectual property
how are those entangled
Property ownership authorship
property ownership authorship
Collective authorship
complicity
Talked out of it by submission
voices that join in with each other
hierarchy of work
Work rises
hierarchy of work
What it means to have an art practice
arts ed capitalises on “my work”
the privilege of being paid to work/research
academics rise
Individuality of submissions
Read by a higher reader
even if working as a collaboration
the individuality of submissions
can’t submit as one
Property–>value
the labour isn’t equivalent
From the beginning we are learnt to say ‘my practice’ ‘my work’
You go in holding this thing
disrupt and defer
the language of “my practice”
a practice of individuation
language of practice is the language of funding applications
we don’t present without names
We don’t present nameless
Naming as a form of violence
naming as ossifying
fixing to commodify
Acknowledgement as first step
Overcoming our complicity
my work/my practice,
What could it become
many many terms
Different ways to conceptualise it and put it into language
what role does language have in all of this
a manifesto
manifesto as movement to a different language
language of movement of criticism
Instead of floating through it
what we understand collectively
our own our practices
maybe just not paying
if you’ve got a problem you assume there’s a specific solution to that problem
Step outside – the potentials get bigger
meet in the car park
Stepping around the problem
increasing surveillance of students
Restriction of access
ways to work around that
movement around the campus is documented
Not a given that that’s okay
surveillance – it’s not a given that that’s ok
you start at group and end at solo
whole artist trajectory is group show towards solo show
start at group and end at solo
Art – start in group move to solo / it’s all pushed that way / it’s a tradition – proponent of larger apparatus of making solo
a larger apparatus of making solo
Abolish the solo show!
(Dorothea Lange, at her big moma retrospective, insisted on including her assistant’s work in it)
Presented to a student, to take part in – take part, scoop
student paying for the conversation / staff being paid to ‘give the conversation | taking part is the language of the university
Conscientious and active students paying
often not lines defined by the students themselves
this weird accountability thing
Its not a mutual thing
staff student ‘relationship’
the beginning of being solidified
We’re in the beginnings of being solidified
the early fizzy stages
it didn’t feel fun anymore
The work, my work, a unit of work
play
Resisting articulation or end
the structures that make things not fun anymore
Sustained practice (SH)
fun and play as subversive strategies
What about anger
what about anger
Anger within play
Play assumes we’re happy
where is anger within play
an indulgence
pastoral care as pull / indulgent
someone to care what you’re doing
you can’t show anger bc you’re getting pastoral care
It puts you in a clinch
play as in mess with it
Other ways to be antagonistic within the structure
it ultimately benefits the uni
Never made the actual work
withheld the work
benefited the course – won prizes
To not make the final product
it is very slippery
that’s not really the fucking point
The inconvenience of anger
the inconvenience of anger and of not playing
Of not giving back
Inconvenience of giving something back that’s not palatable
Not playing
Not user friendly
how do people think it’s different and why
remove reference to it
The institution are uncomfortable so trying to remove reference to them / keep it in house
the idea of looking back
Alumnus are used
alumnus – they let themselves be used
that doesn’t make any sense chronologically
University relying on complacency on a more giant body of students
university relying on complacency of larger body of students
like business does
I’ve just got to get through this
the individuation of it
I’m gonna carve this time out
I’m going to carve this time out
the sacrifices people have made
the sacrifices people have made
money/time
Relies on the sacrifices
A bind
competition, apathy
Some people aren’t in a position to reject it
powerless within that
to be in a specific place
What can we do as a group to disrupt or reject that
on a day to day basis
habitual things
Habitual actions
What habitual things over a long term force change
the privilege to be able to protest
the privilege to be able to protest
it’s about access as well
access to these thought processes
Access to these discussions
organising outwith the institution
Brief moments of interactions have sometimes been more worthwhile than 2 hr seminars
that spontaneous conversation that arises
the stuff that’s around the institution the para
is probably most valuable
The stuff that’s around the institution /the para part of the institution
Those spaces, they’re spontaneous
there’s something and it’s a bit sideways
make the structure make less sense
Let it go let it stop being property
how you articulate where your position in the university is
How you articulate what your position in the university is
what agency or organisation could look like
Let the property go
can ‘an organisation’ not have property
divert you from your aims are usually the three p’s: property, prestige, power
digital exclusion
Who’s left behind
The shifts that have had to happen
Necessary adaptation
false sense of agency
fob us off
Property when it’s not investment
property when it’s not investment
GAS – things are housed there
can an organisation or an institution be a free entity if it doesn’t have property?
keeping that space safe
is the issue not with the property but who controls the use of the property?
How do you make an open and radical accountability process?
a radical accountability process
those issues come up very much in the virtual space
not as free as the university would like you to believe
Property is theft
property as a thing or a space that can be collectively owned
property as something you own and others don’t (property is theft)
it is a long change
decentralising who holds the power
it didn’t just appear as we know it now
Rely on a common thought
I’m such a good product of capitalism
how much I’m a good product of capitalism – following through a structure –
radical complicity
Underpass learning
nowhere to gather
what you fund to keep going
the whole text is an echo in a way

Collectively authored by the current and continuing 19/20 Art Writing MLitt cohort.

IMPORTANT LINKS :

www.pauseorpayuk.org
www.alt-d.online
gsashowcase.net/louie-tyssen/
gsamfa.net/

In solidarity with those embroiled in complaints against GSA we present a collaborative piece of writing that came about as part of a conversation responding to Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s text ‘The university: last words’ and our own experiences of the institution.

This text is available to listen to as a special edition of the Art Writing Soft Shell podcast here.

///
     hang on can’t hear back in a sec
Radically detach
Rejecting the gowns the dress
I think just stop paying
the feedback is the grades / collective feedback takes its place
If we accept
experience economy
Access to your peers
in a pragmatic way
undermine value of credential
What is required
Using the university as a hermit crab shell
university as hermit crab shell
university as a hermit crab shell
occupy
carapace
Any kind of shell
something useful that can be carried off
steal from the university
Access to each other
beep
you’ve all been expelled
refusing
refusing to end
Refusing the discipline
sticky question
extracted as currency
extracted from you as the university’s currency
Submit awful work
Do your best work in secret amongst each other
do your best work in secret
then you lick it
the university as guard of resource
University as guard to be undermined
break down barriers of access
Disperse them outwards
I can let anyone into a zoom
physical barriers
Robin Hood it
What they hold
authorship
people on the inside giving away for free
Intellectual property
how are those entangled
Property ownership authorship
property ownership authorship
Collective authorship
complicity
Talked out of it by submission
voices that join in with each other
hierarchy of work
Work rises
hierarchy of work
What it means to have an art practice
arts ed capitalises on “my work”
the privilege of being paid to work/research
academics rise
Individuality of submissions
Read by a higher reader
even if working as a collaboration
the individuality of submissions
can’t submit as one
Property–>value
the labour isn’t equivalent
From the beginning we are learnt to say ‘my practice’ ‘my work’
You go in holding this thing
disrupt and defer
the language of “my practice”
a practice of individuation
language of practice is the language of funding applications
we don’t present without names
We don’t present nameless
Naming as a form of violence
naming as ossifying
fixing to commodify
Acknowledgement as first step
Overcoming our complicity
my work/my practice,
What could it become
many many terms
Different ways to conceptualise it and put it into language
what role does language have in all of this
a manifesto
manifesto as movement to a different language
language of movement of criticism
Instead of floating through it
what we understand collectively
our own our practices
maybe just not paying
if you’ve got a problem you assume there’s a specific solution to that problem
Step outside – the potentials get bigger
meet in the car park
Stepping around the problem
increasing surveillance of students
Restriction of access
ways to work around that
movement around the campus is documented
Not a given that that’s okay
surveillance – it’s not a given that that’s ok
you start at group and end at solo
whole artist trajectory is group show towards solo show
start at group and end at solo
Art – start in group move to solo / it’s all pushed that way / it’s a tradition – proponent of larger apparatus of making solo
a larger apparatus of making solo
Abolish the solo show!
(Dorothea Lange, at her big moma retrospective, insisted on including her assistant’s work in it)
Presented to a student, to take part in – take part, scoop
student paying for the conversation / staff being paid to ‘give the conversation | taking part is the language of the university
Conscientious and active students paying
often not lines defined by the students themselves
this weird accountability thing
Its not a mutual thing
staff student ‘relationship’
the beginning of being solidified
We’re in the beginnings of being solidified
the early fizzy stages
it didn’t feel fun anymore
The work, my work, a unit of work
play
Resisting articulation or end
the structures that make things not fun anymore
Sustained practice (SH)
fun and play as subversive strategies
What about anger
what about anger
Anger within play
Play assumes we’re happy
where is anger within play
an indulgence
pastoral care as pull / indulgent
someone to care what you’re doing
you can’t show anger bc you’re getting pastoral care
It puts you in a clinch
play as in mess with it
Other ways to be antagonistic within the structure
it ultimately benefits the uni
Never made the actual work
withheld the work
benefited the course – won prizes
To not make the final product
it is very slippery
that’s not really the fucking point
The inconvenience of anger
the inconvenience of anger and of not playing
Of not giving back
Inconvenience of giving something back that’s not palatable
Not playing
Not user friendly
how do people think it’s different and why
remove reference to it
The institution are uncomfortable so trying to remove reference to them / keep it in house
the idea of looking back
Alumnus are used
alumnus – they let themselves be used
that doesn’t make any sense chronologically
University relying on complacency on a more giant body of students
university relying on complacency of larger body of students
like business does
I’ve just got to get through this
the individuation of it
I’m gonna carve this time out
I’m going to carve this time out
the sacrifices people have made
the sacrifices people have made
money/time
Relies on the sacrifices
A bind
competition, apathy
Some people aren’t in a position to reject it
powerless within that
to be in a specific place
What can we do as a group to disrupt or reject that
on a day to day basis
habitual things
Habitual actions
What habitual things over a long term force change
the privilege to be able to protest
the privilege to be able to protest
it’s about access as well
access to these thought processes
Access to these discussions
organising outwith the institution
Brief moments of interactions have sometimes been more worthwhile than 2 hr seminars
that spontaneous conversation that arises
the stuff that’s around the institution the para
is probably most valuable
The stuff that’s around the institution /the para part of the institution
Those spaces, they’re spontaneous
there’s something and it’s a bit sideways
make the structure make less sense
Let it go let it stop being property
how you articulate where your position in the university is
How you articulate what your position in the university is
what agency or organisation could look like
Let the property go
can ‘an organisation’ not have property
divert you from your aims are usually the three p’s: property, prestige, power
digital exclusion
Who’s left behind
The shifts that have had to happen
Necessary adaptation
false sense of agency
fob us off
Property when it’s not investment
property when it’s not investment
GAS – things are housed there
can an organisation or an institution be a free entity if it doesn’t have property?
keeping that space safe
is the issue not with the property but who controls the use of the property?
How do you make an open and radical accountability process?
a radical accountability process
those issues come up very much in the virtual space
not as free as the university would like you to believe
Property is theft
property as a thing or a space that can be collectively owned
property as something you own and others don’t (property is theft)
it is a long change
decentralising who holds the power
it didn’t just appear as we know it now
Rely on a common thought
I’m such a good product of capitalism
how much I’m a good product of capitalism – following through a structure –
radical complicity
Underpass learning
nowhere to gather
what you fund to keep going
the whole text is an echo in a way
///

Collectively authored by the current and continuing 19/20 Art Writing MLitt cohort.

IMPORTANT LINKS :
www.pauseorpayuk.org
www.alt-d.online
gsamfa.net/

In solidarity with those embroiled in complaints against GSA we present a collaborative piece of writing that came about as part of a conversation responding to Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s text ‘The university: Last words’ and our own experiences of the institution.

This text is available to listen to as a special edition of the Art Writing Soft Shell podcast here.

hang on can’t hear back in a sec
Radically detach
Rejecting the gowns the dress
I think just stop paying
the feedback is the grades / collective feedback takes its place
If we accept
experience economy
Access to your peers
in a pragmatic way
undermine value of credential
What is required
Using the university as a hermit crab shell
university as hermit crab shell
university as a hermit crab shell
occupy
carapace
Any kind of shell
something useful that can be carried off
steal from the university
Access to each other
beep
you’ve all been expelled
refusing
refusing to end
Refusing the discipline
sticky question
extracted as currency
extracted from you as the university’s currency
Submit awful work
Do your best work in secret amongst each other
do your best work in secret
then you lick it
the university as guard of resource
University as guard to be undermined
break down barriers of access
Disperse them outwards
I can let anyone into a zoom
physical barriers
Robin Hood it
What they hold
authorship
people on the inside giving away for free
Intellectual property
how are those entangled
Property ownership authorship
property ownership authorship
Collective authorship
complicity
Talked out of it by submission
voices that join in with each other
hierarchy of work
Work rises
hierarchy of work
What it means to have an art practice
arts ed capitalises on “my work”
the privilege of being paid to work/research
academics rise
Individuality of submissions
Read by a higher reader
even if working as a collaboration
the individuality of submissions
can’t submit as one
Property–>value
the labour isn’t equivalent
From the beginning we are learnt to say ‘my practice’ ‘my work’
You go in holding this thing
disrupt and defer
the language of “my practice”
a practice of individuation
language of practice is the language of funding applications
we don’t present without names
We don’t present nameless
Naming as a form of violence
naming as ossifying
fixing to commodify
Acknowledgement as first step
Overcoming our complicity
my work/my practice,
What could it become
many many terms
Different ways to conceptualise it and put it into language
what role does language have in all of this
a manifesto
manifesto as movement to a different language
language of movement of criticism
Instead of floating through it
what we understand collectively
our own our practices
maybe just not paying
if you’ve got a problem you assume there’s a specific solution to that problem
Step outside – the potentials get bigger
meet in the car park
Stepping around the problem
increasing surveillance of students
Restriction of access
ways to work around that
movement around the campus is documented
Not a given that that’s okay
surveillance – it’s not a given that that’s ok
you start at group and end at solo
whole artist trajectory is group show towards solo show
start at group and end at solo
Art – start in group move to solo / it’s all pushed that way / it’s a tradition – proponent of larger apparatus of making solo
a larger apparatus of making solo
Abolish the solo show!
(Dorothea Lange, at her big moma retrospective, insisted on including her assistant’s work in it)
Presented to a student, to take part in – take part, scoop
student paying for the conversation / staff being paid to ‘give the conversation | taking part is the language of the university
Conscientious and active students paying
often not lines defined by the students themselves
this weird accountability thing
Its not a mutual thing
staff student ‘relationship’
the beginning of being solidified
We’re in the beginnings of being solidified
the early fizzy stages
it didn’t feel fun anymore
The work, my work, a unit of work
play
Resisting articulation or end
the structures that make things not fun anymore
Sustained practice (SH)
fun and play as subversive strategies
What about anger
what about anger
Anger within play
Play assumes we’re happy
where is anger within play
an indulgence
pastoral care as pull / indulgent
someone to care what you’re doing
you can’t show anger bc you’re getting pastoral care
It puts you in a clinch
play as in mess with it
Other ways to be antagonistic within the structure
it ultimately benefits the uni
Never made the actual work
withheld the work
benefited the course – won prizes
To not make the final product
it is very slippery
that’s not really the fucking point
The inconvenience of anger
the inconvenience of anger and of not playing
Of not giving back
Inconvenience of giving something back that’s not palatable
Not playing
Not user friendly
how do people think it’s different and why
remove reference to it
The institution are uncomfortable so trying to remove reference to them / keep it in house
the idea of looking back
Alumnus are used
alumnus – they let themselves be used
that doesn’t make any sense chronologically
University relying on complacency on a more giant body of students
university relying on complacency of larger body of students
like business does
I’ve just got to get through this
the individuation of it
I’m gonna carve this time out
I’m going to carve this time out
the sacrifices people have made
the sacrifices people have made
money/time
Relies on the sacrifices
A bind
competition, apathy
Some people aren’t in a position to reject it
powerless within that
to be in a specific place
What can we do as a group to disrupt or reject that
on a day to day basis
habitual things
Habitual actions
What habitual things over a long term force change
the privilege to be able to protest
the privilege to be able to protest
it’s about access as well
access to these thought processes
Access to these discussions
organising outwith the institution
Brief moments of interactions have sometimes been more worthwhile than 2 hr seminars
that spontaneous conversation that arises
the stuff that’s around the institution the para
is probably most valuable
The stuff that’s around the institution /the para part of the institution
Those spaces, they’re spontaneous
there’s something and it’s a bit sideways
make the structure make less sense
Let it go let it stop being property
how you articulate where your position in the university is
How you articulate what your position in the university is
what agency or organisation could look like
Let the property go
can ‘an organisation’ not have property
divert you from your aims are usually the three p’s: property, prestige, power
digital exclusion
Who’s left behind
The shifts that have had to happen
Necessary adaptation
false sense of agency
fob us off
Property when it’s not investment
property when it’s not investment
GAS – things are housed there
can an organisation or an institution be a free entity if it doesn’t have property?
keeping that space safe
is the issue not with the property but who controls the use of the property?
How do you make an open and radical accountability process?
a radical accountability process
those issues come up very much in the virtual space
not as free as the university would like you to believe
Property is theft
property as a thing or a space that can be collectively owned
property as something you own and others don’t (property is theft)
it is a long change
decentralising who holds the power
it didn’t just appear as we know it now
Rely on a common thought
I’m such a good product of capitalism
how much I’m a good product of capitalism – following through a structure –
radical complicity
Underpass learning
nowhere to gather
what you fund to keep going
the whole text is an echo in a way

///

Collectively authored by the current and continuing 19/20 Art Writing MLitt cohort.

IMPORTANT LINKS :
www.pauseorpayuk.org
www.alt-d.online

Bio

Cecelia Graham (b.1994, Belfast) is a curator and researcher working in Glasgow. Her practice applies science fiction and feminist theories of physics to curatorial methodologies. Cecelia’s research looks at the material processes of speculative objects in science fiction to create a framework through which to look at the local spaces they inhabit.

Recent curatorial projects include Slow Glass Edition One: Some Triangular Thoughts by Lauren Gault (2020), Over or Under (2019) with Molly O’Leary and Dominique Rivard, co-curated with Ali O’Shea and Joe Henry, Mythic Processing (2018) and the facilitation of exhibitions with the Student Led Gallery at Camberwell College of Arts where Cecelia worked as Exhibition and Event coordinator (2016-2019). This includes Collectives at Camberwell with Working Class Artist Network and Alter Us (2019) and New Camberwell Art (2018-2019). Cecelia recently worked with LUX Scotland looking at artist moving image practices in Scotland.

//

Slow Glass

In 2020 Cecelia founded Slow Glass, a publication series named after the same material that appears in Northern Irish writer Bob Shaw’s science fiction story Light of Other Days. The publication aims to provide a space for artists and writers to explore shifting boundaries of time and place. In doing so, Slow Glass acts as a lens through which to orientate memories and look at a place anew. The first iterations of the publication look towards Northern Ireland, beginning with Some Triangular Thoughts by Glasgow based artist Lauren Gault.

Slow Glass also forms a separate ongoing body of research that proposes the glass as a curatorial method. This will accumulate in a piece of writing that looks at the materiality of the glass and the movement of light through and around the material to shape an ethical mode of curating.

This research is informed by Karen Barad’s writings on diffraction, as well as the writing of Donna Haraway and Ursula Le Guin. Cecelia continues a science-fiction tradition of re-writing to consider slow glass as a material that focuses on care and responsible interactions with the non-linear entanglements of time.

//

Slow Glass: Edition One
Some Triangular Thoughts by Lauren Gault

Slow Glass publication series begins with Some Triangular Thoughts by Glasgow based artist Lauren Gault. Some Triangular Thoughts draws on Lauren’s ongoing research surrounding Martha Craig – an explorer, scientist and sci-fi author as well as Lauren’s great, great, great aunt. Lauren’s writing transports the reader through a vortex of refracting and interacting narratives that oscillate between the writings and lectures of Martha Craig, memory, materialist philosophy and scientific findings on bio-electricity. It is a journey through the micro and macro, told between layers of lanthorn, an ancient material that predates glass.

Some Triangular Thoughts by Lauren Gault will be released on 31 August 2020.

Updates will be posted @slowglass_

Enquires email slowglasspublication@gmail.com

Publication design by Bianca Winberg

//

Lauren Gault bio

Lauren Gault (b. 1986, Belfast, N. Ireland) is an artist who lives and works in Glasgow and frequently in Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Gault works in installation, writing and live works. Solo exhibitions include: C I T H R A, Gasworks, London 2020; drye eyes, Grand Union, Birmingham, 2019; O-n, curated by David Dale Gallery, Glasgow at The Workbench, Milan 2019; present cOmpany, CCA Derry-Londonderry, Derry, 2018; sequins, (with Sarah Rose), Glasgow International. Group exhibitions include: Risky Attachments, Like A Little Disaster, Foothold, Polignano a Mare, Italy, 2018, STEM, (with Sarah Rose), Baltic39 (2017); A Pattern Withdrawn, American Medium, New York (2016); The Health Benefits of Eating Silica (event), TRAMWAY, Glasgow International (2016); January Blues, Frutta, Rome, (2016); read the room, you’ve got to, curated by Quinn Latimer, SALTS, Basel (2014); Portraits, Still Life and Landscapes, Usher Gallery, Lincoln, (2014); Gault has an upcoming exhibition C I T H R A, The Tetley, Leeds in 2021.

Hemp Rope 

https://hemp-ropes.com/

Curator’s biography

Kehan Liu is a curator based in Shandong (China). He graduated in Photography at Qilu University of Technology in 2019 and is currently pursuing a MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) at Glasgow School of Art. Recent projects include:

Team project “Authority&Freedom: Testing the context”(Glasgow, 28th October 2019) curated by Beatriz Lobo Britto, Jiaying Cao, Kehan Liu, Marianne Vosloo, and Pui Ying Claudia Chan with artists Andrew Crane, Martha Panagiotopoulou.

Cross-cultural project “CROSS or NOT TO CROSS”(NGS East, Glasgow, March 2020) curated by Kehan Liu and Jiaying Cao with artists Qiushi Chen, Yuanjie Li, Xueling Wang and Yihang Hu.

Curatorial statement

My curatorial methodology is based on interactive dialogues, and gradually elicits my own thinking about the “local” art ecology and the development of curatorial practice. My curatorial methodology provides a solid theoretical foundation and practical skills for my next research. In the process of applying the curatorial language to the next curatorial practice, I try to obtain more resources by expanding the research themes and curatorial direction to improve the overall curatorial ability.

I actively participate in retrieval and theoretical work, hoping to balance practice and theory to determine a more suitable station method for me. The theme of my project is the development of local art ecology and curatorial practice. In the process of combing the theory, I found that this theme can be extended to the national or even world levels. Curation should be understood as art, it should be creative and creative, and convey the information of artistic elements through the curatorial language.

My curatorial projects and investigations revolve around the content of interviews with artists and curators. In the process of dialogue, I capture the core thesis and creative information. At the same time, the conversation with the artist can also enable me to reflect on the shortcomings of the project and investigation to improve the project planning further.

The textual interview content is displayed to the public, and the audience can intuitively see the impact of the curatorial practice process and interactive thinking. I display the project in two different languages so that audiences of different cultural backgrounds can obtain Different feelings, thereby increasing the diversity of the project. Using textual content as the form of the exhibition can also allow the audience to see the deficiencies of the exhibition more intuitively. Through the feedback in the later period, I have gained more significant improvement.

About the Project

Roc Blackblock– Barcelona; KMG – Edinburgh; Priestcorp – Glasgow; Siguel – Poland and Dr. D – London

Running through autumn 2020, Art of Defiance originated in Glasgow as a progression of creative responses centred on the ideas of connection, disruption, influence and change within the period of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project is curated by Marianne Vosloo and has developed through close collaborations with artists spanning a range of backgrounds, whose practices seek to create spaces of resistance and forms of disruption in the physical and digital public spheres in a time of crisis.

Art of Defiance takes the form of a series of poster interventions in advertising sites situated on the walls of the railway arches in Glasgow’s Eastvale Place. This small dead-end street is tucked away in between a diverging point of two railway lines next to an old industrial site, now a multi-disciplinary arts venue called SWG3. In addition, the project takes the form of web postings on social media and a customised website, developed collaboratively with each artist. The project connects a group of visual artists, street artists, aerosol artists and communication designers with overlapping subversive practices. Art of Defiance captures creative reactions to concealed, pre-existing and invisible issues further exposed by the pandemic, personal experiences, contemporary events and public discourse.

The zero in A0D represents artists, practices and voices not fully recognised in the art canon and, those who prefer the shadows of artistic anonymity. At the same time, zero is the new beginning of unlimited possibilities and visions for the future.

Curatorial Rationale

The emergence of coronavirus rapidly grew from a highly infectious disease into a set of circumstances and restrictions worldwide that would affect everything that we know and all aspects of our lives. What surfaced as a result of this turmoil was an unmasking and magnification of social and economic inequalities, with many levels of injustices made visible by an “invisible agent” (‘The Pandemic’s Invisible Agent‘, www.hyperallergic.com). The humanitarian crisis that unfolded simultaneously presented new possibilities to unsettle, subvert and transform systems and structures of power in creative ways, whilst concurrently revealing acts of resilience and new visions for the future.

The development of Art of Defiance started in the street; directly engaging with the strong imagery of placards and protests seen in early 2020. Most memorable was the political graffiti slogans painted in protest onto the monument of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, as part of numerous 2020 protests against police brutality in the U.S.A.  The discarded placards around the toppled Edward Colston statue in Bristol similarly highlighted the strong presence of art in protest. This builds on evolving political struggles, acts of intervention to raise awareness of repressive and regressive acts of selfish capitalism, and an emerging satirical theme in activist art. Art in public space continued to emerge resilient and unrestrained, despite pandemic restrictions, while the rest of society viewed it on the internet under lockdown.

The placement of artwork into advertising sites such as billboards and bus stops in the urban environment is a disruption and repurposing of the commercial space. At the same time, the content of artwork created specifically for Art of Defiance is in itself seeking to disrupt, defy and challenge the major social, economic and political manipulations of 2020. A0D is the beginning of a community beyond the local, and which engages in the broader discussions around public art emerging during the pandemic.

Each of the artists has devised a poster intervention considered as an act of defiance in itself, which directly addresses the pandemic period. They have produced a piece of artwork during 2020 whilst remaining in five separate locations in Europe, working under different lockdown restrictions and limitations. The production of the artwork as posters connects with the history of artistic protest posters used at times of major social change.

A0D is both an arts commission and a shift towards a movement in public art. The platform gives a collective voice to artists working in different parts of the world, and that is my contribution as curator. The project goes beyond curating the poster interventions in Glasgow, to try and connect with, and actively contribute to, a broader conversation internationally.

The major global events arising throughout 2020 alongside coronavirus fears, have motivated a surge in activist contemporaneous research across public sites as well as newly formed online artistic platforms, creating an ideal recipe for Art of Defiance: for artists to shout back, to escape the limitations of daily life, and to challenge authority. And possibly to signal the start of a major new cultural revolution?

Curatorial Statement

I am a South African with an extensive interest in subversive and activist art practice, especially in street culture, public space interventions and the involvement of art in pivotal contemporary events. This interest emerged in my formative years in the Limpopo and Gauteng Provinces of South Africa where my awareness of the powerful effect of art in communal space developed into a fascination for art as a disruptive force. My visual experience of art as a tool of protest against the Apartheid regime and as part of a wider internal resistance movement fighting for change, established my desire to seek out art on the unconventional fringes of the mainstream. My curatorial practice explores interdisciplinary connectivity, transformational shifts and social engagement through art with a particular interest in artistic practices identified as marginalised, alternative, or part of DIY urban sub-cultures. My current research-led projects focus on anti-establishment art and creative activism within spaces that seek to defy and undermine dominant systems of influence and control on society.

Biography

Marianne Vosloo is a freelance curator, artist and event organiser, and an arts programmer at SWG3, Glasgow. She is the co-organiser of Yardworks, an annual multi-disciplinary live arts event at SWG3, showcasing Visual Art, Street Art, Design, Typography and Aerosol Art in public space. Marianne has a degree in Art History and Visual Communication from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Recent exhibitions include Authority & Freedom: Testing the Context (Underneath M8 motorway and A804 Phoenix Road, Glasgow, 2019) co-curated with Beatriz Lobo Britto, Jiaying Cao, Kehan Liu and Pui Ying Claudia Chan, and Control Alter Delete (The Photography Studio, SWG3, Glasgow, 2020). The latter event linked the work of a satirical artist, illustrator and writer, a subvertiser and visual activist, painting and printmaking students and a street artist to showcase overlapping subversive responses to structures of power and authority.

I, as a graduating student at the Glasgow School of Art, wish to express support of Pause or Pay and G$A MFA campaigns. Pause or Pay demand Visa extensions, pastoral support and financial compensation for the loss of teaching and access to facilities due to 2019 and 2020 UCU strikes and Covid-19.

I call upon you, practitioners of the art industry, to join the fight against universities and governments that are perpetuating inequality and a lack of diversity. When you look at our work, throw your usual assessment criteria out the window and instead look with real empathy and care. Remember that an online grad show is not appropriate for everyone. Please use your platform to boost those who are disadvantaged. Do everything you can to strengthen the future of our art world.

EMERGING COMMONS

www.emergingcommons.com

emergingcommons@gmail.com

https://www.instagram.com/emergingcommons

Emerging Commons, initiated by myself in 2020, is an ongoing independent project that facilitates community empowerment through multidisciplinary curatorial methodologies intersecting with social policy, urban planning and land reform. The project works primarily outside of traditional art venues and favours [semi-]public outdoor spaces.

My interest in curatorial practices comes from a wholehearted belief in the potential of art to transform toxicity and inequality in our societies if only art was better incorporated in all our policies, politics, industries, businesses… In many ways I align with the Artist Placement Group, but replacing the “incidental person” with a caring, politically engaged and self-reflexive curator who facilitates the strengthening of the relationship between art and life.

The scale of societal issues can be overwhelming, but it was adrienne maree brown’s book emergent strategy (2017) in combination with studying through the peak of the Covid-19 lockdown that shone a light on the power of bringing activism closer to home. brown describes an emergent strategy as a “self-help, society-help, world-help” set of principles focusing on simple interactions to create complex systems, in which strong relationships are everything. Therefore, during my studies I focused on relationality within the curatorial by examining how the curator may navigate the social dimensions of facilitator, participant and place, by situating my research within the spaces I inhabit in my day-to-day life in Glasgow.

The core of Emerging Commons aligns with brown’s conception of an ’emergent strategy’ through empowering ground-up processes that focus on decision-making and movement-building through curatorial methodologies of decentralisation and interdependence to create more possibilities for inclusion, diversity and transformative democracy. The project offers a non-hierarchical framework to mobilise participants in becoming the authors of their own empowerment. The project will constantly grow and change, and resources and knowledge will be shared for communal benefits following open source models.

POLLOKSHIELDS EAST COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT STRATEGY

Since the end of 2020 the focus has been on developing a proposal for a community empowerment strategy for Pollokshields East, a borough in the southside of Glasgow where I live. The strategy has been spurred by two devastating fires in 2019 and 2020, destroying residential flats and shops on Albert Drive and Kenmure Street (colloquially known as Albert Cross). A community empowerment strategy will help to not only recover from the fires but to tackle issues in the wider area.

A community empowerment strategy for Pollokshields East proposes 3 curatorial methods:

1) community hub and exhibition space;

2) online community map;

3) walking exercises in the Pollokshields East area.

For a community empowerment strategy for Pollokshields East there has been research undertaken on the social dimensions of curatorial practices. The way in which the curator navigates the socio-political nexus of facilitator, participants and place becomes key. Theories of ‘community assemblages’ examines the politics and processes of grouping elements together to form or create a “community” within the curatorial encounter. Theories of ‘the commons’ describe an extension of the historical definition – the communal sharing of resources and knowledge for mutual benefits – whereby the commons is a process of giving voice and creating space in the curatorial.

I completed my Masters of Curatorial Practices in Contemporary Art in January 2021 through the extended study option, and will be pursuing the realisation of a Pollokshields East community empowerment strategy henceforth.

CURATOR BIOGRAPHY

emergingcommons@gmail.com

Grace Thomson (they/them) is a curator, artist and personal development coach originating from Melbourne, Australia, residing in Glasgow, UK (with Australian/British dual citizenship). In 2015, Grace completed their BA of Fine Art at Monash University, Australia. In January 2021 Grace graduated from the Masters of Curatorial Practices (Contemporary Art) at the Glasgow School of Art. Grace is passionate about grassroots endeavours through co-founding Artmeet Artist Run Initiative and co-directing RuntLink Artist Run Gallery. Grace is committed to equality and diversity through working in the Fair Access department at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Selected education and training: Masters of Literature in Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), Glasgow School of Art and University of Glasgow, UK; Bachelor of Fine Art, Monash University, Australia; Double Diploma of Marketing and Management, Open Training & Education Network, Australia;  Sparqs Student Representative Training; Scottish Mental Health First Aid Training; Grade 8 Saxophone, Australian Music Examinations Board, Australia.

Selected experience: Transitions Coach, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, UK; Class Representative of Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), Glasgow School of Art, UK; Founding Member, Artmeet ARI, Australia; Chairperson, Runt/Link Gallery, Australia; Work Experience, WaveParticle, UK; Transitions Mentor & Guidance Administrator, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, UK; Gallery Assistant, Libby Edwards Galleries, Australia;  Curator, Looking at people looking or not looking at art more or less 1 mile from here, Glasgow UK; Workshop Facilitator, Dreams and Aspirations, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow, UK; Artist, The Maker, Space Tank Studio, Melbourne Australia; Artist, 2014 MADA Now, Monash University, Melbourne Australia; Curator and Artist, Recreational Aesthetics, Artmeet ARI, Melbourne Australia; Artist, Open for Inspections, Artmeet ARI, Melbourne Australia; Artist, Link Wall, Runt/Link Gallery, Melbourne Australia.

Curator’s Biography

Jiaying Cao is a curator and designer from China, currently living in Glasgow. She is adept at turning concepts into reality, and likes to explore different forms, genres and media in both curation and graphic design. She is currently interested in film-making and has also created and participated in the shooting of several short films. Recently, she has been conducting research on curatorial activities in different professional fields, exploring productive ways to present artworks to the public.

She holds a BA in Information and Communications from Shih Hsin University in Taiwan (2019). Recently curated exhibitions include: Monologue: an exhibition about solitude co-curated with Tingzhen Zhang, Weizheng Huang, Weidong Zhuang and Yongru Chen in December 2018 at Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, Taipei; Authority & Freedom: Testing the Context, co-curated with Beatriz Lobo Britto, Pui Ying Chan, Kehan Liu and Marianne Vosloo in October 2019 at M8 motorway pedestrian underpath, Glasgow; and the Online project Dia-Logue, August 2020.

Curatorial statement

My curatorial methodology is based on interview and expanded dialogue. I seek to explore how interviews and online interactions serve to promote art and enable it to reach a wider audience, establishing through these my own curatorial framework.

Most of my curatorial projects include two elements: interactivity and interviews. Interviews have the potential to communicate core ideas about artworks, while interactivity encourages expression and sensory experience. I actively use these two methods to close the distance between art and the audience

Through the practice of interviewing I can learn more about artists and their practices,  have a symbiotic exchange and influence on one another. The format of the interview allows the artist’s voice to be heard, giving the audience a closer understanding of the ideas and intention behind their artworks. Additionally, through the process of interviewing, I can learn about other people’s curatorial experiences, and subsequently through an iterative practice, continually review and find the most suitable curatorial methods for myself.

This interaction with artists and curators builds the internal framework of my curatorial practice. Interactivity can attract audiences to engage with curatorial projects or exhibitions, and through this interaction, the audience is not only a viewer, but also, part of the exhibition experience, hopefully allowing the audience to be completely immersed in it. In turn, breaking the stereotype that art is untouchable, so that art can be accessed and felt by more people.

Project Description:

Dia-Logue is an online project curated by Jiaying Cao. Through the art interview as the main method, this project explores diverse methods for bringing artwork(s) to the public(s) and curatorial workings across different fields. Jiaying firmly believes that the sonic space can draw the audience closer.

The project launched on 3 August 2020 and will continue to develop as a long-term project. Everyone is welcome to join and have a chat with her, to make this project more colourful and abundant as it grows in content and form.

Joe Henry is an independent artist and curator based in Glasgow, Scotland. Joe’s work centres around music and art, developing more recently work that emerges as an interwoven meditation on healing through art and music.

His research investigates collaborations between, musicians, composers, poets, writers and photographers, curating and producing artwork that interweaves film and sculpture, music and video. Recent exhibitions and film work include:

Amy Winehouse by Charles Moriarty,(Dublin CHQ Building, May 2018);
The Lost Warhols by Karen Bystedt (Brown Thomas, Dublin, Oct 2018);
LCD Soundsystem by Ruvan Wijesooriya & Joe Henry (Guinness Storeshouse, Dublin, June 2019, and SWG3 Glasgow, October 2019);
Basquiat by Roland Hagenberg (Dublin Art Source, RDS, November 2019 and Sal Fine Art, Dublin);
Healing in a broken world, short film (Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow, Postgraduate Degree Show, August 2020).

Alison O’Shea is currently based in Cork city, Ireland, currently pursuing the MLitt Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) programme through extended study. Her curatorial and artistic practices’ primary concerns include alternative methodologies of productivity, and creating sustainable practice models through speculative fiction. Recent curatorial projects include; relaxation*, Siuán Ní Dhochartaigh, Glasgow, UK; Over or Under, Molly O’Leary and Dominique Rivard, co-curated with Joe Henry and Cecelia Graham, Glasgow, UK; and Burning Down the House, Cork, Ireland. Her upcoming project a passive house is a collaborative publication and event with her sibling Lily O’Shea and will launch in late November 2020 in Cork city, Ireland.

Lily O’Shea is a visual artist based in Ireland and current artist-in-residence at The Guesthouse Project as part of the INHOUSE initiative, Cork. Her practice is concerned with political questions surrounding the contemporary labourer. This practice involves sculpture, performance, and film, as well as different forms of writing and publishing in varied contexts. Recent group exhibitions include: Rhetoric, Crawford College of Art and Design Online Degree Showcase, Cork, 2020, Villa the End, Berlin Gallery Weekend, Charlottenburg, Berlin 2019, and Art(ist) Film, The Gate Cinema, Indie Film Festival, Cork, 2019.

a passive house takes the last months of lockdown as a satirical artist residency interrogating ideas surrounding creative pursuit, productivity and down-time. A passive house is a house which is truly energy efficient[1], a sustainable and comfortable structure. This publication will comprise of a series of archival material from within the house – a house which is striving to become a passive house – the goal of energy efficiency is still present but for the occupants rather than the structure. The occupants of the space return to share a room for an extended retreat into the house.

The production of this text has simultaneously been a search for a sustainable practice but also an ever-present pressure to create an output to validate the pursuit of a practice. The methodology utilised to create this piece might be considered to be procrastination – in an attempt to understand what this work is, methods such as extended periods of reality TV watching, can drinking and sleeping have been utilised. These methods have now become the material of this object as procrastination has allowed us the time of having very little time whilst simultaneously having this opening up of time due to the blurry boundaries of when this work must be done. The attempt to describe what this labour is, removes some of the irony of calling it labour in that there is now an attempt to co-opt these everyday activities as artistic pursuit. Once the observation of the residents by the residents has begun; the excavation of the everyday, the labour which was being avoided begins.

[1] https://passivehouse.com/02_informations/01_whatisapassivehouse/01_whatisapassivehouse.htm

Beatriz Lobo (b. 1994, Brazil) is a curator, museologist and researcher. An enthusiast of non-hierarchical thinking, she believes in the equality of ideas and non-linear ways of composing and organizing them. Interested in performance art as a form of critique, and guided by a theoretical approach, she works under an intersectional feminist framework. Her most recent research investigates strategies to decolonize the curatorial through Brazilian art practices.

Beatriz holds a BA (Hons) in Museum Studies and her professional experience extends from community-based museums to private collections. For more information, please refer to the website.

DISSERTATION TITLE

Performing Refusal: Lygia Clark’s practice as a decolonial tool within the curatorial

ABSTRACT
Although decoloniality has been a prominent topic in the arts since the 1990s, the major studies and publications on the topic have been led by institutions from the Global North. Despite the increasing amount of exhibitions by artists of colour and other minorities, the internal structures of these institutions are still white-male dominated. This paper introduces Brazil’s political scenario since the 1960s and, under the Black Feminist Poethics methodology, discusses strategies of decoloniality within the curatorial field. By building a parallel between Lygia Clark’s practice and conceptualising refusal aligned with the Practicing Refusal Collective, it proposes refusal as a generative tool. Finally, the research is brought to a contemporary context, presenting the COLERE Project, a curatorial initiative that has emerged to perform the theory and methodology discussed in this very paper. It concludes the fundamental importance of people of colour and other minorities to lead discussions that concern themselves. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that visibility is not power, suggesting alternative ways of working in the arts, going beyond exhibiting unprivileged artists, and placing them in a role of knowledge production and decision-making instead.

BIO

Kate Holford is an artist and writer based in Glasgow, UK. She is Founding Art Director at Stillpoint Magazine (2018-ongoing), an international, digital publication that inhabits digital spaces to build public knowledge rooted in psychoanalysis. In December 2019 she co-organised the symposium Racism and Ecology in Berlin as part of Stillpoint Magazine’s Issue 003: FALLOW, and currently facilitates an Antiracism Reading Group for psychiatrists with Editor-in-Chief of Stillpoint Magazine Anne Marie Wirth Cauchon. She was curator of Imagine the Future, a performance event and exhibition of moving image installations by Jessica Holdengarde, Glasgow (2020).

As an interdisciplinary artist, she utilises curatorial strategies of connection-making and practice-led research methodologies to develop projects which often manifest as multimodal publications across print and digital formats. Much of her work appears in the written form, merging critical reflections and poetical forms. Recent research has been concerned with modes of correspondence and autotheory, in relation to intimacy, surveillance, extraction, and vulnerability, manifesting in the project Dear Lithium,. 

She was previously the Deputy Director of Stillpoint Spaces London, a psychotherapy, coworking, and events space, where she was Curator of the in-house exhibitions programme. In 2018 she held a solo exhibition of her work In The Stories There Is An Abundance; and produced Offerings, an accompanying pamphlet of poetry. She has exhibited in group exhibitions in London, Bristol, and Falmouth, UK. Previously she has been a Bookshop Manager. She completed a Master of Letters in Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art), co-convened by the Glasgow School of Art and University of Glasgow in 2020, and received her BA(Hons) Fine Art from Falmouth University in 2013.

DEAR LITHIUM,

I: Publication: a collection of texts and analogue images that form a single ‘object’, brought together in the shape of a envelope. This object can be found in a public book exchange near the site of the UK’s first pilot lithium extraction plant, United Downs, Cornwall. This is the only edition in circulation.

II: dear-lithum.exposed: a website interrogating the effects of the digital/non-digital divide on experience of place, intimacy, and togetherness, in an age of increasing reliance on technological interfaces for creating and maintaining relationships with others.

Engage in Fine Arts, Community Arts and Art Education.
She is a Hong Kong based painter. Apart from completing and participating in more than 40 community art projects, street art works, 3D mural paintings and floor paintings in Hong Kong, USA and China individually or in group, she also engages in abstract arts.

Believing in that we belong to our emotions; we cannot live without it. Ephemeral sensory or empirical experiences from my daily life always trigger my emotions.hence, I use my inner psyche as a subject in my artistic practices as I have a big interest in exploring the modern consciousness, unconsciousness and emotion existences. Through my artistic practices, I hope to stimulate and awaken audience’s emotion and even lead them to feel their emotions processing under their conscious and unconscious minds.

Most of my works mainly focus on oil paintings, a small part of installations and videos. I am very interested in the human body, no head. Based on Deleuze’s body without organs philosophy, I try to use oil paintings to show the body that has escaped from the state of being connected, standardized, symbolized and subjective by society, so it A body that has been dismantled, decomposed, and non-regionalized so that it can be rebuilt in a new way.” It also refers to a body that is alive, restless, free, full of positive desires, and generates appropriate strength. The state of preservation of the essence of freedom, in the way of shaping the human body group image to express the sense of partial lack of contemporary people and the relationship between people and people.

Bodies are always my desire at the bottom of my heart, maybe it just only sexual, maybe it has something else, I use to read lots of books, observe lots of body works, from ancient to modern, from sculpture to oil painting, those people’s body is beautiful in classical, they are single elegant and pure, but among full of wants. However the bodies in modern are real with unreal, they show outlook, they are changed. People like to show complicated emotions in unreal things, so I want to add bodies on bodies because bodies are part of human behaviors, they are the consequences of the decision, bodies need a brain to manipulate, but without a head, it’s free.

In my works, I explored the expression of texts/characters in visual art and expressed my thinking of history, memory, time, and stage of life.

My concept is from “Palimpsest” and Walter Benjamin’s viewpoint about the past, present, and future. Every moment of the past constitutes the present, and the present is the manifestation of every moment in the past. They are intertwined and inseparable. And the link between the past and present also indicates the image of the future.

“The future is precisely what Benjamin seeks in the past. Almost every place that his memory wishes to rediscover bears ‘the features of what is to come’……Benjamin listens for the first notes of a future which has meanwhile become the past……he is sent back into the past, a past, however, which is open, not completed, and which promises the future.”

Peter Szondi and Harvey Mendelsohn, Hope in the Past: On Walter Benjamin

“One moment is added onto the old ones, and thus, when the next moment occurs, it is added onto all the other old ones plus the one that came immediately before. In comparison, therefore to the past collection of moments, it cannot be the same as the one immediately before, because the past is ‘larger’ for the current moment than it was for the previous moment.”

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Henri Bergson

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Exploring island living (both actual and perceived) through a contemporary art lens, my painting, textiles and digital interventions merge object and experience. Through collaboration I form relationships and conversations between material, place and people to question single artist ownership.

As an island artist, the internet acts as an integral disseminator to my work, to broadcast my practice and reconsider both the art audience and the gallery space — challenging the art worlds reliance on being physically present.

Since the onset of Covid-19 I have been actively campaigning against GSA mismanagement and the lack of support and care they have shown toward their students. For more information, visit https://www.pauseorpayuk.org

For more of my work, follow the links below:

My work focuses on map making, the maps I make focus on three areas that I have lived in: Whitchurch, Liverpool and Glasgow. I create maps based on either memories of areas (past), from walking and drawing simultaneously in an area and then using those drawings to create prints (present) or predictions of what could change (future). The ‘past’ maps are a mixture of memories and stories I’ve been told and have elements of childhood drawings overlapping them. The ‘present’ maps contain more words, thoughts of journeys and conversations on them. The images are also influenced by lockdown and how this changes the outlook on an area. Finally, the ‘future’ maps are questioning what will change in these strange times? and the hopes I have for the future.

I have been creating these pieces mainly through screen-printing on multiple surfaces such as paper, canvas, perspex, wood and sandpaper. I also discovered a new interest in stone lithography but due to COVID-19 and not being able to have access to the studio and workshops, my methods have had to change. For the final part of my degree I have been monoprinting (using a silkscreen), drawing and stitching.

One thing that hasn’t changed from BA to master’s is my love of colour and abstraction. I am influenced by artists such as Frank Bowling, David Hockney, France-Lise McGurn, Julie Mehretu, Henri Mattise and Helen Frankenthaler. My inspiration comes from many areas in art history with a particular love of abstract expressionists, my love of reading and nature.

Instagram – louemily_mckenzie

After finishing my BA in Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków, I pursued a Masters in Design Innovation & Citizenship at The Glasgow School of Art. Together with my partner Kat Zavada, we organise Nadmiar/Excess – contemporary art and experimental music festival. I was part of the editorial board of Formy.xyz – Poland’s first peer-reviewed design journal (2018–2019). I held design roles at Ergo Design and Comarch. Together with Tillman Kratzer and Kat Zavada, we are preparing to launch Works On Work – a collaboration space for people pursuing projects related to the topic work.

For me, Design isn’t necessarily about finding a solution nor about solving problems. It is about creating space or situations where conflicting views and power relations can be discussed and renegotiated. I oppose the idea of the designer as a facilitator who seeks consensus between different actants, for it blurs authorship and what follows – responsibility. My practice is not about creating consensus or pleasing all parties. On the contrary, I see great value in conflict and dissensus as vehicles for liberation.

My master’s thesis looks at the idea of wellbeing appropriated by the contemporary mainstream managerial discourse, where employees’ happiness is perceived as something to be quantified, managed, and used as a productivity-enhancement strategy.

In opposition to the dogmatic aesthetic representations happiness related to a neoliberal moral fantasy imposed by those in the position of power, I propose taking a step back to anticipate and celebrate the spontaneous, unmanageable sources of joy and satisfaction resulting from autonomy.

The project aims to document minor everyday activities, techniques and coping strategies that go against the managerial regime – micro-disobediences that give one a sense of autonomy. Some examples may include: binge-watching Netflix during work time, taking unnecessarily long breaks, choosing different routes than the algorithm decides, being intentionally mean to your customer, acting grumpy when everybody is overenthusiastic or perhaps not participating in socials. And through these ‘coming-outs’ create a space free of slack-shaming and overstepping guilt.

With this project, I want to provoke a further conversation about work dogma and the spiritual violence of positivity at work. Unguilty Pleasures is an (auto)therapeutic tool for many working people, including myself.

I am Mugdha Patil, a graduate of the Master of Design in Design Innovation and Citizenship course at the Glasgow School of Art. I completed my undergraduate studies with a Bachelor of Design degree in Furniture Design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (NID). I am a designer who believes in making social change through people-centered and people-led actions and policies. I design services, products, product-services, and experiences that promote social, ecological transformation by applying research that focuses on people and the ecosystems (social, cultural, economic, psychological as well as physical) they occupy.

Citizenship for me means having a sense of belonging to a society. Design can help bring that about. I believe that taking into consideration the needs of an ecosystem as a whole gives us an opportunity for creating lasting change that is not just environmentally sustainable but also economically feasible and socially equitable. I believe that the design process has a thousand endings; it simply doesn’t end with a product and I continue to absorb its messages and meanings beyond that.

About the project.

My project, The Design of Dissent, combines public pedagogy and participatory design to create a Museum of Dissent. The final proposal made is that of a co-curated and co-created space where citizens can educate themselves about the various ways of critically participating in government, engage in the causes they believe in, and commemorate people’s power and struggles from the past.

The overall aim of this project is to identify how citizens perceive their duty of participation in government, especially in terms of dissent and our civic education on this particular topic. My focus is especially on the process of collective legacy-making, trust in institutions, and different approaches to critical civic participation, in times of protest and social change.

Following a qualitative case study + participatory design approach, this research intends to build a rich in-depth investigation focusing on how civic education is realized in our political lives and how critical sentiments are expressed by the citizenry, through the use of interviews, workshops, surveys, and document analysis. The results of this project are intended to bring more clarity to the ‘design’ of dissent, legacy of people’s movements, people’s trust in institutions (or lack thereof), and the viability of leaderless social movements.

My name is Imanina. I’m a designer interested in designing for a post-capitalist society.

My most recent work explored media and democracy in the UK and looked at how alternative, citizen-owned media might provide a voice for the mis- and under-represented groups in society.

I’m keen to further explore how design might be used as a catalyst for social good, that is accessible for all and not just an elite few.

Since 1880, we’ve lost two thirds of our ocean’s fish biomass and if nothing changes we could lose 60% of our ocean species by 2100. Coronavirus led to a collapse in fish exports and many people’s livelihood is being used as a bargaining chip in Brexit negotations.

Within this context, I sought to ask: what is the future of our ocean industries and how might we take a more regenerative approach to harvesting our oceans?

To divine this knowledge I asked experts who work in sustainable fishing advocacy, seaweed harvesting and government bodies. I learned about Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture(IMTA): a means of growing edible seaweeds next to shellfish in a way that cultivates biodiversity by drawing new fish and plantlife to areas where it’s cultivated.

I then worked with budding crofters and people who fantasised about escaping from the city to navigate what they wanted and how they might take steps to reify their fantasies. There wasn’t an awareness of the possibilities that were available.

I propose an informational campaign that would help those who want to work closer to nature to take clear steps to starting an IMTA farm.

I originally graduated from a Graphic Design Masters orientated towards social matters. I developed a background in print and editorial design. My practice is now focusing on research, social design and community-based projects. I am interested in looking at how design can support emancipation but also how design relates to politics and democracy.

My Master’s research project looks at political representation and democratic processes. It challenges the concept of representation and majority as effective forms of democracy and proposes different frameworks for democracy and civic engagements.

Because politics is often pictured as a complex topic only accessible for experts to discuss, instead, I tried to look at it with a didactic approach.

The research presents two complementary approaches “From the System to the People” and “From the People to the System”. Ultimately, what I am asking is how to represent multiplicity? What are the obstacles and problems of representation? Why do they exist and how to go around them?

I first attempted to define the French political system of representation in principle and in practice as a case study. I looked at its history, philosophy, practices and the roles played by experts and public institutions hoping this will enable me to identify entry points or short-circuit for change and civic engagement.

As my research perspective shifted I realised people were affecting the system themselves. I researched around the problematics of participation and how, why, when and by whom they are currently fostered. I identified different discourses around participation relating to different ideologies.

To get perspective, I searched for analogies. I compared network theories, animal and vegetal philosophies with the different discourses and ideologies around participation and with the way our social and political systems function. This allowed me to anchor my topic in a wider ecosystem and to compare current interactions and modes of assembling, of co-existence, and see what can be improved or challenged.

If you would like to know more about my work, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

This project used design as a medium to explore the significance of ordinary furniture to residents’ daily life and the feasibility of sustainable development of furniture.

As a necessity of residents’ daily life, furniture hides many unknown stories and secrets and also carries emotions of different users. Every piece of furniture has a special meaning for everyone. However, the fast-paced life of modern society makes the circulation of products faster, and the replacement rate of furniture is increased so waste is inevitable. It is regretted that many furniture worthies of being preserved are therefore neglected and then abandoned. The reason for its waste is not only because of damaged furniture, style changes, and residents’ relocation but also ignore daily furniture and the lack of environmental awareness. Although there are endless related education projects, how to implement residents’ behaviours into daily life is the pinpoint of this project.

This project traced the circulation process of furniture, explored and redefined the meaning of furniture to residents, and finally designed a solution to extend the service life of furniture accordingly.

Dialect heritage aims to protect and promote dialect heritage. It focuses on remote communities in Scotland for their decline number of dialect speakers. Also, the research concentrate on Doric language as research example and the final outcome is related on it. The final outcome visualizes the idea of ‘dialect heritage make up a part of cultural heritage in the community’.In addition, this board game can be used as a catalyst, with youngsters meeting up with older native Scots speakers. During this process, youngsters have the opportunity to discover and begin to use new words, and the speakers found their inheritors and pass on their dialect knowledge. It could solve the problem of fewer dialect inheritors in remote communities.

A Fashion and Textiles Educator currently working at BPS Secondary College in Mauritius. As a fashion and textiles teacher she has always promoted the Green concept in students project work.

With a Bachelor degree in textile and fashion, she is always interested into studying the properties of fabric, basics of colour and texture.

This project began as an exploration of fabric construction methods.

It involves engaging stakeholders and collaborators in the processes of designing, making and testing of textiles. The strategy used is upcycling of fabric remnants sourced from the local textile mill in Elgin. The approach to upcycling, with which this practice is aligned, treats the textile source as laden with information that guides the form of new fabrics out the textile waste. Subsequently, the fabrics were sent for testing in Portugal for the creation of Almalaguês- Spanish sneakers.

Awarded as a Highly Commendable project in September 2020 for the SIE Fresh Idea Competition.

A graduating Design Innovation and Environmental Design master student. After completing an undergraduate course in Industrial Design at the School of Design in Zagreb, Croatia, I wanted to expand my work into broader social contexts. In the future, I wish to explore how spaces and environments could be used as transformational tools for society. In my final MDes project, I researched death and dying in order to develop ideas for new environmentally and socially sustainable alternatives.

Grief and Growth is a speculative design for a holistic new death practice lead by the principles of nature, equality, and healing.

The outcome imagines a new death service ran by nature preservation charities. It includes requirements for memorial and ceremonial grounds installed at protected nature sites around the UK, as well as a model for use and service outline which provides accessible funerary options while aiding nature conservation efforts. Those remembering their loved ones in this context intrinsically think of nature, the circle of life, and their place in it. As the charities’ reach expands through this service, caring about and protecting nature become part of a shared heritage.

Upon further development, Grief and Growth hopes to introduce something that’s missing from contemporary death practices: perspective and options.

Coming from a Product Design background in Politecnico di Torino I am now finishing a MA in Innovation Design and Environmental Design.

The following study explores what the digital support for mental health is, and the relationship that people have with it. The research is based on interactions with people connected with mental health support. Different methods were used to get information from the people, such as digital interactive workshops and video interviews.

Stage1. Observation. The first step in the research came from the analysis of the current online support for mental health. This observation was intended to be a starting point in the understanding of the topic, and at the same time it has turned out to be the beginning point for the understanding of the problems connected to this service.

Stage2. DeskResearch. The literature was done to better understand the potential of the digital tools in the mental health sector, following the citations and the references from other articles in the same field. The study of the literature concluded in the analysis of different therapies ( CBT, ACT ) used in the digital online services, and of the digital tools used by therapists as extra tools for their sessions.

Stage3. Interviews. The interviews were done to experts of the field to receive their viewpoint of the digital mental health support compared with the more traditional face to face therapy. During the lockdown therapists were obliged to use digital media to get in touch with their patients and conduct their sessions. The feedback from the therapists interviewed were absolutely positive and encouraging for the future of the sector. A therapist though underlined the problems about the accessibility of digital mental health, especially for the lack of safe places where to do online sessions, as reported by some of his patients.

Stage4. Workshop. The workshop was meant to get information and experiences from the users of the mental health support and digital mental health support. It was a fully online and interactive workshop designed to help people to speak about their personal experiences in an open way, ensuring the maximum privacy. The results were, again, focused on the problems of accessibility of different online services, above young adults leaving with family, not feeling at ease to have online sessions with the possibility of someone hearing from another room.

Stage5. Modelling. The designing of the intervention came exactly from the problem found in the previous research: the accessibility of digital mental health. This idea consists in a net of SafeRooms to be located in cities and urban areas. A SafeRoom is simply a room in which your privacy is guaranteed, where it is possible to access the digital support systems that already exist online. Inside these rooms you can find all the tools you might need during a complete digital session. To be free and open this net of rooms will be placed in public and open spaces. Libraries, schools and universities are the best locations, but there could be many others. The important thing is to give people a safe place where they can feel comfortable while having mental health support.

The renderings of the intervention were given to the participants of the workshop to get feedback, that were positive and people were giving interesting stimuli for future possibilities of this service.

Conclusion. This journey brought to the definition of a problem that some people are facing now and probably more people will in the future. The intervention is just the first step to try to resolve this situation, but is a good base for further research.
The next steps for this design project are to keep organizing workshops with users to codesign the layout of the SafeRooms and their more suitable locations. Another extremely important perspective is that the initial concept was based on the idea “to make mental health support in step with the times of technology”.This project has to be fluid and able to change as fast as technology evolves.

‏More information in the attached document

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A multidisciplinary designer with a socially engaged practice. Her practice-led research looks at creating accessible and democratic engagement processes and toolkits for public space and land research to mobilize alternative voices and experiences of the landscape. From sensory and sound mapping to spatial imaginaries, she is exploring ways in which notions such as ‘having a voice’ can go beyond the metaphorical, and sensory engagement can create accessible consultation processes.

Having delivered a diverse body of collaborative work internationally she has worked with experts across art, design, architecture and science to create work that is socially and environmentally driven. This includes public installations and engagement projects for TATE Britain, London Design Week, Hello Wood International Architecture Summer University, KÉK – Center of Contemporary Architecture and Istanbul Biennale.

She received I-Portunus European Union artist mobility grant to work with CCA: Center of Contemporary Art in Glasgow – as part of their ‘School for Civic Imagination’ public engagement programme and was awarded IDENSITAT ‘Sound of our Cities’, a Creative Europe Cultural Collaboration grant to deliver an urban sound mapping project in Barcelona this year.

With a curious mindset to unpick and discover hidden opportunities for design intervention, Fanechka seeks to understand behavioural insights from psychologists and scientists to nudge people towards a more sustainable form of living. Can Design play this role when assessing behaviours of communities collectively? She has a previous background in the interior design and architecture sector with her focus now shifted on projects that aim to understand the social and cultural complexity directly influenced by various biases, social norms and spaces.

Fanechka’s Final Project:  How might we promote pro-environmental behaviours to create sustainable neighbourhoods?

Communities and Climate Change are complex challenges that force us to act in a certain way due to various systemic issues. Based on the COMB model tool provided by the behavioural insights team in London, I directed my research to find motivators and opportunities that drove people to act a certain way.
Understanding and analysing these behavioural insights to drive social change has moulded this project.
Making the language of climate action and environmental sustainability more inclusive and accessible to groups of people from various class structures had built the foundation of this project. Can we multiply and amplify certain behaviours to create a new and pronounced sense of identity to those communities that are tied with complexities? This project does not intend to focus on one specific behaviour, as sustainability is a journey with one success action resulting in us taking the next action – this was uncovered through various forms of research.

Visualizing the whole community as a complex system within which a collection of design interventions take place would help in the shift towards adopting sustainable lifestyles. Collective behaviours could then influence individuals due to social norms or perceived values.
As the local council carefully creates change to its infrastructures it needs to also ingrain behaviours within this system simultaneously to have the community working as an ecosystem.

Proposal:   WHITE CITY CARES
The design outcome considers behaviours projected by citizens of a social housing estate in London. Based on these behaviours, there are 3 different parts that work in cohesion to instil certain values among residents i.e pro-environmental.

‘White City Cares’ inspires and empowers people from different backgrounds, cultural values and upbringings to inspire, learn and take action individually or collectively to help live as a part of the ecosystem.

Brief detail on the design process is mentioned under each slide.

I am a visual communication designer based in Seoul, South Korea. My current interests and practice are in socio-environmental design, especially focusing on the possibilities of collective changes that individuals’ behaviour can foster.

This project ‘Empathy-derived recycling model’ opens up the opportunities of personal connection between refuse collectors and the general public, for residents’ better understanding of what results their behavioural decision on waste disposal could cause. The research explores people’s cognitive and environmental behaviour change when no one intends to cause environmental harms but far too much waste that could easily be recycled is going to landfill. The system highlights the significant environmental impact of correct recycling and putting the stuff in the right bins, and the intrinsic drive for such waste disposal behaviour can be improved by building up the familiarity with refuse collectors.

“Please try your utmost to separate and wash. It’s not just us you are helping. It’s yourself in the future.” – Mr. C, Refuse collector

The Exploding School: The Potential for Outdoor Learning and Play Space in Dublin’s North East Inner City along the Royal Canal

Please find a short image diary of my process and outcomes at the bottom of this text.

Background and overview of project:

Note on Language: NEIC refers to the North East Inner City of Dublin, a geographical area with a population of over 18,000 people.

Covid-19 has exposed the quality and accessibility of our public spaces in Dublin. When schools in the Republic of Ireland closed on March 12th to prevent the spread of Covid-19,  the availability of outdoor space was thrown into stark relief. It was my assumption coming into the research that the NEIC was already suffering from a lack of public spaces and invitations to spend time in the area outside of commercial spaces. It was also my belief that this lack of possibility to freely gather outside without spending money disproportionately impacts young people.

I chose to focus my research on the needs of schools in the NEIC as major stakeholders who would benefit from an increase in outdoor playspace, interviewing teachers in the local community and young people who live and go to school in the area.  Through engaging with schools I found that space for schools in the NEIC is critical not just to facilitate play and engagement during Covid-19, but also to provide space to play for pupils, many of whom do not have gardens or are living in temporary emergency accommodation due to the acute rental and public housing crisis in Ireland.

Space to play and the possibility of learning through play is a vital aspect of a young person’s wellbeing and development. However research also shows its relationship to the wellbeing of the broader community. In particular, play in public space, either on pavement, the street, the immediate public realm has been shown to have a vital role in breaking down social isolation.

In the existing literature written on improving a young person’s experience in the NEIC, we often see a heavy focus on preventing “anti-social” behaviour and increased police presence. However the effect of this fear of people gathering outside has been to remove many places to rest or gather outdoors, leaving more vulnerable street users such as older people, children, people with specific mobility needs at a loss for space in the city.

When it comes to a young person’s experience of the city at street level in the NEIC, we do not find many playful touchpoints in the immediate public realm. Through speaking to teachers and young people themselves, I found many young people who live and go to school in the NEIC carry negative associations with the urban environment, often associating it with rising levels homelessness due to the ongoing housing crisis in Ireland. Many also associate it with negative interactions with police, experiencing or witnessing racism, or being hit by traffic.

A lack of public space which invites play and is accessible to young people leaves us with the self perpetuating narrative of anti social behaviour – if the urban environment is solely to be used for commerce or travel, we face the problem that anyone spending time in it who is not performing these roles is at risk of being seen as acting in an “anti social” manner.

To address this, I am proposing built interventions into the Royal Canal to create new opportunities for play and pedagogical engagement with the city.

As Ward and Fyson write in Streetwork: The Exploding School:

“Just as the school should be open to the community, so should the community be open to the school. All resources of the community are educational resources.” [Fyson, Ward, 1975]

I chose to visualise this possibility through the introduction of mooring points along a specific stretch of the Royal Canal. The site was picked after a process of mapping the schools and distribution on young people in the area. The Royal Canal was built in the 1700’s as a motorway of its’ time, to link Dublin port with North western counties, however it is now largely used for foot and bike travel. Focusing on the water of the canal based on young people’s observations around it, I chose to imagine mooring points for activities like boat racing and raft building, and as spaces that could add focus to the huge biodiversity of the canal beds.  Collecting and building objects is a tradition in the inner city particularly around October and halloween when bonfires are lit. These skills could be brought to raft building, or attention could be brought to the huge amount of native plants which grow along the canal as pedagogical activities and embodied learning.

I went through several stages of research from critical inquiry and interviews, to quantitative mapping of the area, to ethnographic observation and workshops with young people who live and go to school in the area.

It is the hope of my project that I will use the work and insights gained to build a proposal for a community build project in partnership with a youth project in the area. I am currently working on the proposal for this, and would be interested to hear of any similar community based building projects happening in the UK or Ireland.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to my project in particular the young people who took part in the workshops and teachers who gave their time to talk to me. For any further information or to read more about my process, please feel free to email me at rosi.j.leonard@gmail.com

Natural Light in Learning Environments

Learning environments and especially schools have always been of great interest to architects mainly because through design those spaces can influence a child’s education and future. A school is not just a building to accommodate students and teachers, and it must not be seen as such. A learning environment can play an important and significant role in students learning and academic performance.

The importance of natural light in a learning environment is what this research will focus on. While dealing with natural light in a learning environment, the architect will come across many other aspects like natural ventilation, views, the relation- ship of the classroom to the outdoor spaces, the orientation of building and classrooms, the colours and materials in the space that will have to be chosen to improve the quality of the natural light without causing discomfort or other negative effects.

In my research I have tried to determine the positive effects of taking advantage of natural light in the architectural design of learning environments. More specifically, the positive effects that are connected with student’s performance, health, the aesthetic and efficient quality of space and the possibilities that arise from the implementation of natural light in a learning environment.These positive effects are connected with a better quality of learning which is human-centred and sensitive towards the environment. In effect will lead to conscientious individuals and stronger societies able to confront today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.

Instagram : @sonyalizbeth

Linkedin : http://www.linkedin.com/in/sonyalizbeth

Email : sonyalizbeth@gmail.com

My name is Francesca.

I graduated in Industrial and Graphic Design in Venice, where I understood how good products and multimedia projects should be planned. I learnt that the formal aspect of a product depends on its function and the user experience. In my opinion, the most important thing is that the designer role is to produce something that is durable even if the time passes by.

During the final undergraduate year, I started to work for a year in an Italian company, that produces glass objects and technical lamps. This job made me realize that I would like to do something more helpful for people.

The link between urban spaces and wellbeing has always been interesting for me, so I decided to move to Glasgow and attend the Environmental Design Master. Here I focused on the way a city or space can affect our behaviour in a positive or negative way. I learnt the importance of exploring and understanding a specific context through qualitative research to find solutions that can solve real issues and truly improve people’s lives.

Actually I am based in Italy and I would like to find a job in the Architecture and Urbanistic field. To be honest I do not know where I would like to live or do in the future. However, I know for sure that I would like to travel and live in different places to do as many experiences as possible, to enrich not only my career but also my life.

In a situation like the current one with Covid-19, many people might experience more disturbing dreams as an increase in background stress. Furthermore, this epidemic is changing our lives.

An increasing number of psychologists and neuroscientists are finding evidence that dreams are not just the brain’s way of recycling and cleaning up the images of the day. Still, they are essential features of our psyches, responsible for things like memory retention, emotional regulation and deep sleep. Although occasional nightmares are normal situation, repeated nightmares might affect quality and mood during the day. Therefore, dreams are significant in our daily life, which affects the emotion in our life.

Results of the investigation are intended to study the effects of dreams on people’s lives, and finding a relaxing and useful approach to release nightmares in participants’ daily life.

Some psychological treatments can alleviate nightmares. However, after my interviews and research, I found that very few people go to psychological clinics for nightmares. Therefore, I hope that more people will pay attention to this problem in a relaxed and pleasant way, and their nightmares can be alleviated. It’s not professional therapy, but it’s a psychological approach. In order to let more people get rid of the nightmare, design a card game. Through entertainment, participate in the interaction before going to bed, thereby reducing the possibility of nightmares. The people bring their attention before they go to sleep, thinking about what they want to happen in their dream and dream process takes over they do not have to worry about it anymore.

This game is like a decryption story. Participants can create a dream story by themselves and use game cards to fantasise their stories before going to bed. Thinking what they want to happen in their dream and believe they will have a sweet dream just like they imagine in the card game. The game is random in the selection of CARDS, and different choices will have different storylines. The game will provide the main story frame. Participants choose their favourite characters to bring into it, create their own storyline, choose different endings, and create their own virtual dream story before sleep.

From there, a raw potato will expose itself to the world out of the soil. The potato has not thought much about what will be like in the future, the potato just wants to enjoy the sunshine.

From there, a mocking seagull will expose itself to the sky. The seagull has not thought much about where to find the next meal, the seagull has to learn how to be quite firstly.

I am that raw potato.

I am that mocking seagull.

I will expose myself to the real world of design. I have not thought much about what I want to do, want kind of role will I fit in the society, I just want to make full use of what I have.

As for who I am, I think I do not have an answer for that.

The only thing I know, more than all of you behind the screen, is that I want to take the responsibility of design to a wider range of groups.

Exploring the diverse aspects of design, until the seagull can no longer fly into the sky, the potato becomes the fertilizer of other potatoes.

This is my final project in postgraduate stage, the topic is about Insomnia, I hope to solve everyday problems.

Sleep is an important component in everyday life and plays a key role in keep people healthy. Most people experience problems with sleep in their life. According to the NHS third of Brits will have episodes of insomnia at some point. Additionally, the World Health Organization claimed that a third of people in the world have sleep problems. In conclusion, sleep problems need to be solved without delay.

Close to me for 7 days: This project will focus on the mental health of Chinese young people, and try to find a suitable and effective way of communication between young people and family, friends through innovation design methods. I will focus on how might we create an effective and sustainable way to help young people relieve mental stress, also gain more understanding from our family and friends.

Aline Jarneau is a designer interested in topics of general interest such as healthcare, digital accessibility and social transformation. After a Bachelor’s degree in industrial design and working in a Paris-based service design agency, she started researching death and grief in the digital age at the Glasgow School of Art.

With the emergence of modern technology and its potential impact on not only how we live today but also on dying and grieving, our traditional death system is evolving at a fast pace, with some rituals and commemorative practices being transposed into the digital space.

As modern technology brings new ways of preserving the memory and presence of the deceased, the first ethnographic exploration on dying and grieving in the digital age focused on digital memories in the mourning process, how they are selected and preserved and how they compare to traditional tangible artifacts.