At the heart of Kieran’s studio practice is a design ethos that is driven by combining traditional textile techniques with contemporary production methodologies. His design collections explore the synergy between creative process and production, enabling him to push design boundaries and deliver fashion and textile outcomes that have an innovative, futurist aesthetic, whilst maintaining a relationship with craftmanship and traditional artistry. These values place Kieran’s collections amongst contemporary fashion designers who are utilising fashion as a method of progression – whether that be of the body, inspiration or the use of unconventional or non-traditional materials.

Drawing inspiration from a range of cultural, natural and architectural sources, Kieran has applied a research and development process that undertakes multiple stages to interrogate initial research within a 2D and 3D context. Photography work is used as initial inspiration, which is then reinterpreted digitally via CAD programs, or by hand through various drawing and manipulation techniques. This process allows Kieran to identify areas which could be developed further and apply hierarchical value to his work based on which has more potential to be successfully developed.

Translating drawing into material prototypes continues to inspire and innovate Kieran’s design process. This is highly influenced by designers such as Iris Van Herpen, Alexander McQueen and Issey Miyake, all of which inspire Kieran with their application of contemporary technology and unconventional materials within their collections. From this point, a lot of Kieran’s inspiration is derived from the creative process and the exploration of materials. He is encouraged to push the limits of the materials at his disposal, creating hybrids which combine the attributes he feels necessary to effectively translate ideas and perform in the required manner. This exploration develops into a cycle of production and self-reflection, with each step being influenced by the previous and informing the next until the process and material are perfected within the context of the garment and how he wants them to look and behave.

Kieran’s current collection, titled ‘Transient Bodies’, has been inspired by the theme of transience – the temporary transitionary phase between one state and another. Initial inspiration came from researching the online model Imma.Gram – a virtual being who is a combination of a physical person and digital superimposition, the graphic work of Bridget Riley and kinetic sculptures developed by Nick Cave. The combination of the optical phenomena found within both bodies of work when combined with fashion, and the concept provided by Imma.Gram, was an avenue Kieran was keen to develop and explore. Inhabiting the space between fantasy and reality, physical and digital, natural and synthetic is something that has only just began to be explored within the realms of fashion. Kieran wants to continue development of the continuous dialogue between fashion and technology as more methods of creation and materials are created and the way in which fashion is presented and consumed continues to change.

The resulting collection is an exploration of pattern and illusory artistic techniques to inform textile and silhouette forms. Working specifically with polyester based materials and plastics, techniques such as sublimation printing and mediums such a bemis, provided colour and bonding opportunities that created complimentary materials to Kieran’s design concepts. This process of working has resulted in the development of the ‘living hinge’ method of fabric manipulation. Where Kieran has used laser cutting techniques to apply a complex series of pattern explorations, adjusting variables such as line distance, length and shape, to create flexible materials that distort the figure and mislead the eye as they are worn, adapting to the wearers movement.

Innovation, material research and application drive Kieran’s design process.  His undergraduate research focused on the application of varying smart materials, such as thermochromic dyes, and the application of 3D printing and laser technology within the textile and fashion industries. His master’s study has enabled him to continue this research and explore the application of relevant synthetic materials, combined with contemporary design and fabrication processes to be explored and enhanced within a fashion context. This interest has extended to how these processes can be applied at a haute couture and high street level and Kieran has constructed archival catalogues of his material development, investigations, fabric prototyping, manipulation techniques and printing specifications to accompany his design outcomes. Kieran’s long-term goal is to continue his research into material development, challenging the ways in which the industry views and expands upon the ideas of conventional materials within contemporary fashion design. Fashion, as an industry, must become more sustainable and Kieran has attempted throughout the generation of his collection to make choices which have the least detrimental effects to our environment. Further work still needs to be done in this regard and this dialogue will be a permanent feature of his design process as he progresses throughout his career, gaining experience working for like-minded fashion houses before launching his own brand which sees his own visions brought to life on the runway, whatever that may look like in the future.

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.

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.

Currently, the fashion industry is one of the most wasteful industries in terms of resources. Most brands launch new products at least twice a year or more. Garments are losing their value through time because popular trends are always changing. Chao’s designs are inspired by the traditional Japanese patchworking techniques, such as “Boro” and “Sashiko”. Those techniques link to the traditional Japanese aesthetic “Wabi-Sabi”, which embraces imperfection, incompleteness, and impermanent beauty. Chao uses “Boro” and “Sashiko” techniques and the concept of “Wabi-Sabi” to repurpose textiles, deconstructing and reconstructing garments to give new lives to old pieces of clothing. This practice can produce numerous designs, giving a new life and purpose to otherwise disregarded clothing.

Manwei Ou is a womenswear designer who graduated from MDes Fashion and Textile of Glasgow School of Art. Inspired by the curtains blowing in the wind of Gabriel Lester’s installation , the designer decided to research the concept of frozen in time and space and experiment with capturing old clothing in the mid-air through photography.

These images selected from the impressive shape of thousands of pictures lead to a sensitive collection of twisted, flexible silhouettes dresses and hats. The shadow cast by the clothes on the wall in the photo also contributed a lot to this collection.

The work refers to revoke the warm memory and the unforgettable moment of urban people, as well as the concretization of personal abstract emotions, second-hand garments’ rebirth. Time is unstoppable, but we had this moment.

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.

Gaultier asked a famous question: “What is masculinity and what is feminization? Why shouldn’t men show their vulnerability and sensitivity, and women shouldn’t show their own intelligence and strength?”

This is a fashion series about gender fluidity, the designer hopes to finds a balance between the hard characteristics of masculinity and the soft characteristics of femininity, combining the two and displaying them in clothing.

In her development process, she used the basic suits bought from charity shops to transform the human body, combining two different color suits to produce deformation, to create new silhouettes and structure. She added to these suits by creating some extra features such as historical sleeves, ruff collars draped sections to the front, side, back, to combine with other structures and enhance the sense of design. She explored the characteristics of masculinity and femininity on a body through dress up exercises to investigate the blending of these two characteristics, from this she extracted the most successful elements to generate collage work and initial design ideas about cut, shape, color, fabric and silhouette.

Her design allows people in the current society who are afraid to express their true selves to express their bravery in the public with more confidence through dressing.This designer hope she can break through the public’s traditional solidified thinking about gender, through rejecting gender labels, and moving towards a wardrobe of gender freedom.

Sa Cheng, also called Selah, is consider fashion is an art. It is a concept that can be interpreted in various ways for each individual, which, for her makes it fascinating – everyone has a different style. For some people, self-expression is difficult, having an individual style gives these people the ability to show their personality and beliefs and this intrigues her. Her interest in fashion has grown year after year through her development of expressing herself with different styles.

She always consider that beauty is not static and it can be displayed with different forms. What our designs convey most is our value. She is aiming to overthrow the traditional definition on fashion and provoke thinking of the real world in others’ mind through her designs. Structure is an important design element in her design, and different silhouettes are created through different permutations and combinations.

Her interest in fashion fuels her creativity and determination and she is excited to improve the technical skills she already has and to combine her love for fashion with knowledge of marketing and merchandising. She wants to delve deeply into the fashion world, increasing her growing curiosity and knowledge. The skills she has built on her own through her profound interest in the area and her skills.

By studying politics, she has a deeper understanding of the economy and its impact on fashion. For example, she found that due to a year of protests and demonstrations that led to a decline in Hong Kong’s economy, the overall profit of the fashion industry declined. This is very insightful because it reveals how the economic uncertainty of Hong Kong affects the fashion industry, and the fashion industry depends on consumer confidence and material demands. In addition, her research on philosophy helps she to understand human nature, so we are naturally eager to create art forms and make our ideas practical.

As a member of a generation who criticizes the indifferent and lack of inspiration, studying fashion is now more important than ever, because her determination to create timeless and influential things has become stronger and stronger. She thrive in a dynamic environment where she can reach her full potential, and she believes that the vision of becoming a major contributor to fashion will be realized by studying at university. Here, she will be able to fully cultivate her creative passion and finally realize 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. “

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

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.

Rafaelle Fillastre is an illustrator and graphic designer. Collecting and reusing material, has been an ongoing theme in her works. It translated into her creative practice, which consist of playing around with different mediums and material to create striking visuals. Her main focus has been on printed narrative works, mixing editorial design and illustration. She has been interested in associating different technics and mediums to create hybrid projects such as augmented reality and animation on printed works.

During her studies at The Glasgow School of Art, her studio works are linked with the concept “hidden”, “lost” and “erased”. Working on abandoned buildings around Glasgow, overlooked women artists in history and various form of censorships. She is interested in historical and social led themes. For her projects, she’s focused on visual storytelling, to create an interaction and reaction from the user to the object.

For her next steps, she wants to expand her practice into a more digital practice, such as coding and interactive design.

Prior to joining the Glasgow School of Art, she graduated in 2019 from Estienne (ESAIG), with a Bachelor in Design and Packaging as well as printing technician course. During her studies, she completed several internships as a graphic designer at Extreme Agency and Netgem.

Compared with the undergraduate study of visual communication in a comprehensive university, the postgraduate study of graphics in Glasgow School of Art has brought Renyu Tian a greater space to explore and professional perspective.

The exit of graphics is not limited. Renyu believes that the information conveyed by graphics is diversified and can be very personal. When expressing views on some social phenomena, such as the infodemic and the conceptual change of marriage to modern people, she is more inclined to start from her senses and feelings.

Nina Klaff is a photographer, filmmaker, and writer currently based in London. Drawing from her background in digital anthropology and cultural analysis, her work addresses social issues in an experimental and evocative manner, with an ethereal aesthetic grounded in digital art. Her most recent Masters projects have revolved around the question of human connectivity in the age of social distancing. Her professional work includes portraiture, production photography for theatre and music, events, and creative writing and image-making for print and digital publications internationally.

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.

Yu Xie is a photographer from China. His works focus on how do we look at the current social situation and its impact on individuals? We re-examine our way of life from the perspectives of individuals, habits, groups, urban structures, international news, etc. Explain, embody, analyze and criticize what is applicable to the individual’s emotions, the connection with the group, and how the individual can explore and respond to the next potential crisis in the context of the individual or the relationship between the individual and the urban development.

INNER CITY

In this project, he initially focused on an exploration of the ubiquity of architecture and urban objects within the city. Through constructed image making his project has morphed into a wider critique of how we see cities and the symbols within them. The images explore liminal or transitional spaces and their meanings are interpreted through his subjective perspective. His hope is that the viewer looks at the world he have constructed, and sees a world of absurdity, fiction, reality and fantasy. Something that is both familiar and unfamiliar, unnerving and uncanny. An inner city born of my observations and imagination.

Normal

After the covid 19 outbreak and subsequent pandemic, the whole world seemed to stop, but in the wider expanse of history, what has felt like forever, has in reality been just a few short months. Time did not stand still. His life and the world changed quietly. His room effectively became his world as he gradually crepts towards his new normal. This normal was uncertain but not unfamiliar. The objects and space were effectively the same, but how he viewed them had changed. Through his camera he sought to try and make sense of his surroundings and state of mind. Using primarily still life, his photographs look for clues and explore metaphor through the daily narration of his new normal life.

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.

Majida Khanfar is a Palestinian architect by practice. She completed an interior design master’s degree at the Glasgow School of Art. She finished her BA in Architectural Engineering at Birzeit University in Palestine. After graduating, Majida was exploring the fundamentals of a creative environment for designers and artist to breach conventional boundaries. Accordingly, indulged herself in several experiences with open environments to practice art and experimental design in order to perceive its limitless medium and challenge her imagination and creativity. Majida had the privilege to participate in various international workshops in Italy, France, UK and Jordan, which gave her exposure and in-depth knowledge of art and design in diverse contexts.

Majida has always been passionate in the formulation and manipulation of space without any constraints to highlight the profound power that architecture beholds and its capability to change people’s perception towards space. Her master thesis was inspired by a short film named ‘Split’ in which the main character, Henry, is hit by a meteorite that shifted his body 91 cm from his physical self (Clapin, 2008). In the shot film, Henry starts questioning his body relation with the surrounding space and objects. It was quite captivating how human body proportions ultimately rely on the space and the objects utilized regularly. The meteorite as an unforeseen event is similar to Covid-19 lockdown, therefore questioning the effects it will leave on the human body in relation to the surrounding environment.

For her thesis, Majida investigated the role of Middle Eastern residential guest space during this lockdown. The scope of her dissertation focuses on body-centred experiments to raise awareness for designers about the often neglected influence of the physical body on spaces.

The thesis seeks to rethink the conventional design process by challenging the traditional standards imposed upon the human body and its boundaries, and proposes new design methodology for adjusting, re-activating guest spaces.

‘A body occupies a place and, through movement, activates it’.
(Casey, 1990)

Below a link to GSA previous stages’ portfolios.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-EktRrqkZS1-Vusr8BjJKB1gV3vcLOAa?usp=sharing

‘No man is an island.’

This saying comes from a sermon by the seventeenth-century English author  John Donne. No one is self-sufficient, everyone relies on others.

After COVID-19, the city became a lonely place . Once we recognize this, we will understand that it is not physical loneliness that triggers loneliness, but the scarcity or lack of contact and intimacy: for various reasons, people’s needs for intimacy are not met. Not only as an independent individual, but also as a citizen living in our century and era, I feel that something is burning in my heart. What does it mean to be alone? If we are not closely entangled with another person, how can we live? If we can’t talk easily, how can we connect with others? We have  to review our way of living, communicating and mostly connecting to other people. In this vortex of change, the way in which people are used to live our spaces has also been put into crisis.

Rather than rushing to victory in building the tallest and most majestic building, is it possible that we can re-connect interior design to humans, to once again appreciate the harmony between landscape, human, interior design and time. Instead of cold and unforgiving concrete, can we use glass, wood, bamboo, or even water?

Can we abandon our desire?

When it comes to this special time, we find ourselves living a new reality out of control made by strong changes. Suddenly many of our certainties have collapsed and in a short time we have been forced to change habits and lifestyle. The quarantine has forced us to rethink deeply the domestic space that has found itself simultaneously performing multiple functions including not only the residential one but also space for social relationship.

The purpose of the project is to return  to the process of collective experience and explore a sense of collective participation with a rural tribal style. On the one hand, the project emphasizes that people of different ages visit, experience, and interact in the space; on the other hand, people can go from passive seeing to active participation. This process is the most important meaning of interior design. Only by actively participating can the work accommodate more variants, and each variant produces its own ideas and value.