Summer Show 2010 highlights - Level 0 Access BA (Hons) Art & Design
Visitors to the Level 0 installations are greeted by a sign with the legend, This is not just art, this is Level 0....
Course Tutor, Kate Rawnsley, explained the reason for this cryptic notice. “This is pointing out that the course is very different to what the students are used to. They enrol on a degree access course expecting to improve their watercolour painting but we basically warp and change their view of art over two days per week for two years. Contemporary art practice is much more interactive and 3D; installation is the name of the game.
For instance, Margaret’s piece of work moved hundreds of people because she created the necklace which was closer to her experience of her mother. It is a different use of language – a very contemporary use of language – that the audience related to and it moved people far more than if she had merely painted her mother.
I tell my students ‘Technique is the servant of communication.’ They learn the techniques in the first year and then in the second year you learn something about their lives. Art is all about making sense of the world – it is not a big elitist myth – but open and accessible to all.”
You can read all about and see three amazing installations here:
Margaret Green
Lecturer Pete Blagg stressed the importance of the film component of the students’ current work and future academic maturity. “All pieces of art work together on the course so students experiment with new media using sound, video and animation, alongside working with traditional art methods such as drawing, painting and ceramics. Art is not about sticking pictures on a wall anymore. Contemporary art practice requires you to think about the whole shebang.
Films demand excellent organisational skills. Within each film students also had to create the props using traditional methods of drawing, ceramics, printmaking etc, but then they have to incorporate non traditional methods.
We help them explore what art means to them. It helps when people are starting out in art to explore their own personal experience. Although initially this is a gut reaction, later when they are studying for the degree they may return to the subject more theoretically. This is also a useful way of exploring the culture around them, which will be beneficial later when they study semiotics in contextual studies. This year everything has been really personal, which is very important to their development as artists.”
You can watch a series of short films students made on location at Shipley Glen here: