SHOW RCA 2015
From 25 June – 5 July, the Royal College of Art’s Battersea and Kensington campuses will be transformed into spectacular exhibition centres as the talented postgraduate students from the RCA reveal their ground-breaking projects, products and artwork to the public for the first time at SHOW RCA 2015.
This year sees a host of breath-taking artworks and design projects exhibited in the outdoor environments of the college. Visitors approaching the Kensington campus will hear the willowy sound of water cascading down the side of the RCA as Riah Naief and William Fairbrother (Information Experience Design students) bring nature into an urban environment with Waterfall, a 7m man-made waterfall which will be seen glistening from both inside and outside the college.
Visitors will be able to revisit childhood memories of climbing trees and marvel at Canopy Stair by Rob Featherstone McIntyre and Thor Ter Kulve (Design Products), sponsored by Haworth Tompkins. The design duo’s project features a modular set of steps that can be easily strapped to a tree trunk, creating a staircase which will enable people to experience the secret world of a trees canopy.
Outside the Royal Albert Hall visitors will be able to climb inside and experience Daniel Durnin’s (Design Products) Water Bed, a self-contained boat which allows a user to ‘camp’ on water. Made with urban waterways in mind, this temporary escape to nature will feel like a floating log cabin.
Over at the Battersea campus, a series of flags adorn the sculpture building in a work by Jamie Fitzpatrick (sculpture), representing the nationalities of the ten individuals who topped this year’s Times Rich List 2015. For her exhibit, Gloria Ceballos (Printmaking) has created a garden path of 30 stepping stones. These invite the visitor into a ‘garden of knowledge’ , where titles from key books on nature, gardening and landscape lie ready to be discovered.
Further highlights of RCA SHOW 2015 include:
- An array of Textiles ‘designed to amaze and surprise’ for the worlds of fashion, interiors and gallery walls, many of which are for sale. The projects exhibited show brave experimentation and innovation with material and process. From bold painterly prints developed from skilled drawing and surface manipulation, to inventive futuristic constructions and sustainable solutions that challenge the use of fibre and yarn. The work of Textile graduates of 2015 show the extraordinary diversity of the discipline.
- A micro-history and visual reconstruction of a pub (The Crown) which existed in Lambeth between 1784 - 1870, by Magnus Copps (History of Design student). In telling the story of The Crown, Copps uses historic insurance documents, leases and building plans in order to reconstruct the pubs interior.
- A video piece by Guy Oliver (Painting) which incorporates a female choir singing football chants.
- Sustainable products made by Seongil Choi and Fabio Hendry (design products) which are made from the byproduct of 3-D printing which is currently going to waste by the tonne as the popularity of 3-D printing grows. Â
As the artists and designers of the future, 2015’s cohort of graduates will follow in the footsteps of esteemed alumni, such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Sir James Dyson, Thomas Heatherwick, Christopher Bailey, David Hockney, Tracey Emin, Zandra Rhodes, and Orla Kiely
Show RCA Battersea will house work from the Schools of Architecture (Architecture and Interior Design), Fine Art (Painting; Photography; Printmaking and Sculpture) and Material (Ceramics & Glass; Jewellery & Metal). Show RCA Kensington will house the work from the Schools of Design (Design Interactions; Design Products; Innovation Design Engineering (IDE); Global Innovation Design (GID); Service Design and Vehicle Design) and Material (Textiles). The School of Communication (Animation: Information Experience Design and Visual Communication) will utilise studio spaces in the Stephens Building to display work, transforming the winding edifice into a thoughtful and playful maze of visual design, illustration and moving image. Humanities students will exhibit and host public events in both exhibition sites.
For further information, feature interviews or images please contact Bethany Bull, RCA Press Officer on t: +44 (0) 20 7590 4114, e: [email protected], or call +44 (0)20 7590 4123/4127, e: [email protected]
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