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Tuesday June 17, 2008
Festival of Creativity - Croydon College
This evening I joined Rob for the summer exhibition of his students work. The departments on show were graphic design, (very polished), video practice, and theatrical design, (Fashion get their turn tomorrow with a catwalk in the Whitgift Centre as part of Croydon's Fashion Festival).
The students take on various design projects - for example, to create complete designs for a show - they may do a model box for the set, draw a number of costumes, and then make one of them up. Here is a project to make a costume from a period deco design and see if it "could be made to work as a practical costume". [Marks are given not only for designs but also for comfort and ability to move].
I saw a lot of design projects and costumes, as well as short dramas - enacted on video and in the Peter Jackman Theatre.
"3" was the third in a series of short theatrical pieces "conceived, designed, directed" (and acted) by Clare Seviour.
These are not drama students and these theatrical pieces evolved out of the "sound to light" projects which used to be part of the lighting course. The students gradually became more and more ambitious in their desire to outdo one another - and this is what has evolved.
It is interesting to see students of the arts developing their talents. It's like watching the first life forms crawl out of the primeval soup and shake off the gloop. They make "mistakes", of course - however, it's hard to judge whether they are actual mistakes in fact - or whether they are intentionally taking a different angle on the subject - making a statement - being young and experimental.
This - as opposed to science, where we all learned what we were told at that level of development. I suppose there was some encouragement to move on from school learning - I remember spending some time explaining to undergraduates doing chemistry practicals (and pestering me to know if they had the right answer) that there were no "right answers" any more, and that any answer they got was valid and needed to be plotted on their graph and a judgement made by themselves as to the significance. Of course this was transparently not true, since they were not actually pushing back the boundaries of science at that point but....
Sigh.
Chemistry practicals. Thrilling discoveries from a bygone age*.
And now.... science departments too expensive to run and no longer required. Brave Old World.
[*Read "The Search" - C P Snow (1934)]
Posted by Christina at 11:44 AM. Category: Art and Culture
