After many months spent in virtual space, we tentatively return to campus to begin another year. During this academic year (2021-22) we hope to make a portrait of the Design Department. It will be a collective self-portrait, made up of photostrips taken in an analogue photobooth, pinned up on entrance wall to the Lockwood Building. Each person will receive a token to take their picture.
Over time it will gradually grow to represent the staff, students and people that make up our community. The analogue photobooth is a fitting tool to capture a return to in-person, on-site activity, as it requires being-here for the photo to be taken.
Designer and artist UUendy Lau (MA Design: Critical Practice) is sending us news of her latest exhibition, which takes place in Hong Kong until 28 November 2021:
‘Road Movie’ is a collaborative project between the MA Design: Expanded Practice programme at Goldsmiths, University of London and CAMPER. The students participating in the project were asked to explore and engage with CAMPER’s idea of the Walking Society through the discovery and exploration of the city.
“Walking means traveling – going from one place to another. It also means advancing, improving, developing, innovating. The Walking Society is a virtual community open to everyone: to diverse social, cultural, economic and geographic backgrounds. Individually as well as collectively, it champions imagination and energy, bringing useful and positive ideas and solutions to better the world. In a simple and honest way.” CAMPER Walking Society
“Design always acts as an ‘inbetweener’, a narrative connection between two distinct points in time and space. The nature of this connection, its material and conceptual range (how fast, how efficient, how immediate, how long, how ornate, how timely, etc) is informed by the contextual and ideological framework of ‘the possible’, which lies at its origin”. Professor Roberto Feo, Goldsmiths, University of London
Image credit: Xiao Zhu
In road movies, travelling is used as a narrative device that allows the writer or director to piece together a story through a series of chance encounters which obstruct the protagonists’ progress of getting from A to B. The traveller therefore can never be just an observant, a passer-by, or a flaneur. Their very existence sets off the series of combustions that create the story itself.
The BA Design class of 2021 are presenting their outcomes this week, under the title “My Friend, Oh! It’s Been So Long.” The blog continues to give you a peek at the work being showcased. Today, Saundra Liemantoro:
“At the end of 2nd Year, I had been working with clay a lot. When lockdown started, the ceramics labs shut, and the world went online. I felt that the difference between working with the patient, warm, tactile clay and with the overcrowded, cold cyberspace was jarring. In the contemporary, technology feels so far away from craft and I intended to bring craft and computing closer.
Goldsmiths Design Blog 