Interviews and features – Page 29 – Goldsmiths Design Blog

Venture into fields of interrogation at xvshow

Article by BA Design alumna Belen Palacios

A year after my own degree show, I had the chance to visit the BA Design 3rd year students while they set up xv show. Thriving beyond the fatigue, they talk about their initial steps, their goals, their challenges and the way in which their designs interrogate our world.

Some projects blur the lines in between the designer and the performer. Lukas Valiauga has explored the limits of personal identity in neo-capitalism. He has made himself a product for which every decision is a strategical formulation in between risk and potential. He explains that by using performance to look at his persona from a strategic point of view, everything in his life has become a prop. His amended suit and his raised shoes make him a puppet of what his investors want him to become. Even though his performance might seem extreme, he urges the audience to question “how is that different to any of us?” Lukas will be giving speeches to stakeholders during the show and you can buy shares of Luck Inc. to decide the future of his enterprise. Continue reading “Venture into fields of interrogation at xvshow”

Alumna Livia Rossi: “I’ve always liked the positive, energetic atmosphere you breathe at Goldsmiths”

Dossofiorito_ph_ETestori01

Livia Rossi graduated from our BA Design course; since 2012, she runs Dossofiorito, a design studio in Verona, Italy, alongside her work and life partner Gianluca.

Q: Why did you choose to study Design at Goldsmiths?

A: Years before my enrollment on the course, I shared a house in New Cross with Goldsmiths students and I had the opportunity to come to the Campus few times. I have always liked the positive and energetic atmosphere that you could breathe there. Later, when I was still studying fashion design, I attended a workshop on sustainable fashion with Mathilda Tham, a tutor in the Design department at Goldsmiths. It really struck me because she had a very different approach from how I was taught at the time.

A few years later, when I decided to go back to university and study Design, I remembered that workshop with Mathilda and I investigated about the Design course at Goldsmiths. I was really happy to find out that the course had a very interdisciplinary approach. Coming from a very specialised background, I thought it would be the perfect choice for me! Continue reading “Alumna Livia Rossi: “I’ve always liked the positive, energetic atmosphere you breathe at Goldsmiths””

Watch Nemi Gardner’s Biomodd talk in full

You can now watch the full talk by alumna Nemi Gardner and her Biomodd teammate Claude Oprea:

Visiting lecturer Liam Healy: “I love being part of the open test-space of ideas that education allows”

Today, an interview with freelance designer Liam Healy, who got his BA in Design at Goldsmiths in 2009 and now teaches on the course:

Q: How was your own time as a Design student at Goldsmiths? What did you expect when you first started out and what do you think you got out of it in the end?

A: I wanted to study fine art during my foundation and found the design course after deciding that fine art wasn’t for me. My main expectation was the unknown! I found the course challenged any notion that I had of design before I joined, and it continues to do so now. I think the most important thing I took away from the course was a design process.

liam 1 — The Birds wearable experience from Sets & Props workshop

Q: How did you find opportunities after you graduated, and what would you say are the pros and cons of carving your own path, as you did by founding Jailmake and freelancing?

A: I think we graduated at a funny time – there was a strange gloomy atmosphere, the recession had hit and there didn’t seem to be many options for us. Post-graduation was a bit of a downer. Jamie (the other founder of Jailmake) and I both discussed how we couldn’t find places to work that made the sort of work we wanted to do, or used a process that we wanted to use. After graduating we worked together at a new start-up in Spain, and that’s when we decided to set up Jailmake. We wanted to use the design processes and collaborative atmosphere of the studio/workshop that we were part of at Goldsmiths to realise projects through a process with making at its core. Setting up alone without much experience wasn’t ideal or easy, but we decided it was a good time, because we had nothing to lose. It was most difficult convincing people to allow us to do work for them – we had to try to win work without a portfolio. Continue reading “Visiting lecturer Liam Healy: “I love being part of the open test-space of ideas that education allows””