Tag: MOD

Goldsmiths Graduate Design Scheme: Dorota Bojanowska turns women’s stories into unique printed garments

The Graduate Design Scheme is an opportunity for Goldsmiths Design graduates to return on campus and work on their own projects: for a fee, they can use a studio space, the workshops, and book machinery. This year, the Design department awarded two bursary places on the scheme to 2018 graduates. One of the winners is Dorota Bojanowska:

What was the idea and process behind your graduation project?

“Girl Girl Girl” is an ongoing design project that has been created to present the beauty of individualism and values that cannot be found within the materialism of the digital culture. The process involves receiving direct responses from women with different stories and experiences (presented in a form of a letter) and then transforming them into a symbolic print. The woman decides which story to share. Each of the letters is handwritten and with unique personal language. The boiler suit that becomes the final form is an un-gendered, multi-use mono garment for everyday wear, representing one of a kind empowerment and beauty.

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The project opens up another possibility for women to articulate their opinions and views. It becomes a discussion starter for other viewers when presented in public. What is their reaction? What’s their opinion? How is this message being communicated to the world?

Continue reading “Goldsmiths Graduate Design Scheme: Dorota Bojanowska turns women’s stories into unique printed garments”

Goldsmiths Graduate Design Scheme: Ash Baigent brings a new gender equality platform to the skate park

The Graduate Design Scheme is an opportunity for Goldsmiths Design graduates to return on campus and work on their own projects:  for a fee, they can use a studio space, the workshops, and book machinery. This year, the Design department awarded two bursary places on the scheme to 2018 graduates; one of the winners is Ash Baigent, who will use her time in the workshops to continue her work designing and making unique skateboards.

Ash Baigent, photo by Aoife Baigent

Ash has been skateboarding since she was ten, and is now part of an all girl skate crew called Nefarious, who she met three years ago. There are few skateboarding women in the media, and even fewer (if any) are manufacturing their own skateboard decks. In fact, as Ash explains, skaters in England usually use decks imported from China or the US, and the designs can often be offensive or degrading towards women. The Goldsmiths graduate is keen to work on both the gender equality and the sustainability aspect of her favourite activity: she wants to bring more women to skateboarding and to encourage them to design their own decks. She’s also interested in making the decks themselves cheaper and more environmentally friendly, by experimenting with local, British wood instead of the usual American maple.

Continue reading “Goldsmiths Graduate Design Scheme: Ash Baigent brings a new gender equality platform to the skate park”

BA Design show 2018: “D//U//A//T”

D//U//A//T, the BA Design final project by Charlie Witter and Tom Gavriel, resulted in a musical performance unlike any other at this year’s graduation show. You can watch the performance in the video above, but what’s the idea and the process behind it? Tom explains:

“The performance was the culmination of a chaotic passage through a shared project which deals with mythic patterns and unconscious wanderings.

Charlie and Tom started to work together once a week by making t-shirts based on characters they would meet along their travels; this would later become an integral part of their practice. In order to further bring their stories and characters to life, they enlisted a group of musicians over Gumtree to become the troubadours of their tales. This group included superhero rapper Mr.Grimez, actor Frederick Roll, guitarist Vitaly Yasinsky and Richard Winstanley from ‘Baffy the Band’. In the first session they entered blindly, with no musical experience, but have become excited about the creation of spectacle and noise.

The creation and seeking out of weird and eerie artefacts has also driven their practice, and for Frederick, the lead tragedian of the tale, backed by his travelling band, they have created a sonic trolley which records and projects cosmic sounds into ordinary spaces.

Moving forward, we are excited to announce this is our first contact made with reality, and there is plenty more to come. D//U//A//T are looking for a band manager, money and the final couple of members for the travelling band to join us on our voyage into the unconscious.

We would also like to thank all of the members of staff at Goldsmiths Design Department – this has only been possible due to the freedom of exploration fuelled within the course.

Finally; we are crazy and we’re not going anywhere.”

You can hear more of the team’s studio sessions on Soundcloud, follow them on Instagram and Facebook, or email them at milesfromsoup@gmail.com.

BA Design show 2018: “#Habitus” by Liakike Robi brings dance and design together

At last week’s BA Design show M-O-D, visitors had the chance to see an unique eight-minute performance, designed by Liakike Robi for her graduation project and performed by Tru Peñate. #Habitus is a performative dance installation about social media and how it increasingly occupies our daily life, subconsciously affecting our mood and behaviour. Here is the designer herself explaining how the project came to be:

Why did you decide to design a dance performance for your final project?

“I was just following my intuition and passion for dance. At the end of my second year at Goldsmiths University, I knew I wanted to work with dancers for my final project. I’ve also always wanted to continue my practice as a designer in the field of stage and set design. So it made sense to me that the outcome should be something that would combine these two. I had a quite clear vision of what my project had to look like, however, the concept for the performance was more complicated.”

Do you have any experience with dance yourself?

“Before coming to London I was in one dance company back in Lithuania, while on the side collaborating with local artists creating performances in gallery spaces. Here in London, I still go to various dance classes, like breaking, new style hustle, house or jazz. Of course, the preparation for the exhibition and exam slowed down my own practice.”

What was it like to work on designing the performance with your performer?

“Working with another person with a different background is absolutely amazing. On this design course, we are encouraged to work in groups and collaborate. The challenging part of this project was showing that a dance performance can also be a design project- and building a language between me and the dancer, building the piece and making her see the project more as a designer, rather than a dancer.”