To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.
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The important point is our brains are wired in a certain way and we invent and build the world in our heads as much as perceive it as ‘truth’. This is important for anyone attempting to represent three dimensions in two. The world is indeed out there but perhaps capturing it requires more intervention than we might initially think.
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Studying Interior Design, Spatial Design, Interior Architecture – or any kind of design of the built environment – can lead to many different careers. In this series of blog posts we are looking at the experience and careers of different design professionals and finding out what inspired them to study in the first place. Our fourth design professional is Grant Armstrong, an experienced supervising art director and production designer for film and television.
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With in-person study visits, especially those involving singing, off the cards due to the pandemic, we had to think somewhat outside of the box to get a composition workshop together in 20/21! With a handful of singers within the student body of the music department, we decided to give a ‘Virtual Choir’ project a try.
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Working with ancient texts and dead languages might give one cause enough to steer away, presenting the composer with all sorts of challenges in interpretation and performance. Add into the mix historical instrumentation and such projects could easily lose focus, become too academically dry, or even a pastiche of itself. The key, in my opinion, to the successful combination of old and new, is that the composer needs to respect what both sides have to offer any potential soundworld and then somehow keep them in balance.
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During covid lockdown I’ve been so grateful I have a studio space at home. I was reflecting how my OCA students use their homes as studios. I asked a number of printmaking students to reflect and share how they made printmaking spaces within their homes.
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As my own textiles practice has, for the past few years now, been venturing more and more into the jewellery sector, I have built up a real fascination with how textiles and jewellery disciplines have such a fine line between them and so easily blurred. I know that many, many practitioners work in a multi-disciplinary way, with many choosing to not specify which ‘section’ of the art and craft sector they reside – which I equally appreciate as well- but focusing in on just the relationship between more ‘typical’ textiles and jewellery disciplines is a very interesting area of research to me.
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Attending the exhibition, looking at the work and speaking with the artist is something that Leonard wanted to ensure all the people that he invited could do. You see, Leonard is visually impaired, and mobility-impaired disabled, so making the exhibition accessible to all was something that he was conscious of achieving and he has done that in bucket-loads.
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In this blog post I want to outline the different options prisoners have for carrying out the research element of their courses. As with most things relating to prisons, the specifics of each of these will differ between establishments, but what I want to emphasise is that it will very rarely be the case that someone can’t do research – it may just take a bit of effort on their part.
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Tutoring prisoner students can feel like something of a minefield. It can be difficult to decipher fact from fiction from the information shared in the press about what prisoners do (and don’t) have access to, as well as what the individual is expecting from you, or you from them. Hopefully this series of blog posts can provide a bit of information and a few suggestions to help make this easier.
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What I learned here was not a specific technique but the process to research, not only in media but also in daily life, and to experiment material manipulation, then to combine these to create something conceptual, visible and tangible. Besides, some findings in the process led me to unrestricted exploration out of the course guide. I feel I have set out on my textiles journey. I do not know where it leads, and that’s why I take it!
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