Professor Claire Robinson, Pro Vice-Chancellor, College of Creative Arts, Massey University Photo / Claire in front of a work by Feng Mengbo, Long March: Restart 2008, MoMA Collection
The secret to our success lies in our focus on studio and project-based learning – with an emphasis on both craft and creative problem solving. Unusually for a university, we don’t do mass lecture based teaching, and we don’t do exams! To ensure a 21st century curriculum with the student experience and learning at its core, our programmes acknowledge the increasingly permeable nature of the creative industries today and an external environment in which employment outcomes are no longer pre-determined.
Leading a creative life isn’t a job; it’s a calling, but it takes more than that to have a successful career and be a contributor to your community. The College of Creative Arts at Massey University in Wellington is both a hot house and an accelerator: a short-cut to, and a setting for, skills acquisition and knowledge generation for a career in the creative and performing arts. We provide the facilities, opportunities, experiences and tools to learn in a safe and nurturing environment, with practitioners who work hard to be at the forefront of creative arts knowledge generation.
A key part of this is a cross-disciplinary approach that provides opportunities for students to self-select from a broad range of technical learning not confined to their own major. We also encourage students to learn from each other through collaboration, in order to provide as much real-life experience as possible before they leave. Testament to our success is that the College is the only provider in the Asia Pacific region to have our programmes accredited by the US National Association of Schools of Art and Design, meaning our art and design degrees are on a par with qualifications from some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, such as Rhode Island School of Design and CalArts.
LEADING A CREATIVE LIFE ISN’T A JOB; IT’S A CALLING... The College of Creative Arts Toi Rauwharangi comprises New Zealand’s oldest and largest School of Design Ngā Pae Māhutonga, the School of Art Whiti o Rehua, and the School of Music and Creative Media Production Te Rewa o Puanga.
We were thrilled this year when the School of Design was ranked second among design schools in the Asia Pacific region by the global design agency Red Dot, putting us well clear of any other school in Australasia.
This year we celebrated our 130th anniversary. Over this time we have educated generations of talented students. Many of our graduates have gone on to make a difference through art, design, music, media and technology; they have defined New Zealand culture, made a valuable contribution to the New Zealand and global economy, helped make our work more productive, our play more enjoyable, our listening sweeter, our environment more sustainable and our lives more fulfilling.
Closer to home, over the past 13 years we have had 321 finalists in the Best Awards; among the finalists for 2016 we have 34 student projects representing 50 students. The following pages are just a small selection of work by students and recent graduates that inspire not only us, but also their peers and those students who are coming behind them. Each talks of the creativity bred by crossdisciplinary collaboration, plain and simple hard work, and a can-do attitude. I hope you enjoy the stories of these journeys as much as we do.
NZ DESIGN MEETS A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND THE BAG FOR ‘WOMEN ON THE GO’ HAS BEEN REDEFINED THROUGH THOUGHTFUL DESIGN, TEXTILE INNOVATION AND ARTISAN CRAFTSMANSHIP.
LLANA is a bag with a New York sensibility, versatile enough to carry gym equipment, shoes, laptop, yoga mat, phone, and a wallet and still look professional at the office and chic at the wine bar. LLANA was developed by a team that included three Massey Masters of Design students, scientists, engineers and a Harvard MBA entrepreneur. The journey for Amy Blackmore, Annabelle Fitzgerald and Avara Moody started during their Masters degree. “The three of us were selected to work on this project with an American business partner, Darrius Glover,” Amy said. “A Masters done in collaboration wouldn’t be for everyone, but we were perfect together; Annabelle came from fashion so she brought excellent construction
techniques; Avara, was doing industrial design and brought product knowledge to the project; and I was the spatial designer and focused on the marketing, communications and video. “While we brought different strengths and knowledge to the project, we worked collaboratively to create a range of deliverables. “Our brief from Darrius was to amplify the natural properties of New Zealand’s strong wool; develop the Wool Fresh material alongside AgResearch and then design the first product application. What we wanted to do in the process was, through design, change the perception of wool and show how useful and contemporary it can be.”
A revolutionary new fabric, Wool Fresh, was developed with the help of scientists at AgResearch and Texus Fibre engineers in Auckland. Wool Fresh is odour absorbent, anti-bacterial, breathable, and self-cleaning. Amy, Annabelle and Avara lined the LLANA bag with Wool Fresh. The advantage; the fabric acts as a filter to keep your kit dry and fresh inside the bag and its anti-microbial properties inhibits bacteria growth. “We worked with Darrius to develop the business case and align our product with our chosen market. When that was right, Darrius
founded the company, LLANA, and organised the crowdfunding to take the company and the bag to the first stage of commercialisation,” Amy said. The crowdfunding campaign attracted 41 backers and raised US$38,966.
the first 50 bags for the American customers. In December these handcrafted bags will be delivered to buyers in America and New Zealand.
The success of the crowdfunding enabled Amy, Avara and Annabelle to work with Texus Fibre and Leatherworks in Auckland, and to create
For Amy, the project was an insight into the value of collaboration. “If I was advising someone interested in studying design I would
say to incorporate wider ideas as much as possible. Studying at Massey you learn more from your cohort than anything else, so work openly to craft ideas collaboratively.”
Image / Llana Bag by Amy Blackmore, Avara Moody and Annabelle Fitzgerald / 2015 Photos / Bonny Stewart-MacDonald
from waste paper to note paper Misprint Co. is already eight trees up when it comes to saving paper. The company is helping New Zealanders become more sustainable one sheet of paper at a time. The brainchild of former design students Jenny Buckler, Kareena Harris, and Priscilla Loong, Misprint Co. takes hardly-used waste paper and repurposes it into high-end stationery. The kernel of the idea came to the trio when they saw yellow recycling bins at design school overflowing with hardly-used paper. “The thing is that recycling isn’t as environmentally friendly as you think,” explains Jenny. “Most of New Zealand’s paper recycling is optimistically sent to China. Whether it gets there or not is a different matter. “We’re not some tree hugging company, we reckon repurposing before recycling is just common sense. Our repurposed paper notebooks have become a vehicle for behavioural change.” Although the three met at high school, the idea for the company itself was borne out of a Massey honours degree paper called ‘Creative Futures’. “The paper was about using design thinking and coming up with a business idea,” Kareena explains. “After a false start we focused on paper and stationery.” The team put specially-designed bins around the Massey Wellington Campus to collect non-confidential waste paper of the necessary size and then began repurposing that paper into notebooks. After completing the Creative Futures paper, the trio took the idea to SPRING, a creative enterprise programme at the College of Creative Arts, and further developed it at Lightning Lab Manufacturing, a start-up
programme incubator. They are now housed in Wellington’s Creative HQ, a start-up development base. The Misprint Co. now collects paper from numerous sources, including local businesses, corporates, schools, and other universities. “We ship from our online store; we also sell in a few retail stores around the country,” says Jenny. “We really embrace the idea of the closed loop cycle and re-using New Zealand’s waste in New Zealand. For that reason we will not look to produce overseas and instead plan to expand Misprint’s reach with local people, local paper and local printers.” Misprint also offers an ‘ecoloop service’ where businesses can repurpose their waste paper into their own company-branded stationery. “We offer fully customisable notebooks with logos, cover stocks and even bindings for some extra uniqueness. This creates great marketing material for businesses, all the while showing physical evidence of sustainability,” Jenny says. The company has grown steadily since its inception and now repurposes about 800 books a month. The next step is to move into the Auckland market. Meanwhile the ecoloop is working in more ways than one. Jenny and Kareena are back at Massey helping teach the Creative Futures paper and the company employs a Massey intern. The success of their design is not only showing tangible results with product sales, Misprint Co. won bronze at the 2016 Best Awards in two categories: Sustainable Product Design; and Consumer Product Design. Their notebooks are uniquely crafted, with loads of personality and no two the same. Waste paper has never looked better.
To date the company has: • Re-purposed over eleven trees worth of paper • Offset 946,600 litres of water from the paper production process • Saved the carbon emissions used to ship paper overseas. A Misprint notebook saves between 130 – 260 litres of water (it takes 10 litres of water to make an A4 sheet of paper).
Image / Jenny Buckler and Kareena Harris, Print Studio Massey Wellington Photo / Louise Hatton
KEY FACTS:
Image / Glenn Catchpole Kit-netic Soapbox Cardboard Racer / 2015 Photo / Marie Larking Gold Award, Best Awards 2016
Glenn Catchpole was looking for the sweet-spot, between a person, an object, and the environment – a place where you can find happiness. He found it with his BDes Honours project, a cardboard soapbox racer. The Kit-netic racer gives children growing up as digital natives the opportunity to ‘make’ using a medium they are familiar with. “Children of this generation are growing up in an era of digital immersion,” Glenn says. “They are encouraged to become experts in technology. Instead of building tree houses and making model planes, kids are now playing video games. That means they are missing out on the hands on ‘making’ opportunities that kids had in the past.
“The Soapbox Cardboard Racer instructions come in a book, but also online where the car has an identity and personality to ensure the emotional engagement starts from the beginning. Even better the product comes with zero waste.”
visionaries”. The business went through two business incubators: SPRING within Massey; and the Low-Carbon Challenge run by Enspiral and the Wellington City Council, which helps strengthen initiatives built around low carbon and zero waste.
Glenn’s interest in heritage brings nostalgia and memories to his products. “My design style reflects my interest in sleek, retro, and nostalgic design and engineering from the era of streamlining between the 1930’s and 1960’s.”
Papertowns is all about making beautiful objects with maximum material efficiency, starting with the soapbox racer and a strap chair, both of which Glenn designed as an undergraduate.
After graduating BDes(Hons) Glenn established ‘Papertowns’ a company that designs eco-friendly objects for “sustainable
“With my products there is a great satisfaction in getting patterns to work and translating them from 2D to 3D. That’s a really rewarding
THE JOY OF KIT SET A n accidental collaboration When Grace Redgrave, in her final year of her fashion major, was talking to another student in industrial design she noticed a Soap Box Derby sticker. At that point she had never met anyone else of her generation who knew what that was. “Glenn and I were into zero waste and both inspired by Soap Box Derby; he gave me his plans and I was able to manipulate them and use them as a screen print for part of my New Zealand Fashion Week collection, I also used his racer cars in my photoshoot. “If we had realised our similarities earlier on in the project we definitely would have collaborated on a greater scale,” Grace said.
moment not just for me, but also for the customer who gets the same satisfaction building the car or the chair.
Glenn is now pursuing a Master of Design degree, focused on the design of zero waste chairs, while he continues to grow Papertowns. http://www.catchpoledesign.com/#/kit-neticcardboard-soapbox-racer
Image / Grace Redgrave, Soap Box Derby NZ Fashion Week Graduate Show / 2016
“I thought all the way through school that I would do mechanical engineering, but when I came to a Massey Open Day I saw the industrial design projects and decided that was what I wanted to do.”
Image / Valerie Poort and Jeremy Hall, MBIE, Wellington Photo / Louise Hatton
design in the real world LIKE MANY VISUAL COMMUNICATION DESIGN STUDENTS AT MASSEY, VALERIE POORT AND JEREMY HALL IMAGINED THEY WOULD COMPLETE THEIR DEGREES AND WORK IN MAGAZINE OR GRAPHIC DESIGN.
But while studying at the College of Creative Arts and following graduation, they both had the opportunity to work at the University’s Open Lab and everything changed. Both now have fulltime service design jobs within the Public Sector.
Both Jeremy and Valerie now have service design jobs through their involvement with Open Lab. Service design is about putting end users at the centre of the design process to ensure services fulfil the needs of the people who interact with them.
Open Lab is a design studio at the College which brings together experienced design professionals, academics, graduates and students to collaborate and form multi-disciplinary teams. Students work on commercial projects while they are still studying – it’s a bridging mechanism where students get paid for projects while interacting with clients, taking on responsibility and learning the skills needed in the industry.
Valerie works for the Department of Internal Affairs as a service designer. “It involves a lot of talking to people, figuring out their needs, and feeding this back into certain government teams and services. It’s very creative problem solving; looking at how users interact with services, and also how to actually implement these ideas within government,” she says.
Valerie chose to study design at Massey because the College of Creative Arts was internationally recognised and kept winning awards. “During my degree, I also chose a marketing paper and a social psychology paper, both from outside the College of Creative Arts. I found these subjects incredibly fascinating, as I love design because I’m interested in people,” Valerie says. Jeremy says he tossed up between studying fine art and design. “At school, I was always into art and thought I wanted to be an artist, and then I decided design was like art, but with better job prospects. While studying though I was drawn to the thinking behind design – it is much more than the execution. I liked the theoretical underpinning of doing a design degree,” he says.
Jeremy had a seven-month internship at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment before being offered a position as an advisor in the Service Design Policy team. “The team acts like an internal service design consultancy which runs workshops and other exercises to improve services for internal and external audiences.” New Zealand Post has been one of Open Lab’s clients and a spokesperson said working with students helped their people work in new and different ways. “It helps us to work with people who have grown up digital. Plus, they are trained designers and know how to work fast and collaboratively.”
EGG ON TOAST
Egg on Toast may not be the first phrase you would associate with illustration. But that’s what you get when four design students arrive at a planning meeting for their new business feeling very hungry. Established in 2016, Egg on Toast is a collective of visual communication design graduates working both collaboratively and individually on illustration and design projects. In their own words, they are “fresh illustrators, designers and photographers who work together to find awesome new projects and other artists.� Kalos Chan, Holly-Ann Craig, Pippa Reed and Katherine Hall set up the collective in their final year at Massey. All four were completing a visual communications design degree majoring in illustration and shared a joint interest in wellbeing and doing things for the local community.
What started with a few pop-up events selling limited edition art prints, is now a growing online business with increasing sales and commissions coming through social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook.
“It was hard in the first two months to make a living,” Kalos says. “But we knew if we just kept at it, kept talking to people, making our own briefs and showing what we can do, we would succeed.”
The Collective’s most recent joint project for the World of Wearable Arts was a giant mural painted live during the show.
The launch of the Collective is perhaps a reflection of their problem solving mindset. “Throughout our four year degree the most important thing we were taught was about ‘design thinking’ and learning how to solve problems,” Kalos says.
“If we hadn’t been a collective we wouldn’t have got the job,” Kalos explains. “They needed people who could work well together – not just one illustrator. We were perfect.” Kalos is the only one who works as a freelance illustrator full-time, a decision she made when she left Massey. Meanwhile, Pippa also works at Te Papa and Holly works at Weta as a graphic designer. Katherine is about to move to China to be an art tutor.
“I really believe in what I am doing. We want everyone to get better and get more work, that is the nub of a collective,” she adds. That determination is paying off for all of them. “Now everyone is busy,’ says Kalos. “I manage the projects and Pippa is the social media queen, keeping everyone informed and up to date.” instagram.com/eggontoastcollective
Images / Egg on Toast Collective (self portraits), Pippa Reed, Holly-Ann Craig, Katherine Hall and Kalos Chan / 2016
THE CUTTING EDGE THE ILLUSTRIOUS ALUMNI OF THE COLLEGE OF CREATIVE ARTS ARE TAKING THE FASHION WORLD BY STORM. WITH SIX STUDENTS AND RECENT GRADUATES SHOWING AT NEW ZEALAND FASHION WEEK, AND OTHERS WINNING NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AWARDS, THE COLLEGE’S SCHOOL OF DESIGN IS PROVING TO BE A LAUNCH PAD FOR SOME OF NEW ZEALAND FASHION’S HOTTEST NEW DESIGNERS.
The annual competition in June is an opportunity for Māori designers to showcase their talent, and the calibre of this year’s entries was as high as ever. Founder of New Zealand Fashion Week and Miromoda Judge Dame Pieter Stewart says: “Each year I come and judge this competition and, together with the other judges, we work out which designers are capable of showing their collection on the catwalk, and also who would probably be able to produce commercially and go on to the next step because it’s not just about the competition.” Pania Tucker won the Emerging Designer award and the AJ Park award for innovation with her collection “Alpine Stress”. Her win was hot on the heels of another Massey graduate, Steve Hall, who took out the 2015 award.
Pania, a fourth-year Massey Honours fashion student, used distressed denim and other fabrics to articulate a Māori worldview about the environmental issues facing Tongariro National Park, where her Taupō iwi, Tuwharetoa come from. “The fragile ecosystem is under threat from all of the visitors, particularly the number of people who walk the Tongariro Crossing. I used denim to show the strength and permanence of the land, but it is distressed and laser-cut to show that, under stress, it will break down over time. We believe that Tongariro is our ancestor and I put the words ‘walking on an ancestor’ on the back of a jacket to remind people to tread carefully. With a lot of flora, such as tussocks, unique to the area, Pania used wool to highlight the unique environment and delicate gold knit lamé to show the fragility of the flora. Her work was showcased with that of Len Houkamau, a fourth-year fashion design student and Alana Cooper, a 2015 fashion graduate, who were awarded as Emerging Designers with merit at the same competition.
Image / Pania Tucker, Alpine Stress, Miromoda Emerging Designer / 2016 Photo / Masanori Udagawa Model / Rikitia Holloway
MIROMODA
In August three Massey fashion design students had their work exhibited as part of New Zealand Fashion Week’s Miromoda Showcase, after they won awards at the Miromoda Design Competition.
Images (left to right) / Collections by Sarah Parker / Megan Stewart / Grace Redgrave NZFW Graduate Show, 2016 / Photos / Nikita Brown
Also at New Zealand Fashion Week were Massey’s top three fashion design graduates from 2015, who were selected to show their work on the runway at NZ Fashion Week’s inaugural Graduate Show. The collections designed by Sarah Parker, Grace Redgrave and Megan Stewart, featured digital printing, colour and non-conventional silhouettes, innovative cutting methods
and a menswear range made using minimal waste production methods. In an industry which is notoriously difficult to break into, NZ Fashion Week represents an incredible opportunity for emerging designers to profile their work in front of key industry players and international media buyers.
Megan Stewart, winner of the graduate programme’s 2015 Creative Excellence Award says: “New Zealand Fashion Week was an amazing experience; I was so excited. It felt unreal having just graduated last year, and I would never have believed that I would be showing a collection this year. “Coming to Design School at Massey, it was both daunting and exciting to grow as a
designer with a huge range of people, all just as passionate about fashion design as I was,” she says. Megan describes her aesthetic as focused on alternative pattern making, construction, print and textures. “I always start with a story idea and then push the boundaries of traditional silhouette, textiles or construction,” she says.
THE NZFW GRADUATE SHOW 2016
RUNWAY TO NEW ZEALAND In May 2016 Yoshino Maruyama crossed the world to take joint top award in a collaborative fashion design project involving tertiary fashion students from New Zealand and India. In a partnership with Education New Zealand, Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), National Institute of Technology (NIFT) and Pearl Academy, Yoshino was selected with fellow Massey classmates (Kristen Meaclem and Louise Watkins) to be part of the project entitled Runway to New Zealand. There were also three students from AUT. Each New Zealand student was paired with an Indian fashion student to work collaboratively online for
three weeks, before spending the final fortnight of the project working together in Delhi. For Yoshino, the collaboration was a success right from the outset: “I had a great partnership with my partner Megha Sharma. We began by just sharing what we both liked, what we wanted to focus on and what we wanted out of the experience. The hard bit was narrowing down our ideas to two looks which we could represent in six garments. “Part of our work was laser cutting one of Megha’s mother’s old saris. Our works were sustainable and talked to up-cycling, as well as having specific patterns hand-knitted for our concept, and ultimately remaining sculptural.” Yoshino says the experience changed her as a designer, opening her up to the abundance of resources available.
“The work I produced for Fashion Week had a focus on knitwear where my print was knitted into fabric combined with using alternative patternmaking of twisted dresses and jackets with radical digital prints. Working as an intern for Kate Sylvester in my final year was so inspiring; I have huge respect for Kate as a designer and mentor.”
After graduating Megan began working with another fashion icon, Karen Walker, but this time in a more business-orientated role. With a joint degree in business and fashion, she was keen to explore all aspects of fashion, but she now knows she wants to get back to the creative side.
“In New Zealand all materials come from off-shore, whereas in India so much more is accessible and we could work directly with manufacturers including getting specific patterns hand-knitted,” she explains. “I am now much more willing to look for resources, contact people, not just settle for what I can get my hands on. I feel much more confident to work with other people and across countries.”
Image / Yoshino Maruyama and Megha Sharma, Runway to New Zealand, Delhi / 2016 Photo / Education New Zealand Top photo / Massey students Kristen Mecleam, Yoshino Maruyama and Louise Watkins / India / 2016
finding their way
HERE IS A PROJECT THAT ILLUSTRATES PERFECTLY WHAT A DESIGN DEGREE IS ALL ABOUT AND THESE DESIGNERS HADN’T EVEN LEFT THE COLLEGE.
It also shows what happens when a community’s vision is put in the hands of talented designers. Bachelor of Design honours students, Josie Schultz, Steph Tidey, Rachael Jupp, Rhianna Field and Oliver Ward were tasked with helping to make the Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park more inclusive for new mountain bikers and walkers, while maintaining the area’s strong conservation values. The project won two Designers Institute Best Awards in 2015 and this year won a Merit award from the Society for Experimental Graphic Design (SEGD) in Seattle. “The 12 week project was completed within the Creative Enterprise paper, where a client comes to the College with a strategic problem or opportunity, and students decide how to address it with a design solution,” said Oliver Ward.
Image / Josie Schultz, Steph Tidey, Rachael Jupp, Rhianna Field and Oliver Ward Makara Peak Mountain Bike Park / Wayfinding / 2014 Photo / Oliver Ward
The client for this project was the Makara Peak Supporters group. Rhianna Field said, “We rode the park and got lost, so came back with a way-showing system which drew from the visual language of ski fields and an international sign language.” Makara Peak has more than 40 kilometres of track and gets more than 100,000 visitors per year. The Massey students developed a system of colour-coded signage to inform users where they are, the direction they are heading, distance, grade and level of difficulty. Helpful biking tips are placed on beginner and easy grade tracks and the students adjusted the signs depending on whether a user would be seeing it while riding uphill or speeding downhill. A new map was also developed. “The Council initially only had money for signage to go in a new entranceway from the carpark, but the Supporters group did some fundraising and in the following year Rhianna and I worked out the plan for 500 signs to be installed by volunteers - that happened the year after we graduated,” Oliver said.
The result was a client “blown away” by what the student designers achieved, users giving them great feedback and the Council over the moon. So much so, they have come back to the School of Design with many other live projects. The Wainuiomata and Colonial Knob mountain bike parks have both been inspired by the Massey students’ design. “There is a real opportunity in New Zealand to spread the system and it has already been installed on Waiheke Island as a result of our Makara work,” Oliver said. The judges in Seattle had this to say: “It’s hard for me to accept that this is a student project. The visual identity and way-finding system is beautiful, in harmony with the park and designed with visitor needs at its centre”, noted one of the judges. While another wrote: “Give these design students jobs, immediately!”
Image / Jasmine Togo-Brisby, Bitter Sweet / 2015 Photo / Courtesy of the artist
bitter-sweet
An internationally-renowned work conveying the brutalities of the slave trade in Australia’s sugarcane plantations has opened at Te Uru Waitakere, Auckland for its first New Zealand showing. Currently in her third year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Massey, student Jasmine Togo-Brisby’s
Bitter-Sweet examines the practice of ‘blackbirding’, the romanticised euphemism used to describe the kidnapping of Pacific Islanders and their enslavement on the cotton and sugar plantations in 19th century Australia. The work is a memorial to the many who were buried in unmarked graves.
“ASSI history has been so successfully hidden that there is little to no knowledge of it. Part of our complex identity is the impact of this on our people. There is a responsibility that comes with identifying as ASSI and the obligation to educate on the history of our people.” From Queensland Australia, Jasmine says she was always creative, but came late to formal training. “It was after I had my daughter that I started to explore my creativity further; what that might look like, and what I might be able to do with it. I began with classes at a technical college using different mediums,” she says.
Jasmine’s art and subsequent research examines the contemporary legacy this practice has imparted on those who trace their roots to New Zealand and Australia through the Pacific slave-diaspora. “I’m interested in examining the effects of intergenerational trauma transmitted through ongoing oppression across several generations, particularly in contrast to the inheritance of wealth that has come to those who benefit from slavery and colonisation,” she says.
Jasmine achieved a Diploma of Visual Arts in 2012 and then started a Fine Arts degree at an Australian university in 2013, before moving to Wellington at the beginning of 2016. “Initially in my arts practice I was looking at different aspects of my identity including motherhood and hip hop. In 2010 I started making work which investigated my ASSI heritage; I painted a triptych of my great-great grandparents and a blackbird ‘captain’.”
Jasmine is a fourth generation Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) with ancestral lineage to the islands of Ambae and Santo of Vanuatu. ASSIs are the descendants of 62,000 recorded – and many more unrecorded – people from Pacific Islands who were taken to Australia as a result of slave labour policies employed by the Australian government between 1863 and 1903.
She says changing university has been like
Jasmine’s practice is one of a very few Pasifika artists delving into this shared history of plantation colonisation across the Pacific.
onto my practice and explore theories which
a breath of fresh air. “There was minimal to no teaching on Pacific art and theories at the Australian universities I attended. Massey has allowed me the freedom to overlap my arts practice with my degree, which means I am actually writing essays about my interests and my practice. I’m able to build allow me to consider where I fit into the art world.”
SHORT FILMS, BIG STORIES. Kate Lambert / Chris Bird / Matt Wilkey / Caitlyn Parslow and Emily French / Still from John2 / 2015
Part of the Taranaki Arts Festival, Tropfest New Zealand is the Kiwi arm of the iconic Australian festival of the same name. It is a playground for filmmakers to hone their skills and a platform for them to promote work. Into this fray went Massey University first year Creative and Media Production students. The students developed stories that tapped into the skills they had just learnt, working together using industry standard equipment.
Two of their films, John2 and Timothy (or Hunting for the Dopplemonster), made the final shortlist. John2 was a collaborative project produced by Kate Lambert, Chris Bird, Matt Wilkey, Caitlyn Parslow and Emily French. It is the story of a young scientist who is on the verge of achieving his lifelong dream of genetic replication, when he encounters a problem: his clone believes he is the original. Emily says that all five students tried a variety of roles in the film-making
PRESTIGIOUS SHORT FILM FESTIVAL TROPFEST NEW ZEALAND RECEIVES HUNDREDS OF ENTRIES EACH YEAR AND IS OPEN TO FILM MAKERS OF ALL BACKGROUNDS AND EXPERIENCE. SO GETTING SHORTLISTED IN YOUR FIRST YEAR OF FILM-MAKING IS NO MEAN FEAT.
process. “We were so new to the whole process of film-making we each tended to do a bit of everything, the roles were fluid and extremely collaborative,” she explains. John2 went on to win an award when actor Jordan Rivers, who played the main protagonist, scooped Best Actor at the New Zealand Tropfest Film Festival in February. “Jordan wasn’t there so we all went up on stage and it was an incredibly humbling experience to
be a finalist and winner, especially with this audience and up against so many professional people in the film industry,” says Emily. “The great thing about Creative Media Production is that they are really chill with the equipment so we have access to book out everything we needed to make a film in a professional way,” Emily adds. “In CMP classes we are provided with the opportunity to really push it.”
Christopher Chalmers / Still from Timothy (or Hunting for the Dopplemonster) / 2015
Timothy (or Hunting for the Dopplemonster), produced by Christopher Chalmers, is about a mysterious yeti-man living in the woods and stealing people’s lunches. Champion bird-watcher and cat fancier Timothy goes searching for the peckish woodland creature, only to discover something rather unexpected. Christopher Chalmers chose to work independently. “Going solo forced me to think my way round solving problems,” he explains.
“I made it easy on myself by using lots of static shots, important when you are also acting in the film as well. I loved the fact the course I’m doing covered so much: film-making, game design, web design and a lot of viral media. For me, it’s film-making. I started first in sound design and just gravitated to film. I like the writing process and coming up with the ideas and I definitely prefer to do this bit on my own.”
Image / Steph O’Shea / Egmont St / 2016
Working for Wellington STEPH O’SHEA IS IN HER FINAL YEAR OF A BACHELOR OF DESIGN MAJORING IN SPATIAL DESIGN. HOWEVER, SHE ALREADY HAS A PLAN FOR AFTER SHE GRADUATES THAT WAS PUT IN TRAIN LAST YEAR.
Steph studied the ‘Internship’ paper during summer school in November. Having applied to a number of organisations, it was the Wellington City Council’s Urban Design team that came back with the work experience she needed.
Steph always planned to major in Spatial Design. “While my mother and sister are graphic designers, the appeal for me was always in working with 3D space. I like the idea of applying abstract thinking to space – taking interactive performance into urban spaces.
Steph nailed it. After her two week stint the Council were very happy with her work, impressed by her work ethic, her talent and her drive.
“This degree has hugely developed my thinking behind design, and provided me with tools to explore design through many different processes,” she adds. “This has increased my confidence in terms of what I feel I could take on because I’m no longer worried about the application of design, it is more the purpose behind the design that excites me now.”
“What was really amazing was they told me they wanted to hire me when I graduated. In the meantime I have had a paid day-a-week job throughout this year, with flexibility to take into account times when I have had a big project on.” Throughout the year Steph has had a variety of work experience including: conceptual work on projects; helping with the lane-way developments; doing some detailed drawing for final packaging; illustrating for application to the lanes; site visits; and attending internal Urban Design team workshops.
Steph’s final year major project is the redevelopment of Frank Kitts Park on Wellington’s waterfront. “The chosen site for this project works really well for exploring my concept; focusing on heightening the connections between body, architectural form and the natural environment. I am using transitional components to influence the form within my design and using curiosity as a driver for exploration of space.”
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR… TAHIWI HUNT KNEW BEFORE HE EVEN STARTED HIS BACHELOR OF DESIGN DEGREE THAT HE WANTED TO WORK FOR WETA WORKSHOP. A FAST TRACK TO GETTING WHAT HE WISHED FOR WAS TO BECOME RUNNER-UP IN A COMPETITION HELD BY WETA WORKSHOP.
Image / Shepherds Delight / 2015 Tahiwi Trenor Hunt
The New Zealand inaugural Gwangmyeong Concept Design Competition was held in 2015, with the winner awarded a trip to South Korea with Sir Richard Taylor and the opportunity to attend the Gwangmyeong Design Conference. The brief that year was to imagine and illustrate a strange and fantastical ‘mirror Earth’. Tahiwi says the competition was a fantastic opportunity. “When I submitted my entry, I just wanted to produce the best, most ‘out there’ artwork I possibly could, but I got a real surprise when I got runner-up.
“I liked the fact that the brief was vague – I was interested in sci-fi so creating an alternative world where everything is fantastical was perfect for me. “Six months later I am here in the Workshop design studio employed as a concept designer, surrounded by amazingly creative people and working on some incredible projects.” Tahiwi did his BDes with a focus on illustration, but by the time he was in his third year he knew “I just wanted to get into Concept Design and so I centred my final design or ‘pitch-bible’ with that in mind. “Papers within the illustration component of the BDes degree were perfect for where I wanted
to go, teaching me digital model-making, story and narration, and concept design. I also learnt a lot about presentation skills which really helped,” Tahiwi said. A fellow Massey University design student, Daniel Voss, took out the top prize and the trip to South Korea, and is still completing his degree. “I would encourage anyone who loves design and illustration to enter. You never know what will happen!” A large number of Massey alumni can be found at Weta Workshop and Weta Digital. Sir Richard Taylor is both an alumnus and an inaugural member of the College’s Hall of Fame, and over the years more than twenty other graduates, including four in Tahiwi’s current design department, have been employed at Weta.
Image / Katherine Winitana, Vodafone Scholarship winner / 2016 Photo / George Miller
Katherine Winitana could not be happier; she is doing exactly what she always wanted to do. With the help of a scholarship from Vodafone she is in the first year of her degree in Commercial Music majoring in Practice. “I was excited about the course from the first interview I had at my audition – it was just perfect with everything I wanted in one place. “Since starting, the thing that has really struck me has been the friendly and caring vibe you get from every lecturer, and the fact they are all in the industry means you just get the real stuff. “I love my study which is challenging at times, but in a constructive way; making me think differently. “I studied music at high school, and although I like classical music, it was not what I wanted to do. I had no one to bounce ideas off – here it has just exploded – I am among lots of likeminded people. “I am working on my song-writing and putting my own sound to things. The question for me is whether I continue jumping between genres or whether I am better spending time on one – I want to figure out where I sit in the industry,” Katherine said. Vodafone has paid for Katherine’s fees for her three year degree. She says “they ran the scholarship through schools and I was incredibly lucky to get it. I know they just want for me to be the best I can be which is amazing. “I am hoping when I have finished I will have the opportunity to perform for them.”
Image / School of Music and Creative Media Production – Te Rewa o Puanga - launch event / 2015 Photo / Jeff MacEwan
Hold the phone…
finding your groove In 2015, alongside its newly established degree in Creative Media Production, Massey University launched its new degree in Commercial Music. Led by Associate Professor Andre Ktori the degree provides a unique combination of technological innovation and performance creativity. Andre says it’s the industry savvy-ness which sets Massey’s music programme apart. “It takes music into digital worlds and supports emerging artists who are creative, enterprising, as well as strategic in an increasingly global music industry.” The staff at the school don’t just teach; they are also all active in the music industry. If the musical talents of many of the School’s staff were combined they would quickly produce a super group in their own right. The School offers an ensemble of renowned music performers who match their musical abilities with academic rigour: starting with Andre himself who is a BAFTA award winner for interactive enhanced music. Andre is joined by a star-studded cast including undergraduate programme developer Warren Maxwell, who leads Trinity Roots, is part of Little Bushman and is an ex-member of Fat Freddy’s Drop. Lecturer Devin Abrams is best known as a founding member of the internationally successful act Shapeshifter and has worked as manager and producer for other New Zealand groups. He currently releases his own music under the pseudonym Pacific Heights. Their technology lecturers are also practitioners at the cutting edge. Undergraduate programme developer Bridget Johnson designs and builds new hardware and software applications for commercial music. Sound engineering lecturer Neil Aldridge has worked extensively in both the commercial music and film postproduction worlds. He worked as a sound engineer in London recording and mixing artists including Rod Stewart, Baby Spice Emma Bunton and All Saints. In New Zealand, Neil moved into the film world, and has worked on King Kong, Avatar, The Adventures of Tintin, The Hobbit Trilogy and more.
Noted award-winning pianist Dr Norman Meehan teaches contemporary musicology, as well as performing around New Zealand with artists like jazz musician Mike Nock and poet Bill Manhire. The Associate Head of School and music programme leader, Dr Oli Wilson, is an academic who specialises in recording and production, and Pacific popular music. He is also keyboardist with internationally renowned indie band The Chills. On the industry side, undergraduate programme developer Nicky Harrop has 18 years experience working in the business with the BMG and Sony Music labels. She is well-versed in touring and with live events, sponsorship and artist management, as well as having a wide knowledge of social media and digital music distribution. The technical service staff are experienced in the industry. Technical services manager James Coyle is a member of several Wellington bands that have played as backdrop to much of the city’s sound in recent years, including psychedelic group, The Nudge, Newtown Rocksteady and the iconic Fly My Pretties. From 2010 to 2015 he served as production and programme manager for the Newtown Festival. Oli Wilson says having staff both performing and teaching is crucial for providing effective and exciting courses. “Because our staff are active in the industry, our courses are up-to-the-minute relevant, which is really important as the industry is changing so quickly.” To help that goal to be realised, new high-tech industry-standard studio spaces and labs are currently being built, the likes of which are to be found nowhere else in New Zealand. From this place graduates will be enabled to carve out careers in what staff believe, and demonstrate with their own talents, is one of the most exciting and fastest evolving industries.
LONG BEFORE JORDANA BRAGG GRADUATED FROM UNIVERSITY WITH A BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS WITH HONOURS SHE HAD CONTRIBUTED TO NUMEROUS PANEL DISCUSSIONS, GROUP SHOWS, AND EXHIBITED HER FINAL FOURTH YEAR PROJECT IN THE MAIN FOYER OF THE CHRISTCHURCH CITY COUNCIL BUILDING, AS PART OF THE BODY FESTIVAL (2015).
IT IS BEING SEDUCED Currently Jordana is: working at City Gallery Wellington as a host and audio visual technician; a member of the Enjoy Public Art Gallery trust board; a founding member of the new Wellington based artist-run initiative Meanwhile Gallery (35 Victoria Street); and is involved in the exchange programme between Wellington and German based artists Friends Are Artists/ Freunde Sind Künstler.
Recently Jordana completed a four month major project with curator Sophie Giblin and artist Hana Pera Aoake (funded by CNZ and the WCC), and prepared for upcoming exhibitions of her latest works, including SOLO 2016 at the Dowse Public Art Gallery.
Leaving Dannevirke at seventeen Jordana came to Massey University. “I loved the entire experience of Art School, it was exactly where I wanted to be, who I wanted to be, and be with, in a supportive environment, where I could push boundaries.”
Jordana’s practice spans photography, writing, installation, video and live performance, with video documentation being her primary medium.
Her major project 18 easy pieces is a case in point; Jordana didn’t, as is often expected, present a finished product, she shared everything, a year of investigation and documentation of her body in 18 pieces,
Image / How to Water the Roses 3 (2015) / [extracted video still] as part of 18 easy pieces / performed in ten iterations all positioning Bragg as a Virgin Mary figure
THAT IS SEDUCTIVE she says “it is a diary, and the (re)iterative nature of that project has carried on since.
the others together, operating over and over
“I was presenting extracted stills and screening works before they felt complete, that was a terrifying experience, speaking to auditoriums full of people, attempting to answer big questions I was scared to even ask myself, before I felt ready, but, I guess I was.
She has been prolific in her work, focusing on the emergence of ‘internet art’ and ‘screen and youth culture’. Online she re-contextualises her works using both stills and short clips of the videos on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Her works have been transformed into a fabric that laces her artistic identity into people’s everyday lives. Often she re-contextualises not only her
“As a series 18 easy pieces becomes a curatorial cheeseboard, each work playing with and against
in different ways in new contexts.”
body of work, but her physical body: A social media pioneer of repetitious themes, concerns, aesthetic and representational exploration. Jordana’s artistic involvement is much wider than her own work. “Through Enjoy Public Art Gallery, the artist run initiative Meanwhile and City Gallery Wellington I feel I can contribute, to support positive growth, I love having a hand in, putting my hand up. It’s all a ball and chain I love to carry.”
Image / Youth Justice facility Photo / Nikau Tonihi
art & aroha Students from Massey University’s Bachelor of Māori Visual Arts (BMVA) programme have been involved in a six-week project at a youth justice facility in Palmerston North which has already seen blank grey walls decorated with colourful murals combining Māori art forms and pop culture. The nine first year students spent six weeks researching and designing the murals and meeting the young residents (aged 14-17) to brainstorm ideas. With nearly all the students and residents being Māori, they talked about how they got to where they were and shared common stories. Artist Reweti Arapere who completed his Bachelor and Masters degrees in Māori Visual Arts at Massey, now works as a youth worker at the facility. He says the project is grounded in kaupapa Māori; an entrance area that was a tapu space required those responsible for the mural to research ways to offset this. “The first space will be a series of concentric circles with images of food to neutralise the sacred aspects, and skyscapes which are a visual interpretation of karakia-prayer.”
Initially, the project was a culture shock for the students who are not much older than the residents and in some cases, may know some of them. “For the pōwhiri, the students went through the admissions area with the doors closing behind them which gave them the cold eerie feeling of being locked up, alone and cut off from whānau,” Arapere says. The use of spray paint as a medium had immediate appeal to residents, with its graffiti association, but the behavioural-based programme has a rigorous process of selection. “The young people improved their behaviour because they wanted to be involved. They wanted to enjoy listening to music and painting on the walls and enjoyed the brainstorming to develop the designs. Often naughty kids are very creative and innovative. “They liked the prestige and look of standing there shaking up a can and once they started painting, they were on top of the world,” he says.
The murals also have a positive impact on other residents at the facility. “If residents are upset and given timeout, they can look at and enjoy the fact that people went to the effort of painting cool pictures for them.” Student Nikau Tonihi (19) says the project has given him confidence and a desire to work with youth when he finishes his degree. “It’s been a bit of an eye-opener. It’s a different environment and it’s good to see the young people being involved. It’s uplifting and makes them feel important - art is a good way for them to express themselves, ” he says. The project is the studio component for the first year BMVA and has benefits for everybody involved. “I think it’s very successful in that it’s seeing brown faces in different contexts. It’s important for youth to be shown ways to overcome negative behaviours and likewise, the Massey students can see the value and importance of creating artwork that is motivational and uplifting,” says Arapere.
College of Creative Arts in China
Fashion in Vietnam Fashion in Vietnam
Fine Arts in New York
Design Expeditions in Chicago
globe trotters
Trigger Points and Memory Works symposia in Syracuse NY
Shanghai by Tom Pringle
momentum
Momentum Exec team
Momentum is a MAWSA affiliated society that aims to promote enterprise skills and entrepreneurial spirit amongst students.
The team from Backhouse along with Rob Uivel and Sue Dorrington from Human Dynamo talking business
making connections
Banter and Brews, September 16
banter & brews A student initiative, Banter and Brews is a club facilitated by design graduates for current Massey design students, enabling a better understanding of the transition into the design workplace, over food and drinks.
Brendon Knight (Formway), Michael Jones (former senior model maker for The Hobbit) and Jack Candlish (Proffer) talk about life after study
industry connect
Thanks to the staff, students and graduates of Massey’s College of Creative Arts for their contributions to this publication. Cover, Back Cover / Illustrations: Kalos Chan Design, Art Direction / Creature Design Printers / Format Print