CSM Time 11 - Time to Read by Central Saint Martins

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CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

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HELLO So we moved into our new King’s Cross home some six months ago. It’s been an extraordinary journey, hasn’t it? As usual, CSM staff and students have continued to deliver some outstanding projects, to host some groundbreaking events, and to win some prestigious prizes. Read on to find out more. In this issue of CSM Time you’ll find a further instalment of our indispensable Rough Guide to King’s Cross (p26), there’s also a roundup of sustainability projects for UAL’s Green Week (p22), an update on our Centre for Performance (p10), and a report on how the ‘CSM effect’ is impacting on the wider cultural regeneration of King’s Cross (p4) by Drusilla Beyfus. See you again in the summer.

THE CSM EFFECT — 4 STUDENT PROJECTS UPDATE — 6 RESEARCH — 8 CENTRE FOR PERFORMANCE — 10 WIDENING PARTICIPATION — 12 PRIVATE COLLECTION — 14 MA FASHION — 16 IDEAS WORTH SPREADING — 17 BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT — 18 COUNTING DOWN TO LONDON 2012 — 19 ANALOGUE/DIGITAL — 20 PRINT AT THE BYAM SHAW BUILDING — 21 GREEN WEEK — 22 AN ALPHABET OF LONDON — 24 THE ROUGH GUIDE TO KX — 26 WHAT’S ON — 28

CSM TIME TO READ ON ISSUE 11 SPRING 2012

CSM Time is produced by Marketing and Communications editor@csm.arts.ac.uk in association with Rhombus Writers, and designed by Paulus M Dreibholz (alumnus and associate lecturer) and Daniel McGhee (alumnus). © 2012 Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design unless otherwise indicated. We have made all efforts to credit images correctly. Please contact us if we have omitted to credit or miscredited an image – amendments will be made in subsequent issues.

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

The big pull is to be part of a vibrant creative space

THE CSM EFFECT So much is happening in the opening up of the King’s Cross construction site that it invites a question. Is there a ‘CSM effect’ on the bigger picture? Three key controllers of events – David Partridge, CEO Argent (the King’s Cross developer), project director Anna Strongman, and curator Michael Pinsky – had their say when I caught up with them recently, writes Drusilla Beyfus. ‘It’s extraordinary how much difference Central Saint Martins has made to the entire development,’ said David Partridge, ‘not just in terms of the numbers of students and staff coming to the area and the process of bringing old Victorian buildings to life in an amazing way, but more importantly in helping to set the tone for the whole project, for what we want to get across.’ David explained that initially Argent researched large urban managed estates all over the UK, Europe and America, and did a lot of analysis. What stood out was that most of the big urban estates created over the last 15 to 20 years had been ‘anti-cultural’ – retail led, for example, with a big shopping centre, or office space led, or financial services led. Whereas his intention was ‘to create a piece

of the city that was truly London, based on ‘what sticks’ – living space, leisure, culture, art, hotels, gardens and, in the public realm, fine buildings, streets and squares.’ Argent had gone with this approach since 2008 and now, as the market was picking up, it was starting to create value. ‘We’re attracting potential buyers and companies that wouldn’t have come here previously,’ David said. Employees had been against it. Now the space was regarded in a new light, and Central Saint Martins had done that. ‘The big pull,’ confirmed Argent’s CEO, ‘is to be part of a vibrant creative space.’ David, who trained as an architect and is the first to admit he enjoys the arts side of his commitments, is a prime instigator of the Relay environmental arts programme. The programme flags up themes and ideas that students and teachers are likely to be alert to. Curator Michael Pinsky’s specialism is installation and public art. What has struck him is ‘the educated audience and its intelligent response’. So often, he said, new work in the public domain evoked a hostile reaction.

Michael’s appointment – a three-year tenure ending in 2013 – was by the King’s Cross Advisory Art Panel, whose members include the British Council, Tate Britain, Camden Arts Centre, and Artangel. He works collaboratively with Stéphanie Delcroix and has commissioned artists of whom he says ‘the public realm is their material’. Following the installation of Jacques Rival’s birdcage at King’s Boulevard will be a location-transforming project by Felici Varini, the Swiss-Italian artist, taking in Granary Square, Granary Building and surrounding constructions. The timing for the installation is after the degree shows in June. Michael Pinsky described the work as ‘an abstract minimalist painting, geometrically composed using tinfoil paint, with a reflective surface that becomes brilliant when it catches the light’.

Other Pinsky commissions include a project by Slovenian artist Marjetica Potrc, who has her eye on the canal. However, this one is at the feasibility, brainstorming stage and many technical details have yet to be ironed out. A sustainable cycle is characteristic of Potrc’s work. Previous constructions use primitive materials such as tree trunks to address basic human needs for shelter, warmth and water, with an implied critique of modern lifestyle. Anna Strongman filled me in on her pro active plans. New retail units are to be installed at the Granary Building, located as pedestrians go through into The Crossing. On the left there is a unit, and Argent is in the process of letting that and the one next to it at the bottom of the Western Transit Shed. The businesses are independents – brand names are yet to be announced – but Anna said: ‘They’ll be the sorts of places that will appeal to CSM staff and students.’ Eat St, where organics and burritos are always on the menu and which has been taken up by students, is a venture Argent has encouraged. It’s on their land. Asked if rents were low, Anna replied humorously: ‘Let’s say it’s not funding the rest of the development.’

She told me that developers do recognise the benefits the traders bring in terms of creating a buzz and a sense of place (but equally note Argent is working with UAL to use the ‘immensely challenging’ and faithfully restored Fish and Coal buildings for student activities). ‘Granary Square is seen as a very interesting place. We’re getting a lot of approaches from people who might be called ‘trendsetters’. Working closely with Central Saint Martins is part of encouraging that mindset. We have to make sure we build on that idea while keeping the process democratic and open.’ Events that meet the criteria include those for the Cultural Olympiad and the London Festival of Architecture (LFA). Said Anna: ‘Our visitor centre will become the architects’ hub during the last weekend, from 6 – 8 July, of the LFA, hosting a ‘Focus on King’s Cross’ event’. So, is there indeed a CSM effect on the bigger picture? The developers, Anna suggested, shun the notion of ‘a sterile gated community’, and CSM is a prime ally in the cause.

STOP PRESS… Events at King’s Cross Square (the Network Rail space in front of King‘s Cross and St Pancras railway station) attest to a double connection with CSM. Stanton Williams, the architects’ practice that designed the campus, has won planning permission for a scheme to bring the vast square to life again. The plans reveal for the first time in 150 years the Grade I Victorian façade of the building by Lewis Cubitt, architect of the original Granary Building.

Drusilla Beyfus was a Senior Lecturer on our Fashion Communication and Promotion pathway for 19 years. A former features editor at Vogue, she contributes regularly to the Telegraph Magazine and continues to work closely with CSM on special projects.

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

STUDENT PROJECTS UPDATE

STREET OF THE FUTURE

SOMETHING PRECIOUS

Arup, the global professional services specialist, is CSM’s partner for a collaborative project envisaging the shape, texture and fabric of our urban future.

CSM student Yuki Agriardi Koswara has won the Palladium Jewellery Design Competition 2012, a project partnership between the College and the International Palladium Board. Vance Ng Sze Wing won the second prize.

With its headquarters in London, Arup encourages broadminded individuals from a wide range of disciplines to look beyond the boundaries of their own field. CSM’s MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments students were challenged by Arup to consider what the ‘Street of the Future’ might look like, using Tottenham Court Road in central London as a real life test case.

The street of the future 2030 by Lam Ho, Elisa Magnini, Lalla Fatima Zahra Sidi-Ammi

Students in four teams worked through multiple phases of research and design to arrive at fresh insights in 2D and 3D models or visualisations.

Belgian Tourist © Jack Holt

COVER ART

ART FOR ARMISTICE DAY

CSM’s BA Graphic Design Illustration pathway students have created cover artwork designs for NMC Recordings’ Debut Discs series in response to a competition brief.

The Belgian Tourist Office Brussels & Wallonia has teamed up with Central Saint Martins to develop and deliver a project commemorating Armistice Day.

NMC Recordings, a record label and charity, promotes contemporary British classical music. Its Debut Discs series comprises recordings of previously unrecorded work by 12 different composers.

CSM’s BA Graphic Illustration pathway students were asked to create artwork for an exhibition in London in November 2011. Following tours of the UK and Europe, the work is destined for display in Mons during the Belgian city’s tenure as European Capital of Culture in 2015.

The collaboration allows the work of new designers to be showcased alongside work by up-and-coming composers, forging connections between emerging talents. All the cover artwork was inspired by the process of composition or by musical forms.

MA Design: Jewellery students were challenged to create a piece from the rare precious metal palladium, focusing on the material’s key properties of lightness and strength. The result was announced at an exclusive launch during London Fashion Week in February. Competition judges included Carol Woolton of Vogue, Jaye Thompson of InStyle, and jeweller Hannah Martin. Five finalists were selected to showcase their work at BFC Rock Vault, during London Fashion Week in February. From concept to creation, the competition gave students a fantastic opportunity to follow the process of professional jewellery design and production. Participants were encouraged to explore personal inspirations while highlighting the metal’s attributes. Coveted for its lustrous, contemporary quality, palladium is the most recent precious metal to be hallmarked. The CSM collaboration is part of the International Palladium Board’s strategy of working with the world’s most visionary designers in 2012.

Mons lends its name to the bloody World War I battle fought in the vicinity in 1914. Participants researched the First World War before creating works in various media, including painting, photography, sculpture and digital media, based on their personal responses to the conflict.

Judges for the competition were graphic designer Vaughan Oliver, Tom Service of the Guardian, Colin Matthews OBE, Executive Producer NMC Recordings, Eleanor Wilson, sales and marketing manager and François Hall, designer at NMC.

The works were exhibited at London’s OXO Tower on 11 November 2011, when four Central Saint Martins prizewinners were announced.

The winners, announced in January who will have their cover art printed are Sabba Keynejad, May Yan Man, Nicholas Carter, Natalie Braun Hannah Piatrustra, Ross Aitken, Clelia Colantoni, Daevn Lee, Virgil Ferragut, Gilad Visotsky, Zheng Rui Hu and Idil Atesli.

First prize of £1,000 was awarded to Jason Pearsall. Aizhan Abdrakhmanova picked up second prize (£750). Third prize (£500) went to Katherine Beveridge. Fourth prize (£250) went to Jack Holt.

For more information and a free 5 track download visit: www.nmcrec.co.uk

Milk+ by Molly Zinar

ETHICAL SUNGLASSES CSM students Maria Toro, Jet Swan, Molly Zinar and Zoë Vintilescu have won a competition to create designs for new eyewear brand Farther & Sun’s inaugural range of ethical sunglasses. Second year Fashion Communication with Promotion students were asked to create a launch collection based on the theme ‘Britishness’. Eighteen students competed in five categories, including Best Male Design and Best Female Design, with one of the winning entries providing inspiration for the launch in September 2012.

Kay Barron, fashion features editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Farther & Sun believes passionately that everyone should have the right to sight. For each pair of Farther & Sun sunglasses sold in the UK, a pair of prescription glasses will be made for someone in the developing world. Said Hywel Davies, Fashion Communication with Promotion pathway leader: ‘This has been a really exciting project, offering students a chance to work on a live job, to collaborate with peers, and to get involved in a great cause.’ © Yuki Agriardi Koswara

Student work (top to bottom): Zheng Rui Hu, Daeun Lee, Gilad Visotsky

Choosing the winning designs were Farther & Sun founder John Pritchard and two fashion experts, both CSM graduates – Maia Adams, jewellery editor at Because magazine, and

The student competition is part of a longterm strategy for Farther & Sun. The brand plans to work closely with CSM year on year to inspire future collections.

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

TOPOPHOBIA ON TOUR Anne Eggebert of CSM’s Art: public realm research programme has co-curated a group exhibition about the fear of place in contemporary art. Topophobia features work by ten UK and international artists using a range of media and approaches. Matthias Einhoff deploys corporate video techniques to make a spectacle of urban wasteland. David Ferrando Giraut creates a state of anxiety with his filmic portrait of the aftermath of a car crash. Marja Helander depicts herself between her cultures of contemporary Finland and Sami nomadic heritage, while Uta Kogelsberger reveals uncanny photographic night visions of urban and desert America.

RESEARCH

THE TABLEAU PROJECT

Topophobia

With its focus on innovating against ATM crime, the new programme will develop a practice-based model for, and a design-led approach to, enhancing user experience while improving customer security. ATMs are part of daily life for most of us. Although the vast majority of transactions are crime-free, cash machines continue to be targeted by criminals. In 2010, ATM crime losses totalled £33.2m. Tried and tested scams include distraction techniques and shoulder surfing, as well as more high-tech frauds involving miniature pinhole cameras. LINK, the UK’s cash machine network, is keen to explore how design-led innovation can tackle these frauds, while providing an even safer environment for ATM users.

The 124-page companion paperback (also available as an ebook) features an essay by Dr Caterina Albano, research fellow and Artakt curator at Central Saint Martins.

Almut Rink appropriates 3D architectural software to present an imaginary journey in a virtual space. Abigail Reynolds exposes disjointed time and space using old book illustrations within collages. Emily Speed houses her body in a fortress of shutters, while Louise K Wilson redirects sound derived from a Cold War testing site. Anne Eggebert makes drawings from images on Google Earth. Her co-curator Polly Gould constructs distorted topographical watercolours reflected in a globe.

INNOVATING AGAINST CASHPOINT CRIME New for 2012, CSM is offering a 4-year bursary at PhD level supported by our awardwinning Design Against Crime Research Centre (DACRC) and funded by LINK.

CSM’s research grouping ‘Image: performance, object’ has hosted a prestigious international symposium on the ‘the tableau form’, with School of Art’s Mick Finch and Jane Lee the principal organisers.

In February 2012, Art: public realm hosted a symposium to discuss ideas related to Topophobia. The touring exhibition is at Liverpool’s The Bluecoat from 3 March to 22 April, and at Exeter’s Spacex from 12 May to 7 July.

DACRC first partnered LINK in 2011 when CSM’s BA Product Design students were invited to propose cost-effective solutions to cashpoint crime. The innovative results prompted LINK to consider extending the research possibilities via a full-time PhD. Our LINK PhD student will explore how design and innovation might reduce ATM crime while improving the customer experience using enhanced communications, software upgrades, and better design of the wider built environment. Advising the project are potential stakeholders including the police, banks and local authorities. Professor Lorraine Gamman, Director DACRC, said: ‘Designers can make a big difference in areas as complex as ATM crime because strong research teamed with innovative design thinking catalyses new ideas, services and solutions. This type of design has the potential to drive behavioural change in novel, unexpected ways.’ www.designagainstcrime.com

The Tableau Project, which addressed questions about the structuring of pictorial representation and forms, culminated in Tableau: Painting Photo Object, a 2-day conference delivered by CSM in collaboration with Tate Modern in autumn 2011. The sold-out conference featured keynote presentations by Philip Armstrong, Fulvia Carnevale, Jean-François Chevrier, Michael Fried and Michael Newman. Research papers included ‘The two faces of the figure: plastic and philological’ and ‘Thickness and surface: towards a painterly space’. The Tableau Project asks why so many contemporary artists, regardless of preferred medium or media, build on pictorial traditions of image construction to set the scene for newer narratives. Further related events are planned for autumn 2012. By questioning the material processes of making and thinking, ‘Image: performance, object’ addresses the status and construction of the image, what’s at stake in relation to performing practice, and the object as art and of art. www.csm.arts.ac.uk/research/researchgroups/ imageperformanceobject

Topophobia © Emily Speed

Topophobia © David Ferrando Giraut

Art: public realm comprises artists, curators, writers and theoreticians who question art in the public realm – art that addresses the social, cultural, economic and political contexts that re-define what place, public and site hold for cultural production today. www.csm.arts.ac.uk/research/researchgroups/ artpublicrealm

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

CENTRE FOR PERFORMANCE CSM Time asked Ged Matthews, Theatre Projects Manager, for an update on how things are shaping up

The Wonderful World of Dissocia © Paul J Cochrane

The Platform Theatre © Paul J Cochrane

With its magnificent pine dance floor, vast fly tower (with 42 bars, no less) and mind-bogglingly versatile orchestra pit, the Platform Theatre generates excitement without even trying. It’s an incredible resource that matches and supports the ambitious variety of our Centre for Performance productions. The theatre only opened officially in December, but already it has hosted Island Records’ gigs (headlined by Tom Vek) at our launch festival for students, Drama Centre London’s The Misanthrope set in 1960s Paris, and Medea (complete with a stage full of red sand).

The Changeling © Paul J Cochrane

BA Performance Design and Practice has already had two major collaborations – one with English Pocket Opera on Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle (you may have heard them in the Street back in January), the other on 22 short dance pieces, Design for Dance 2012, with Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance, Central School of Ballet, and London Studio Centre. The latter

incredible collaboration was a sell-out every night. On 22 March, Professor Vladimir Mirodan returns to the stage to direct Middleton and Rowley’s The Changeling, a stark reimagining of the Jacobean tragi-comedy. Vladimir says: ‘The Platform Theatre was designed to offer maximum flexibility to directors and designers. We’re setting our production in a way that makes full use of this flexibility and turns the stage into a dynamic, unconventional playing space.’ In the pipeline we have stand-up, cabaret, visiting international companies, new writing from Russia, a puppetry festival, a 24-hour graphic novel competition and much, much more. The potential of this space is amazing. What better platform for our students than a beautiful, soon-to-be-world-famous theatre?

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

WIDENING PARTICIPATION

Global Generation © Silvia Piviatje

GLOBAL GENERATION CSM is partnering a charity that supports ecological initiatives in King’s Cross. Global Generation gets young people and local businesses involved in urban agriculture and creative ways to collaborate on and around the King’s Cross regeneration site.

Students on the What is Architecture? project

Students on the KX Detectives project © John Sturrock

KX DETECTIVES

NEW HORIZONS

WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE?

A partnership project between UAL, Camden Council and Argent – asset manager for the King’s Cross regeneration programme – saw some 120 local primary school children visit the King’s Cross locale in January.

For a second year, CSM will partner New Horizon Youth Centre to create a fashion show. Young people will get a chance to work with our fashion students while picking up tips on dressing for success in a range of situations, including job interviews.

A new strand of CSM’s ongoing partnership project, Design Matters, has recently piloted with a group of students at South Camden Community School.

Pupils from Brecknock, Torriano and St Aloysius schools toured CSM’s home, the Coal Drops and the German Gymnasium for a project that used the King’s Cross site as source material for an exploration of local history, geography, art and architecture.

Participants go shopping with CSM students armed with a budget to buy two runway outfits before attending CSM to design and make an accessorising item of jewellery.

CSM’s FAD tutor Fadi Sultagi and BA Architecture students Aline Caretti, Khedidja Benniche, Julie Schack and Darunee Terdtoondaveedej visited the three schools to help participants develop artwork and models inspired by their site visit.

Based in King’s Cross, New Horizon Youth Centre helps disadvantaged people aged 16 – 21 gain the skills they need to improve their chances in life. Many have poor selfesteem, low confidence, a history of rejection, harm and abuse, and often profoundly negative experiences of organisations and structures.

The project culminated in an exhibition of works, including drawings, written pieces and models of buildings, all viewed from the perspective of the pupils. The exhibition was held at The Crossing event space. On the final day of the project, participants were split into four 30-strong groups to help curate the exhibition, to hear our students talk about their own HE journeys, and to explore our archive and museum with Judy Lindsay.

New Horizon turns negative experience around by offering a supportive environment while directing young people towards meaningful lifestyles and occupations. Last year the centre worked with 923 individuals and recorded over 11,000 visits. Over a quarter of young people attending had a history of offending.

‘What is Architecture?’ reached students aged 13 – 18 who were interested in or curious about architecture or design, mirroring models used by the school to bring mixed age groups together. Using discussion, practical design activities and a show and tell of work by CSM students from foundation to degree, the project explored truths and debunked myths about what architecture is, what architects do, and how to become an architect. The student ambassadors led all aspects of the session as discussion facilitators and experts in their field with support from tutors. The pilot has started to capture student feedback on the facilitation experience plus qualitative data about perceptions of architecture. As a successful model it points the way to further projects bringing schools and strands together in order to widen participation.

Young people from local schools and colleges work with staff from GG, CSM tutors, and student ambassadors from BA Textile Design, BA Ceramic Design, including artists, designers and architects. The young ‘Generators’ will help develop and create an urban garden and community space – working both from CSM laboratories and GG’s ‘Flying Classroom’ (it is called this as it can be easily picked up an relocated when the land they currently situate will be redeveloped by Argent). CSM’s and Global Generations’ collaboration helps build communication, enterprise and leadership skills. As well as designing and developing textile and ceramic artefacts for the community site and organic cafe, participants grow food in a ‘skip garden’, and talk about their experiences, which will help with design concepts for future collaborations. These have been supported by CSM librarians who, on visits to the library, introduce relevant publications and visuals.

CLEAN BREAK

POP UP FESTIVAL

CSM is partnering Clean Break to offer introductory courses in performance design. Camden-based Clean Break is a theatre, education and writing organisation working with women whose lives have been affected by the criminal justice system.

CSM’s collaboration with Pop Up, which also embraces partners the Guardian, the British Library, Argent, House of Illustration, Free World, and Camden and Islington Councils, is now in its second successful year.

The project offers participants a chance to learn basic design skills while exploring vocational opportunities related to costume and set design. It’s also a chance to find out about progression routes to university and to discuss courses at CSM and UAL. In 2012, CSM’s ongoing partnership with Clean Break is a joint venture with Wimbledon College of Art’s widening participation team and foundation staff, offering a 10-week course introducing set and costume design to up to 18 women. Co-directed by CSM alumna Claire Thompson, the course takes account of different learning styles and abilities. With a focus on fairy tales, this year’s programme invites participants to imagine and create their own designs for a character or setting. Feedback was extremely positive, with participants saying learning and teaching were pitched at just the right level for engagement. Laura McCluskey, Theatre Education Manager at Clean Break, says: ‘The project is brilliantly designed, delivered and managed. It offers women taking part lots of ways to explore their creativity, and this really enhances their progress and confidence.’

Shantelle, a participant, says: ‘I think my creative skills have improved. I’ve seen lots of ideas from the university and these have inspired me to expand my own thoughts. My favourite part is going to Central Saint Martins and meeting the students.’ Adds Ashkan: ‘I like the fact that I can work with my peers to research what I want to make. I feel I’ve made a lot of life-lasting friends, and I want to continue.’ The project’s business partners are the Guardian, the Hub, Wolff Olins, Argent, BAM, Kier, Herbert Smith, Rotunda, Eurostar and OMD.

The Clean Break Project

With the Pop Up Festival relocating to the West Handyside Canopy adjoining CSM in 2012, the collaboration will boost access to UAL for local children and families while offering a range of creative opportunities and workshops. Up to 30 CSM students will collaborate with Pop Up’s curators to design, build and install props for the Festival’s temporary venues. The work involves mentoring young people aged 13 – 16 from Pop-Up’s partner schools, co-curators at two of the venues. Five undergraduates, together with up to ten 14 to 16-year-olds at Pop Up’s partner secondary schools, will explore children’s book illustration as a career path as part of Pop Up’s ‘Picture This’ collaboration with local publishers. Related student projects, including designs for a specially commissioned book to be auctioned for charity, are in the 2013 pipeline. A student competition launching this spring to design a Pop Up 2012 Festival poster will, if successful, inaugurate an annual showcase for collectable art that strengthens Pop Up’s creative relationship with CSM year on year. The posters will be exhibited in the Guardian’s Gallery Space.

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

My collection currently comprises mostly Finnish and British glass from 1960 – 1970. Designers include Nanny Still, Tamara Aladin and Helena Tynell, three prolific female designers working for the Riihimaen glassworks at Riihimaki, Finland. Nanny Still, in particular, is celebrated right across northern Europe for her product design skills. Closer to home, my two favourite British designers are Geoffrey Baxter, ex-RCA, who designed for the Whitefriars glassworks in north London, which ceased trading in 1981, and Ronald Stennett Willson, who designed for, among others, Wedgwood and Kings Lynn, as well as for several Scandinavian companies. Geoffrey Baxter trained in Scandinavia too, so the Nordic influence can also be seen in his work.

I started collecting mid-twentieth-century glass about 15 years ago, at first just random pieces that caught my eye at car boot sales or in junk and antique shops – pieces that appealed because of their form, their texture, or maybe their colour.

PRIVATE COLLECTION

As my collection grew and the collecting bug hit, I wanted to know more. Who designed these pieces and when, where in the world were they produced, and what inspired the designers to create them? As anyone with the collecting gene will attest, once the bug bites it’s hard to fight. You experience a hunger for knowledge, not to mention the curse of ‘completism’ – a burning need to amass every style in every colour from an individual designer or a particular glassmaker’s range.

ROBERT LEACH, ASSOCIATE LECTURER ON BA FASHION WOMENSWEAR FOR THE PAST 19 YEARS, CONFRONTS THE POWERFUL URGE ‘TO COMPLETE’

As anyone with the collecting gene will attest, once the bug bites it’s hard to fight.

The collection evolves according to my mood. I might pick up something I like that leads me in a particular collecting direction, and sometimes I’ll sell pieces in order to fund these shifts in taste. The one set of glass I don’t think I’ll ever sell is the Country House series by Helena Tynell (pictured top right). I never tire of its quirkiness, its idiosyncratic shapes, and its wonderful textural quality. Robert Leach’s book ‘The Fashion Resource Book’ is out in August, published by Thames & Hudson.

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IDEAS WORTH SPREADING

MA FASHION

TEDx Central Saint Martins brings together inspirational speakers to discuss the idea of emergence MA Communication Design and MA Innovation Management students at CSM will host TEDXCentralSaintMartins, an all-day ideas and discussion forum taking place at our King’s Cross campus on 28 March.

Luke Brooks © catwalking.com

With a focus that reaches beyond art and design, TEDxCentralSaintMartins invites leaders from a wide range of disciplines to explore the theme of emergence. Craig Green © catwalking.com

February 17th saw 20 students from CSM’s MA Fashion course unveil their collections at London Fashion Week. Our 2012 graduates showed a varied set of collections in Louise Wilson’s twentieth year as course director. Luke Brooks and Craig Green, both former CSM BA students, were joint winners of the L’Oréal Professionnel Creative Award 2012.

Luke incorporated knitwear, hand painting, found objects and four-inch fringed platform brogues in his work. Craig Green showed a menswear collection inspired by workwear and cults, with papier mâché burdens and a tie-dye block print.

Said Tamsin Blanchard, style director at Telegraph Magazine: ‘London fashion has a great deal to thank Louise Wilson for. No less than 27 designers showing this week have survived the rigours of her course, including Richard Nicoll, Roksanda Ilincic – who was watching the show – and Christopher Kane.’

Seen as an evolution from the past to the future via the present, emergence here is essentially about chaos and pattern. Events and developments that seem random or unprecedented at close hand take on new meaning when viewed from a distance. In a world where change is a constant, TEDxCentralSaintMartins suggests, exciting and even troubling phenomena will continue to emerge and challenge perceptions. The independently organised event, licensed by TED, features speakers including Michael

Wolff (Michael Wolff & Company), Tom Hulme (IDEO, OpenIDEO), Prof Barry Buzan (LSE), Dr Peter Kruse (nextpertise), Dr Nadia Berthouze (UCL), Julie Jensen Bennett (Precipice), and The Honey Club (Global Generation + Wolff Olins).

With its roots in a four-day conference held in California 26 years ago, TED is a non-profit organisation devoted to ideas worth spreading. At TED, the world’s top thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.

Attending the forum will be students and industry guests including artists, sculptors, architects and marketers, plus representatives from the worlds of product, digital, interactive and graphic design.

TED speakers have included Bill Gates, Jane Goodall, Elizabeth Gilbert, Sir Richard Branson, Benoit Mandelbrot, Philippe Starck, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Isabel Allende and Gordon Brown.

Media partner for TEDxCentralSaintMartins is jotta.com, the collaborative platform developed in association with CSM to offer new ways for artists, designers and their clients to engage with each other.

www.tedxcentralsaintmartins.com www.facebook.com/TEDxCentralSaintMartins www.twitter.com/tedxcsm

TEDx is a global programme of local, selforganised events with an ethos of positive change. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks videos and inspirational live speakers combine to spark a meaningful discussion around a chosen theme.

CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT

To be able to list the Queen as a client on your CV is pretty unique!

In her Diamond Jubilee year, the Queen inspires award-winning work by two CSM graphics graduates An awards certificate designed by two BA Graphic Design students at Central Saint Martins has won a prestigious competition run by the Royal Anniversary Trust. Joint winners Helen Lovelee and Frida Delin based their intricate cellular pattern on microscope studies of a rose named after the Queen. UAL collaborated with the Trust on a competition to redesign the award certificate for the Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education.

The winning duo wanted their design to have a personal link with the monarch. Said Helen: ‘When we thought of the Queen we imagined her at the Chelsea Flower Show in a floral outfit. This led us to consider flowers named after her, and we found a rose named after her following her accession in 1952.’

Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education at Buckingham Palace.

To meet the brief’s ‘higher education’ dimension, Helen and Frida created a pattern by studying the rose under a microscope. ‘Using what we saw as a grid, we filled in the names of UK higher education courses, with individual letters representing cells.’

Andrew Hall, Subject Leader for Illustration on our BA Graphic Design course, said: ‘The top entry stood out because it alluded to innovation and to the character of the prize’s patron. Frida and Helen struck a winning balance between tradition and the new.’

The redesigned certificates debuted in February of this year, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, at the presentation of the

Added Frida: ‘Winning the competition was a thrill, and to be able to list the Queen as a client on your CV is pretty unique!’

The biannual prizes, which recognise excellence in UK colleges and universities, are the only educational awards within the national honours system.

COUNTING DOWN TO LONDON 2012

Lin Cheung’s Paralympic medals © LOCOG

On 26 July the Olympic torch passes close to CSM en route to the London 2012 opening ceremony. Many CSM students are doing work placements with the 2012 ceremonies team, notably in the costume, fabrication and operations departments. With over a billion people set to watch, some 15 per cent of the world’s population will see work by CSM students.

The Queen’s Award certificate designed by Helen Lovelee and Frida Delin

CSM students are also working on several other London 2012 related projects with internationally renowned partners. The RSC will screen films created by MA Character Animation, currently working on The Tempest, Twelfth Night and The Comedy of

Errors. The Academy of St Martin in the Fields teams up with MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments for the Cultural Olympiad’s ‘Music Nation’ weekend in March, and Centre for Performance students have been making films with local schoolchildren as part of BT’s ‘Big Voice 2012’ project. CSM’s 2012 connections also extend to our staff and alumni. Lin Cheung has designed the beautiful 2012 Paralympic medals, and the esteemed British sculptor and past tutor Sir Anthony Caro recently created the first 1kg Olympics gold coin. Stella McCartney, alumna of BA Fashion, has designed the

athletics kit for Team GB, Martin Richman created surface designs for the Olympic Park, and Jeff Lowe was recently chosen to exhibit a sculpture in Berkeley Square as part of the City of Westminster’s celebration of the Games. Do you have a London 2012 connection you’d like to share with us? Please contact Ellie Mathieson (e.mathieson@csm.arts.ac.uk) with your stories.

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ANALOGUE/ DIGITAL

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PRINT AT THE BYAM SHAW BUILDING

CSM’s new print centre at Archway brings together exceptional resources and expertise from across the former sites at Southampton Row and Charing Cross Road. The centre provides print facilities including analogue and digital processes, taking in screenprinting, etching, stone lithography, block relief printing and bookbinding. While our BA Graphic Design, MA Communication Design and Fine Art courses will continue to be major users of the new centre, we look forward to introducing students from across the college to the creative potential and challenge of printmaking. In celebration of the new print centre, an exhibition of work by recent CSM graduates and current students – Analogue/Digital: 100 Days of Printmaking at CSM – will be on view in the concourse gallery at the Byam Shaw building in Archway from 16 – 27 April.

For the past century CSM has played a key role in shaping contemporary practice in printmaking. From early experiments in lithography to new developments in digital and 3D printing, the College has been at the forefront of exploration and innovation.

While etching remained popular across the decades, the second half of the century saw the rise of the print and the widespread takeup of screenprinting by fine artists. Included here are iconic pop art prints from Paolozzi’s Bunk series.

Analogue/Digital showcases a selection of works that tell the story of printmaking at CSM. From Eric Gill and Eduardo Paolozzi to Yinka Shonibare and Mary Katrantzou, the exhibition maps a journey from craft making to the technological cutting edge.

Also on show are printed textiles, short films, and a range of contemporary works by CSM staff and students that move effortlessly across media, mashing up traditional techniques like lino cutting and letterpress with scanning and digital printing.

Wood engraving and lithography were key elements of the Central School curriculum, the former used principally for illustrating books, the latter for poster design. The exhibition features a wonderful collection of early 20th century books and a newly acquired set of posters produced for London Underground in the ’20s and ’30s.

Most works on display belong to CSM’s Museum and Study Collection, an archive of over 13,000 objects that chart the College’s amazing history. To discover more about the collection or to book a study visit, contact Judy Lindsay, Head of Museum. Analogue/Digital is at the Lethaby Gallery, Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, until 16 March (Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm; Saturday 10am – 4pm). www.csm.arts.ac.uk/museum

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Each February we renew our commitment to sustainability during UAL Green Week. Here’s a roundup of what’s been happening at CSM and beyond

GREEN WEEK

THE FISH FACTORY

WHAT IS ‘GOOD’ DESIGN?

RUBBISH DUCK

CSM’s Textile Futures Research Centre hosted a symposium for UAL Green Week with a keynote address by Dr Jonathan Chapman, course leader of MA Sustainable Design at Brighton University.

In parts of London the canals and rivers are the only high-quality public spaces. The waterways are also one of the last natural habitats for wildlife in the city, and yet no organisation is in charge of keeping them clean. The waste here poses a real threat to birds, fish and other wildlife.

‘Rethinking Good Design in an Unsustainable Age’ looked beyond the tired rhetoric of sustainability to propose a more optimistic, inspirational and creative vision that places sustainability and innovation side by side. Jonathan argued that our sustainability crisis is a crisis of behaviour, and not simply a crisis of energy and materials. Engaging with ecology and the human condition, he relocated design within the wider cultural and philosophical debate to shed new light on the complex nature of our engagement with the designed world. www.tfrc.org.uk

COLOURS TO DYE FOR BA Textile Design’s Dye Garden project is growing plants for use as natural dyes as part of the sustainable learning now embedded in the BATD curriculum. The project’s campus roof garden is set to become an open access resource for all CSM students and staff. It will also provide new green habitat for local insects, including bees. Dye Garden invites other CSM courses to contribute by creating additional elements, while future BATD projects will benefit from having sustainable dyes ‘in house’. Other outcomes include new professional links with outside experts, and dye workshops for local FE colleges as part of our widening participation programme.

On a Wednesday afternoon in February, teams including CSM students joined the Rubbish Duck project to clean up the Regent’s Canal – part of a cross-capital initiative to protect our precious waterways. Rubbish Duck is a sculpture made from thousands of plastic bottles collected from the Thames and London’s extensive network of canals. The event is part of the Big Waterways Clean-Up 2012 programme.

Throughout the year MA Communication Design students are partnering Icelandic design team Mupimup to create a sustainable creative community on the site of an abandoned fish factory at Stodvarfjordur in eastern Iceland. Over the coming year our students will help create a website, a visual identity and a publication to kick-start the project, as well as recording the collaborative adventure via visual diaries, documentary films and press articles. www.fishfactory.org

JUST THE JEWELLERY

SUSTAINABLE SPACES

CSM’s jewellery students hosted a sustainability symposium in February. The event included displays in our jewellery windows of 2nd year work from the Tinplate project using existing tin, and 1st year work from the Transformation project.

CSM’s MA Creative Practice for Narrative Environments students have been busy delivering innovative projects through the year that explore sustainability. Accompanying the projects is a blog intended to inspire current and future students to consider how sustainability relates to their work, and to create opportunities for creative collaborations. The Sustainable Spaces collective includes designers, architects, curators, writers, project managers and, hopefully, you! www.sustainablespaces.wordpress.com

WE NEED YOUR INPUT! As a creative community we want to make our own distinctive contribution to meeting the world’s social and environmental needs. That’s why we continue to embed ethical and sustainable practices in all aspects of college life. But we need your input. To find out more about student sustainability projects or our plans and policies, visit: www.csm.arts.ac.uk/about/sustainability Please email Nick Gorse (n.gorse@csm.arts. ac.uk) with your sustainability ideas, plans or questions. Nick is a member of the college’s Sustainability Committee.

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AN ALPHABET OF LONDON

CHRISTOPHER BROWN’S WONDERFULLY WHIMSICAL LINOCUTS ILLUSTRATE AN ENCHANTING BOOK Entertaining and hugely enjoyable, An Alphabet of London includes Chris Brown’s childhood reminiscences, as well as a fascinating account of how he created this unique record of a remarkable city. There’s also a foreward by Jasper Conran. An Alphabet of London will be on show in the Lethaby Gallery from 12 – 17 March 2012. Chris Brown, illustrator and printmaker, is an associate lecturer on the BA Fashion Menswear pathway. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, he has exhibited at the Royal Academy, the V&A and St Jude’s Gallery. His clients include the Folio Society, the Guardian and the New Yorker. www.merrellpublishers.com

‘Apart from some extended holidays, my entire life has been spent living in London. Since my childhood I’ve been in awe of it – the architecture, the river Thames, all that history, and the people who flow in and out like the tide.’ Inspired by his admiration for his home city, Chris Brown presents a marvellously entertaining A – Z of London past and present in this delightful new book. London is one of the world’s great cities, its streets graced with landmarks that have formed the backdrop to countless historic events. And yet London’s ever-changing cast of characters embrace the new and the quirky with extraordinary enthusiasm.

The result is a city where you can find everything from the Gherkin and the Globe to Gilbert and George, and where you can walk in the footsteps of Keats and the Krays. In An Alphabet of London, Chris Brown presents a series of wonderfully whimsical linocuts capturing the special character and appeal of London throughout the ages. As the artist explains, his viewpoint is ‘personal, eclectic, surprising’. And he doesn’t begin with A and end with Z. In fact, it’s B and X. The book takes a tour of locations as diverse as Whitechapel’s East London Mosque and the Pagoda at Kew, and pictures the scene as the Great Fire rages in 1666, or as Boudicca takes an imaginary ride on a Boris bike.

THE ROUGH GUIDE TO KX AND SURROUNDING AREAS

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DRINK, SHOP AND DO 9 Caledonian Road, N1 9DT Enjoy your time in this Victorian bathhouse with all its selection of cocktails and cakes. We caught up with them to find out what’s new.

THE HORSE HOSPITAL Colonnade, Bloomsbury, WC1N 1JD First built in 1797 by James Burton (original developer of homes surrounding Bloomsbury Square), the Horse Hospital is London’s last remaining unspoilt, purpose-built public stable, offering a unique insight into life in the capital in the 1800s. Unchanged inside for the most part, it presents a dark, windy corridor that splits into an upstairs and downstairs. The upper building houses the Contemporary Wardrobe Collection of vintage clothing from the 1940s onwards (worth contacting for research information and open by appointment). The lower ground hosts events and exhibitions (with past links to London Fashion Week). The space, which can be rented, has a unique feel combining historical and contemporary references.

CSM: Since we last featured you, have you made any changes to the place? DS&D: Yes, we’ve added a new venue downstairs called Drink, Shop and Dance where we have regular DJs and some great deals at the moment – four Peroni’s for £10 and two cocktails for £10 when students show their NUS card. Drink, Shop and Dance hasn’t been fully promoted yet, so you heard it here first! In

the cellar of Drink, Shop and Do you’re greeted by a saucy sex shop sign left by the previous owners. One room is decorated beautifully with silver-and-black art deco wallpaper. In the second room, a large, black disco ball gives the venue an enchanted, secret feel. CSM: Are there any new ‘do’s’ happening? DS&D: There’s ‘Papier Mache Monster Mash’ and ‘Lego Building’ as well as the regulars, ‘Pin-Up’ vintage hair and make-up and ‘Musical Bingo’. Most of these events start from 8pm onwards throughout the week. They’re really fun, upbeat activities with cocktails and cake. CSM: Are you keen to collaborate with students from CSM?

DS&D: Yes, our wall mural is a great place for collaborations. We accept submissions all the time, so it would be great to work with CSM students. They’d get great exposure on the wall because it’s photographed regularly, plus there’s a page on our website. CSM: Do you hire out the space here at Drink, Shop and Do? DS&D: The back room is for hire based on a minimum spend on food and drink at the bar. An area within Drink, Shop and Dance can be hired, too, with no minimum spend at the bar.

RELIC ANTIQUES

PETRIE MUSEUM OF EGYPTOLOGY

CRYPT GALLERY

THE STAR OF KINGS

BACKPACKERS BAR

133 – 135 Pancras Road, NW1 1UN Who suspected an Aladdin’s Cave was situated just five minutes from our own little treasure trove of creative energy? Antiques dealer Malcolm clearly has an eye for the ornate, the unusual and the distinguished, and sources mainly from antique fairs in France. Many of the objects derive from Victorian or earlier funfairs, where decadence and glamour really were part of the illusion. This intriguing, museum-like collection of relics attracts many an expert eye, but beauty, unsurprisingly, comes with a price tag. This is a haven for anyone in the set design or theatre business.

University College London, Malet Place, WC1E 6BT Celebrated as one of the most extensive archaeology collections in the world, this is one of London’s hidden gems. There’s a fullsize sarcophagus featuring incredible hieroglyphics, a rare pair of socks with a twotoe design very similar to the Nike split-toe running shoe, and an abundance of ancient jewellery.

St Pancras Church, Euston Road, NW1 2BA Resting place of coffins from 1822 – 1854, this creepy but fantastic space offers a chance to display lots of works in an unusual setting. You’ll even find some old headstones left in one of the rooms. Although there is a spooky atmosphere it is a peaceful place and makes for a unique and unconventional environment in which to present your work. Or you might want to visit one of many events and exhibitions.

126 York Way, N1 0AX Already popular with students, this little pub has a buzz that keeps on growing. Keen to collaborate with CSM students, the Star of Kings is currently co-producing an exhibition in partnership with one of our BA Architecture projects. With support from Red Bull, a selection of the students’ mockups will grace the pub after a launch night promotion. This would be a fantastic place to approach with your collaborative or creative ideas. Their new night out at ‘The Gauntlet’, is a comedy night starting from 8pm on Fridays, providing a hilarious mix of comedy, videos and top headliners from TV. It’s free entry to CSM students.

6 – 8 Caledonian Road, N1 9DT The Backpackers Bar serves up cheap drinks, mostly around the £2.50 mark. There are lots of themed nights, including Mexican Mondays where you get a bowl of free nachos and dips, film night Tuesday held in the newly opened cellar bar, and a Red Bull night when vodka Red Bull’s are £2.50. When hunger strikes, pop through the arch to ‘The Brill To Go…’ and grab a traditional fish and chips takeaway. Another new addition is the roof terrace, complete with BBQ to make those from warmer climates feel at home. Decorated with flowers and fairy lights, this urban retreat for young, cool creatives is interested in collaborations. There’s plenty of wall space, plus rooms for displays or events.

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WHAT’S ON GALLERY AND EXHIBITIONS

EVENTS

›› DRAWING OUT 2012 LETHABY GALLERY 26 MARCH – 12 APRIL 2012

›› CHRIS BROWN: AN ALPHABET OF LONDON RECEPTION LETHABY GALLERY THURSDAY 15 MARCH 2012 6 – 8PM

›› FOUNDATION SHOW 10 BACK HILL 15 – 19 APRIL 2012 ›› MISCHA KUBALL: PLATON’S MIRROR LETHABY GALLERY 3 – 26 MAY 2012 ›› DEGREE SHOWS KING’S CROSS CAMPUS 14 – 22 JUNE 2012

›› DRAWING OUT ARTIST TALK LETHABY GALLERY TUESDAY 27 MARCH 2012 3 – 5.30PM ›› MISCHA KUBALL: PLATON’S MIRROR SYMPOSIUM LVMH THEATRE FRIDAY 11 MAY 2012 10AM – 6PM ›› THE MECHANICAL HAND PANEL DISCUSSION LVMH THEATRE MONDAY 21 MAY 2012 6PM ›› THOMAS HEATHERWICK LVMH THEATRE WEDNESDAY 23 MAY 2012 5PM

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE VISIT: newsevents.arts.ac.uk/csm

›› CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS AND NEW STATESMAN PRESENT SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK PLATFORM THEATRE MONDAY 11 JUNE 2012

St Pancras discounts for CSM staff and students CSM TIME TO READ ON — ISSUE 11 / SPRING 2012

See

b lo g s .c s a c .u k/sn m.arts . a c a te p s h o t / g stud ents ory/ mor -offers e de f tails or .

St Pancras Station houses some fine eateries and variety of shops, from authentic Italian restaurant Carluccios, to East inspired luxury beauty boutique Rituals, to Europe’s longest Champagne Bar, or pop by the Sourced Market for their fantastic British artisan produce. They are all offering 10 to 20% discount for CSM Staff and Students.* *All discounts on production of a valid ID card, offer valid for 3 months.

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