Class of 2020 Media & Communication
Yi Tian (also featured on the cover) BA Fashion Styling and Production
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Fabio Rovai BA Fashion Photography
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Introduction
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Fashion Media
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Performance
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Fashion Communication
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Cultural & Historical Studies
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Research Approaches
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Knowledge Exchange
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Teaching & Learning Innovation
Delali Ayivi BA Creative Direction for Fashion
Katherine Nixon BA Fashion Styling and Production
Chloe Willis BA Costume for Performance
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Katherine 03 Nixon BA Fashion Styling and Production
The School of Media and Communication community shape the future of fashion media, communication and performance industries through a shared understanding of the body as a creative site. Working across platforms, disciplines and borders, we create meaningful experiences, generating creative solutions to critical issues of our times. We are driven by our values of collaboration, engagement, innovation and activism. School of Media and Communication, London College of Fashion vision statement 2019
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Anna Lumsden BA Hair and Make-up for Fashion
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Pedro Lopes BA Fashion Imaging and Illustration
I am extremely proud to introduce you to the Class of 2020 from the School of Media and Communication, London College of Fashion, University of Arts London.
This publication is a testament to the exceptional work of our graduating cohort and a celebration of the wider School community and the staff that have supported them at this unprecedented and critical time for our society, our planet and for the creative industries.
Some of our world’s most systemic problems are being called out, uncovered and addressed. The world needs creatives to kick start our society and our economy and to chart new approaches for the future now more than ever.
During the Covid-19 lockdown, our students have been necessitated to produce their final degree projects remotely and in digital contexts. They have shown resilience, creativity, and optimism and much of their work responds to this challenging context, addressing critical issues of our times including; ethics, climate emergency, identity and social justice.
It is this climate that our graduates of 2020 will enter into further study and employment. Please take time to listen to their voices and the stories they have to tell. I know that the class of 2020 will make important and vital contributions to our society and our world and I wish them all the very best as they carve out their own creative directions going forward.
The Pandemic has provided a period of slowing down for education, industry and society. This time of reflection and reset has the potential to lead to new modes of thinking, being, making and consuming. The zeitgeist is one of activism, reflection, community and care. Boarders have broken down and hierarchies have been flattened, offering quieter voices to be heard and for new opportunities and ways of thinking and doing to emerge.
Dr. Jessica Bugg, Dean, School of Media and Communication, London College of Fashion, University of Arts London
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CLASS OF 2020 FASHION MEDIA
As Covid-19 strengthened its hold over life across the globe, the Fashion Media team at large watched in concern and anticipation how the world, and in turn the fashion industry, became challenged by the virus in ways which are still incomprehensible. The unprecedented situation demanded swift actions, and as the university vacated its sites in response to the imposed lockdown and moved to a remote teaching and learning mode, we found ourselves facing numerous challenges in terms of maintaining the distinct essence of the programme and its associated courses. Fashion Media pride itself on championing team work and collaboration, excelling in cross course/programme/school and college collaborative work, in addition to establishing solid collaborative relationship with industry.
With collaboration being a major theme in the programme’s curriculum design; teaching and learning activities; and in our students’ creative output; we explored numerous ways to approach our engagement with students in this respect in light of social distancing, and our students’ inability to physically be around one another and engage in collaborative team work. As the programme seeks to respond and challenge industry practice, our aim was to find ways to connect students online, to foster student collaboration through shared online working activities, and to inspire industry by engaging with new ways for the production and dissemination of fashion images. Itai Doron, Programme Director Fashion Media, School of Media and Communication
Linyi Zhang & Hiu Ching Lo BA Fashion Photography BA Fashion Styling and Production
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CLASS OF 2020 FASHION MEDIA Mia Hughes BA Hair and Make-up for Fashion
Fabio Rovai BA Fashion Photography
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Yi Tian BA Fashion Styling and Production
Kallan Hughes BA Fashion Photography
Rory Donnely BA Fashion Imaging and Illustration
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Linyi Zhang & Hiu Ching Lo BA Fashion Photography BA Fashion Styling and Production
Kennedy Cutter BA Hair and Make-up for Fashion
Yi Tian BA Fashion Styling and Production
Melissa Schwarz BA Fashion Styling and Production
CLASS OF 2020 PERFORMANCE
Completing the myriad of collaborative tasks that constitute designing, producing and disseminating performance has traditionally necessitated (more often than not) being physically present with bodies in rooms. The social distancing measures taken to mitigate the spread of the COVID19 virus therefore inevitably sent shock waves through the performance industry as stage and screen work came to a sudden halt. A multitude of behind-the-scenes processes, once tactile, became intangible behind-the-screens endeavours. Emerging out of this void, the approaches of performance practitioners who have been experimenting with digital performancemaking in recent years have been highlighted. What we may have temporarily lost in the spontaneity of the writing room or the rehearsal space, we have gained for good in terms of a more global performance community and an uplift in digital literacy. This has led to new ways of investigating the creation of performance, both across borders and in a more sustainable way than ever before - something which has been of increasing concern within the industry.
Performance practice is morphing into a new realm where creative boundaries are porous: practitioners will be able to harness the power of physical proximity and the reach of remote practice in symbiosis. Now is the moment to be curious about and playful with the full range of tools and opportunities available to us, to learn to speak the language of other disciplines and to take risks. As we move forward, graduates with expanded perspectives will pioneer fresh forms of storytelling. Through the continuous exchange of industry and education, young practitioners will invent new practices for a future industry that embraces and celebrates the diversity of performance design and making into the future. Nadia Malik, Programme Director Performance, School of Media and Communication
Juliet Dodson BA Costume for Performance
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CLASS OF 2020 PERFORMANCE
Sabika Asif BA Hair, Make-up and Prosthetics for Performance
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Sara Nogueira BA Costume for Performance
Chloe Willis BA Costume for Performance
Katherine Lindley BA Hair, Make-up and Prosthetics for Performance
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Julia Sasaki Hernanz BA Costume for Performance
Sabika Asif BA Hair, Make-up and Prosthetics for Performance
Aik Ern Teh BA 3D Effects for Performance and Fashion
CLASS OF 2020 FASHION COMMUNICATION
As the fashion system is challenged by consumer behaviour, the drive by brands towards sustainability and the development of technology, so are fashion communication channels adapting. And in many cases, it is the communication of fashion that is leading innovative practice. This process was already underway, but Covid-19 has accelerated the transformation. Fashion communication operates as an intermediary and as direct consumer communication in print, on screen and in space – all contended areas as creative practice and digital technology intersect. It is in these arenas that respect for the craft of communication elides into innovation. Generating new knowledge, future-facing fashion communication at LCF brings together trans-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary responses to the opportunities that the evolving digital landscape creates. New communication roles in the media, in PR, at creative studios and brands – notably in the field of experience management – are emerging from creative strategist to futurist to creative content manager. Each role demands collaboration.
The Fashion Communication programme has responded to lockdown by weaving the pandemic as a topic into the delivery of courses. This has both challenged and enabled students to problem-solve positively in the face of the changing fashion environment. While fashion communication was already digitally-driven pre-Covid-19, the pandemic has required course teams and students to embrace new practices in a totally digital era. Much of this new practice in digital fashion communication will continue into the post-Covid 19 era when graduates will be able to flex their skills into cross-disciplinary practice and collaboration. Josephine Collins, Acting Programme Director Fashion Communication, School of Media and Communication
Delali Ayivi BA Creative Direction for Fashion
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Karolina Jarosz BA Fashion Public Relations and Communication
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Lydia Jones-Parry BA Creative Direction for Fashion
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Karolina Jarosz BA Fashion Public Relations and Communication
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Lydia Platt BA Creative Direction for Fashion
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Erik Hesselman BA Creative Direction for Fashion
CULTURAL & HISTORICAL STUDIES
The Cultural and Historical Studies Department at London College of Fashion engages students in cross-disciplinary critical dialogue and research, treating fashion as a social, cultural and political practice that impacts our everyday lives.
The last few months have forced rapid change on the fashion industry and its modes of communication, as well as its presence across wider forms of media and performance. From digital catwalks to representations of identity, this is a moment of change and opportunity.
Our research spans practice and theory in art and curatorial practice; fashion media and visual culture; critical theory and feminist aesthetics and activism; gender, sexuality and queer studies; costume, performance and moving image; sensory fashion and materialities; fashion consumption, branding and production; and globalisation and transnational fashion.
Cultural and Historical Studies at London College of Fashion provides a space where these issues can be reflected upon and where new ideas can be tested, so that we can work collectively to build a truly dynamic and inclusive new industry.
We explore fashion as it manifests through our visual, digital and material worlds, and how it gives shape to our politics, identities and our communities. We critique fashion’s histories, so that can disrupt the present and take ownership of the future, initiating responsible and responsive actions within the environmental, ethical and global challenges of our times.
Caroline Stevenson, Head of Cultural and Historical Studies, London College of Fashion
Cast-offs and Class: charity shopping and social hierarchy in the UK Holly Bullock BA Fashion Journalism
Digital Dysmorphia: how technology is normalising a disorder Ella D’Aguilar BA Fashion Styling and Production
Plant-based meat as a means of identity construction in neoliberal culture Seneca Jeffries BA Creative Direction for Fashion
Re/Imagining Nigerian Culture and Society through Afrofuturism: how can Nigerian contemporary creatives harness the idea of Afrofuturism? Jehosafeen James BA Creative Direction for Fashion
Fashion, Beauty, Colonialism and Identity in Singapore Bernice Ng BA Fashion Journalism
Energy Crash:‘Capitalist Realism’, UK dance subculture and ‘Hauntology’ in the contemporary moment James Moses BA Fashion Media Practice and Criticism
‘The Female Man’ Science Fiction as Feminist Political Dissent Sasha Neema Ponte BA Costume for Performance
VR as a Social Technology: addressing the capabilities and issues of virtual reality in providing a means of digitally-mediated human interaction Fredric Lipman BA Creative Direction for Fashion
‘The Universe is just out there giving zero fucks’ Camp culture as an escapist simulation Olivia Lawrence BA Fashion Illustration
The Exiled Goddess: How is feminine power represented in Hindu religious discourse? Praveena Nair BA Fashion Public Relations and Communication
What does it mean to be a feminist porn filmmaker in the digital era? Camilla Liconti BA Fashion Photography
The Supremacy of Supreme: studying supreme through the lens of exclusivity in fashion and subculture Meng Tong Yu BA Fashion Illustration
An exploration of the Air Max trainer: how do they shape male identity and what do they reveal about society? Luke Addo BA Fashion Styling and Production
Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations: how can a book of photographs of gas stations be considered art? Federico Fossati BA Fashion Photography
Ugliness in Fashion: can ugliness be beautiful? Katarzyna Postaremczak BA Hair and Make-Up for Fashion
RESEARCH
The School of Media & Communication has a thriving Research Community comprising academic staff, students and a number of aligned internationally acclaimed researchers. In the School, approaches to research are both practice and theory-based and span a range of areas relating to fashion media, communication and performance. The School’s Fashion Media and Communication Hub provides a space for the exploration of research ideas connected to traditional media – fashion photography, fashion writing, fashion film and illustration, as well as digital technologies. Connected to the School is one of UAL world-leading research centres, the Centre for Fashion Curation, an international centre, co-directed by Professors Judith Clark and Amy de la Haye, which explores all elements of exhibition-making and archival research. The Performing Dress Lab, an International Research Study Laboratory for doctoral study, evolved in partnership with University of the
Arts London, Aalto University, Finland and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia is also affiliated with the School of Media & Communication creating a rich and diverse pool of opportunity. Integration of research into the curriculum is central to the learning and teaching strategies of the School for an enriched student learning experience. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the School’s aligned Researchers have been working closely with course teams to offer additional support to their students in the form of specialist lectures, Master Classes on Drawing Strategies and individual tutorial support. They have also been assisting in the development of online resources for students. Dr Michèle Danjoux, School Research Coordinator, School of Media and Communication
DELMONICO PRESTEL
Professor Reina Lewis, ArtsCom Centenary Professor of Cultural Studies
Djurdja Bartlett, Reader Histories & Cultures of Fashion
Contemporary Muslim Fashions, an exhibition on which Professor Reina Lewis was consulting curator for the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco in 2018, opened this spring at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York.
Djurdja Bartlett’s edited book on Fashion and Politics, Yale University Press, Autumn (2019), to which she also contributed a chapter Can Fashion Be Defended? was launched on October 2, 2019.
The exhibition was the 2020 winner of the Richard Martin Award, from the Costume Society of America (the highest award available to fashion exhibitions), and had previously, for its opening run in San Francisco, won the 2018 Enhancing Understanding Award, from Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Bartlett was also the Keynote Speaker at the conference Diors of the Eastern Bloc, 20 February 2020: Hungarian National Museum, Budapest.
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Professor Judith Clark, Director of Centre for Fashion Curation, Professor of Fashion and Museology Professor Judith Clark curated and designed an exhibition for the iconic French fashion house Lanvin entitled Dialogues: 130 Years of Lanvin, which opened at the Fosun Foundation, Shanghai in December 2019. Lanvin also invited Clark to create a small series for Instagram’s IGTV #LanvinDialogues during lockdown celebrating their historic archive.
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Charlotte Hodes, Professor of Fine Art Charlotte Hodes presented an installation called After the Taking of Tea at Hestercombe, Somerset, 2 March – 28 June 2020 and The Errant Muse at the Victoria Gallery & Museum, University of Liverpool (VG&M).
James Putnam, Curator & Senior Research Fellow The two-venue exhibition titled Inspiration – Contemporary Art & Classics, co-curated by James Putnam with Susanna Pettersson, the Director of the National Museum in Stockholm, opened at Ateneum Finnish National Gallery on the June 18, 2020. This major exhibition featuring 40 Contemporary artists, selected and commissioned by Putnam, first opened in Stockholm on February 20, 2020.
Pamela Church Gibson, Reader Film & Media Pamela Church Gibson was invited to present as a Keynote Speaker at the conference Millennial Masculinities: Queers, Pimp Daddies and Lumbersexuals, Massey University, Wellington New Zealand, December 2019.
Hannah Zeilig, Fellow Gerontology and Arts Hannah Zeilig’s paper on Foregrounding the perspectives of mental health service users during the COVID-19 was published in the Mental Health and Social Inclusion Journal. Zeilig has been funded as a coinvestigator to undertake a study on COVID-19: Using multisensory culture boxes to promote public health guidance.
Donatella Barbieri. Fellow Costume for Performance Theatre Donatella Barbieri was awarded the Prague Quadrennial 2019 Best Publication award for her book Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture and the Body (2017).
KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE
This year at the School of Media and Communication students, academics and industry came together to form a new collective as a knowledge exchange using the philosophy of the Anti-fragile.
As part of this event students, academics and industry used the ethos of the anti-fragile to co-create ‘The Anti-fragile Collective Manifesto’ and collectively ‘takeover’ the entire Lime Grove campus.
The term Anti-fragile comes from the philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his book ‘Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder’. The Anti-fragile is beyond resilience, it uses chaos and the unknown as a catalyst for growth and transformation.
The campus was transformed into a platform for creative activations including: a projectionmapped immersive installation that highlighted vulnerability as a catharsis for transformation, to an architected ‘experience’ that incites feelings of ‘emergence’ through visual cues and bespoke sound pieces, notably familiar to the darker side of human vulnerabilities.
The Anti-fragile Collective began in January 2020 as a Knowledge Exchange initiative with Year 1 students in the School of Media and Communication and culminated as a takeover event with creative agency SUPERIMPOSE.
The presentation closed with an immersive ‘ritual’ encouraging self-control, reflection and acceptance.
Anti-fragile Takeover photo by Ethan Hart
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The next series of Anti-fragile Collective initiatives took place online in the spring of 2020, directly responding to the introduction of lockdown and the new physically distanced reality staff and students found themselves in. A series of online Anti-fragile workshops were developed by innovators from the across the media, communication and performance industries including: PITCH STUDIOS™, DVTK, Alexander Whitley, Donatella Barbieri and Seetal Solanki, The Founder and Director of Ma-tt-er. This collective exchange between staff, students and industry enabled the design and development of new rituals that explored the creative capacities of the body in isolation. Students and staff addressed issues related to the body in isolation and in response, prototyped new rituals integrating a range of insights that emerged from this collective ambition: rewilding with nature, conscious and intentional use of our digital devices, discovering a more playful attitude towards our creativity and ourselves and returning to the breath as our most productive bodily activity.
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The Anti-fragile Collective has grown from a student facing project to becoming a community of students, alumni, staff, researchers and industry to question, learn and develop possible alternative futures, embodying and fashioning the philosophy of anti-fragility as we do. In July 2020 industry, academics and alumni from the School of Media and Communication will converge in an online event that will identify the spirit, mood or zeitgeist of the fashion communication, media and performance sector. From this workshop we will define our next theme that will inform the direction of our external engagement for the coming academic year and in turn, offer a framework for further curriculum development within the school. Daniel Caulfield-Sriklad, Knowledge Exchange Lead, School of Media and Communication
Empathy Mapping Manifesto Objects by Pitch Studios
TEACHING & LEARNING INNOVATION
Our School is a diverse learning community, supporting students and staff as we work together in our exploration of the contemporary landscapes of media, communication and performance.
Our academic and technical support staff are involved in a wide range of research, including radical arts and design pedagogies, curriculum internationalisation and Blockchain and the arts.
Through a unique offer of curriculum experiences, including collaborations across disciplines, LCF Schools and the wider UAL community, we prepare our graduates for new modes of working, portfolio careers and lifelong learning.
We pursue innovative approaches to our teaching and learning so that, by instilling confidence and encouraging creativity we motivate the socially responsible, rulebreaking and innovative practitioners of the future: graduates that use fashion to examine the past, build a sustainable future, and improve the way we all live.
Our engagement with blended curriculum delivery and our commitment to exploring and testing flexible learning models has helped us as we develop new pathways through education particularly relevant for our students during this year. Our enhancement of the learning journey is informed by a pursuit of innovation in our teaching that engages with emerging media practice and art and design pedagogies.
Andy Lee, Teaching & Learning Innovation Coordinator, School of Media and Communication
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For further information about the School please visit: arts.ac.uk/colleges/london-college-of-fashion/courses/school-of-media-and-communication
