The Spa Star 25 JANUARY 2018
A NEWSPAPER MADE IN A DAY BY CREATE LAB, BATH SPA UNIVERSITY
Authors: Sophie Chaddock, Lily O’Gorman, Lucy Guinea and Nadya Ellahi
WELCOME TO BATH SPA’S NEW VICE-CHANCELLOR THIS week marked the arrival of new Vice-Chancellor, Susan Rigby, at Bath Spa University. We talked one-to-one about how her arrival will impact life at Bath Spa. Coming from the University of Lincoln, Susan’s first impressions of Bath Spa highlight the unique atmosphere: ‘It just seems so lively … I was interviewed for the job when there were no students around, so now it just feels alive, in a way that no university can when it’s just the campus itself.’ The new Vice-Chancellor went on to say that most universities only care about league tables, which can result in assessing results within quite small parameters. Few are brave enough to admit that they don’t care about the numbers. She felt that what’s special about Bath Spa is that we ‘teach people to be thinkers and doers and makers. It’s stretching people.’ Creativity is the most important aspect of learning and research here at Bath Spa. It is her belief that Bath Spa ‘shouldn’t hide brilliance’, but instead needs ‘to celebrate it’ visibly. This includes changing perceptions of student employability, once they leave the university. She said a new emphasis needs to be put on ‘quality of life, rather than how much you’re earning’. After all, as Susan states, it’s about finding out ‘what we want and helping us get there’.
NEW VICE-CHANCELLOR SUSAN RIGBY
OLLIE LANGFORD AND THE REPURPOSED HERMAN MILLER CHAIR ∙ Authors: Natasha Greenslade and Hannah Shilling ∙ Photo: Danny Sturgeon
SION HILL: ELEVATED BY ART We’re going on a chair hunt! Furniture, art and innovation TASKED with creating a behindthe-scenes story about the students at Sion Hill, our team uncovered the real experience of being an art student in Bath. Within the corridors and exhibition halls of Bath Spa’s Art and Design campus across town lurks the elusive ‘Herman Miller chair’. We roamed the halls in search of this innovative art project and found a compelling view of the students and their work as we explored. First we met with Amanda Goode, Course Leader and Subject Co-ordinator in the Field of Design at Sion Hill, who outlined the history behind the creation of the chair. She is also a cofounder of the Independent Textile Makers and a member of The Slow Textile Group, so we felt in safe hands. She told of ‘the former Herman Miller factory’, designed
in 1976 by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw. The building, located on Locksbrook Road, manufactured furniture and now the university has made plans to ‘revitalise the area for a new campus for the students’. With our interest piqued, we set out to view the early product of this artistic merger between Herman Miller and Bath Spa. The search led to the Textiles Department, where third-year student, Tyra Moyo, was in the early stages of an ‘exotic fruit’ illustration for an upcoming exhibition. Each Textiles student is currently working on individual projects with personal themes. Moyo’s fellow student is using monochromatic design. Unfortunately, she knew not of the Herman Miller chair, but outlined her surprising experience at Sion Hill. Specialising in exotic fruit and flowers due to her ‘keen interest in bold colours’, Moyo explained how the art industry offers little help in creating bridges between student life and the real world. In a
‘survival of the fittest’ landscape, Moyo told how ‘they [the industry] don’t really have anything for me’ and that ‘contacts are hard to get’. As a result, she was pursuing her own way into the industry. Continuing towards our goal of finding the Herman Miller chair, we ventured through all four floors of Sion Hill before coming across Sue Beech, a helpful member of the administrative staff. She led our team to the Digital Processes rooms, to the handmade chair of a student called Maria. It was an unusual design constructed of wire circles; however, it was not the Herman Miller chair. When we came across the hidden workshop, time was nearly up. Product Design students Ollie Langford and Adam Meyrick were more than happy to fill us in on the Herman Miller chair. The actual product is primarily made of traditional chair parts, having been designed from a disassembled Herman Miller chair. It doubled the height of the wearer
and seemingly appears stable, with a wooden structure. ‘Hierarchy’ was the students’ theme in creating this chair. The idea was to be able to lift someone heavier than themselves on to their shoulders. Regrettably, the second-year students were not able to perform this feat, although they assured us it was possible. Adam recalled the ‘one-week project to dismantle a Herman Miller chair’ and the end goal to ‘build something else out of it’. They were given six chairs to experiment with. Fellow students created a sound sensory system out of one, while another chair was remade as a bed. Students threw themselves at the challenge and came up with amazing design solutions. The above photograph shows Ollie Langford modelling the Herman Miller chair. From our adventure, we came to realise the extent of the creativity of Sion Hill students and that innovation and a passion for art were at the heart of such designs.