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DEGrEE ShoW 2016
18–25 June
School of Fine Art Painting & Printmaking Sculpture & Environmental Art Fine Art Photography Master of Fine Art Mackintosh School of Architecture Architecture
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 18-25 June 2016
Welcome to the Glasgow School of Art’s Degree Show 2016 in The Skinny
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e are thrilled to have teamed up once again this year with our magazine partner to showcase the GSA’s annual Degree Show to the public. In this supplement you’ll find previews and images from each of our specialisms in architecture, design and fine art. We hope that you’ll be able to join us this year in person for what is shaping up to be an exceptional show. This Degree Show is one of a host of exhibitions and happenings at GSA – from June we present myriad events ranging across the UK to Singapore, where our sister campus’ Degree Show takes place in July. Every year over 25,000 people join The Glasgow School of Art for our annual exhibition of final year undergraduate and MFA work – one
of the UK’s largest. This is the public’s once a year chance to freely access the studios and galleries (with the exception of the Mackintosh Building, currently closed for restoration work) of our historic School, and to see or purchase work from the next generation of creative talent. On Renfrew Street, you’ll find our School of Design Degree Show in the Reid Building (winner of the Architects’ Journal Building of the Year 2014), while the renowned Mackintosh School of Architecture Show is across the street in the Bourdon Building, and you’ll find the Master of Fine Art show once again in The Glue Factory, Speirs Locks, a short walk away from the Renfrew Street campus. The MFA show previews on 15 June and runs 16-26 June.
Once again this year our School of Fine Art show is running in the Tontine Building, within the buzz of the Merchant City at Trongate, just 15 minutes’ walk from the Renfrew Street campus or a short bus hop. Work commences on the restoration of Mackintosh Building this year and you can read an update on all the plans for our future campus on page 15. We very much hope that you are able to join us in person at one or all of our venues this year during this very special time in our academic calendar. The Degree Show 2016 is open to the public 18-25 June with previews on 16 and 17 for invited guests and students only (MFA previews to the public on 15 June).
You can also enjoy the show in our virtual galleries online from 16 June at www.gsa.ac.uk/ degreeshow2016. Whether viewing online or in person we would ask that if you enjoy the show, please tweet your appreciation @GSofA using #degreeshows and #GSA2016. On the website you’ll also find a programme, special video content and a map to the venues. Thanks to our sponsors and to all the staff, students and suppliers involved in the creation of this show.
Join the Conversation: @GSofA, #GSA2015 or #DegreeShows
Bees, Dreams, and BAFTAs 2015-16 was another busy and successful academic year for the GSA, with a huge number of events, exhibitions, conferences and student, staff and alumni successes Concrete Gradients by Katherine Moriarty, part of a live Product Design Engineering project in collaboration with the GSA Shop
Major events included the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art, with two exhibitions at the GSA and a host of alumni from the School of Fine Art exhibiting across the city. School of Design students collaborated with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the BBC SSO and the University of Glasgow for New Dreams, a multidisciplinary event as part of Shakespeare400. Award-winners included Communication Design alumnus Callum Rice, winner of best short film at BAFTA Scotland, and MArch Architecture student Finn Wilkie, who won the prestigious RIBA Silver Medal. The start of the 2016/17 academic year will see the launch of our brand new Creative Campus in the Highlands of Scotland, with research and programmes from our Institute of Design Innovation.
Students and staff from the GSA, the University of Glasgow and The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland joined the BBC Symphony Orchestra to create Dream On!, a promenade production in celebration of Shakespeare400
Credit: Pavel Dousek
The Heteroglossic City, Finn Wilkie, MArch Architecture 2015, winner of RIBA’s Silver Medal 2015
More highlights: →M ining Poems or Odes, 2016 BAFTA-winning short film by Callum Rice (Communication Design 2013) →G SA ranks in the top 20 in the world, and fifth in the UK for art and design in the QS World University Rankings of top universities for 2016 reative Campus based at Blairs Steading, Forres, Highlands →C and Islands in collaboration with Highlands and Islands Enterprises, opens September 2016. → L aunch of the Definitive Human project at the Digital Design Studio November 2015. The groundbreaking 3D model will lead to a step change in medical teaching as is interactive in real time. eekeepers of the GSA, a group founded this year as part of →B GSA Sustainability
Work by Fashion Design Student Sgàire Wood – one of the highlights of the GSA Fashion Show 2016
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Introduction
Sound for Moving Image student Kevin Murray won The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Scotland New Talent Award 2016 for his short film Paperclip
Follow all our successes from the year gsasuccesses.tumblr.com
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GSA Highlights Interior Design
Painting & Printmaking
Jewellery & Silversmithing
Cecilia Severin, The Pencil Lab
Jade Sturrock
Sculpture & Environmental Art
Product Design
Elaine Ang
Fine Art Photography
Fiona Smith
Interaction Design
Communication Design
Textile Design
Fashion Design
Will Brown, Future Farming
Hanna Kopp
Evgeniia Balashova
Product Design Engineering
Simon Sloan, Logistics
Master of Fine Art
Caitlin O'Connell and Tomas Palmer, Odyssey Above
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2016
Marija Nemcenko, No more than vodka and kebab(as)
Akash Sharma
Faidon Filipsson
Architecture Stage 3, 4, 5
Jamie Mack, SWG3 (Stage 3)
Ewan Hooper, The Glasgow Gastronomy Athenaeum, Cross Sectional Perspective (Stage 4)
Ewan Whittle, Train station (Stage 5)
Highlights
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Return of the Mack continued Within hours of the fire that engulfed the Mackintosh Building at The Glasgow School of Art in May 2014, one message emerged loud and clear: ‘The Mack,’ as it is affectionately known, is a place that inspires people
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e heard this again and again over the days and weeks that followed as current and former students, world-renowned artists, architects and designers spoke about what it means to them. Revealingly, the Garnethill community the building has been part of for more than 100 years, and the people of Glasgow as a whole, told a similar story; the Mack stimulates creativity in all those who choose to engage with it. Put simply, it is a magical place. This idea, it seems, was central to the thinking of the board of governors as they considered how to develop the School in the wake of the fire. The result is an innovative and ambitious plan that will see a restored Mack return as the heart of an extended Garnethill campus fit for the 21st century. As part of the plan the Mack will become home to first year students from all disciplines, returning the building to its original academic configuration and giving all new starts the opportunity to experience something of the aforementioned magic. Equally as exciting is the School’s recent acquisition of the nearby three-acre Stow College site, which will undergo a major refit and refurbishment that will see it bring together the entire School of Fine Art in one building for the first time in more than 50 years. The expanded campus will also allow the School to grow student numbers and research facilities by 25 per cent in the coming years, giving more artists, academics and members of the wider community than ever before access to GSA’s world-class teaching and learning. An ambitious and extensive programme of work will be carried out on both sites in the coming months, with the former Stow College building expected to open to students in autumn 2017, the Mack a year later. As part of this a £32m fundraising appeal has been launched – with £17m already secured – to allow the School to recover from the impact of the fire and secure its future as a world-leading university level institution for the visual creative disciplines. With such exciting plans afoot, it’s no surprise that there’s a genuine buzz on campus. The
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stunning Reid building, which opened just weeks before the fire, is now fully integrated into the life of the School and with degree shows imminent, it is a hive of activity. It’s here, overlooking the scaffolding-cloaked Mack, that I’ve come to discuss the plans for the School with two of the key people charged with making them a reality. Liz Davidson, Senior Project Manager for the restoration of the Mack, describes working on Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s masterpiece as a “daily privilege.” As she discusses the painstaking, meticulous process of restoring the fire-damaged west wing of the building – which includes, of course, the iconic library, the vast majority of which was lost – while upgrading the east wing in preparation for the new configuration, you start to get an indication of the practical and creative challenge that faces all those involved. It’s a mammoth task, but one that Davidson and her team, as well as Glasgow-based architects Page / Park, contracted to lead on design, are relishing. Particularly as it has given everyone involved in the project a unique chance to re-examine Mackintosh’s original architectural plans and marvel at their remarkable resonance in the modern world. “There are so many things he was so clever about,” smiles Davidson. “Especially the social spaces – the booths, the hen run, the places that so many people talk about being key to experiences and collaborations. Google HQ does this now, of course, but Mackintosh was doing it more than 100 years ago. “This is a building that keeps revealing itself to you in new ways every day. It’s such a tough old place – buildings for art students have to be. But it’s still here with us. Mackintosh was really looking to the future. His beauty is that he was a visionary but very rooted in the practical.” And she says it is this vision that has inspired all those behind the restoration. “The School has taken the chance to find opportunity from adversity,” she adds. “It has been in continuous use since opening. But the fire gave us the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring it up to date to suit the modern world.”
Words: Marianne Taylor
The new and restored spaces will have access to digital technology for the first time, while the work will also provide an opportunity to restore Mackintosh’s original Library windows, which were replaced as part of a refurbishment in 1947.
“ It is humbling when you look at the impact our graduates make and have made” Alan Horn
GSA’s Director of Development, Alan Horn, takes great pride in the way that the School – indeed the city – responded to the fire. Horn is a Glaswegian born and bred, and his father studied here in the 1960s; his passion and affection for the institution and its place in Glasgow’s creative life is evident as he talks through the plans. It’s Horn’s responsibility to ensure funds are in place to take the School into this new phase of life, a phase he believes will encourage change and growth in unexpected ways. “The plans bring so much to the students,” he explains. “First years at a very formative stage in their professional development will be given the chance to learn in this amazing building. Imagine every artist, designer and architect getting one year of that inspiration. The place will have such a buzz, filled with creative, exciting, dynamic people from all over the world.” Horn believes the new configuration will give students from different disciplines a unique opportunity to cross-fertilise their ideas and share practice like never before. “Exciting things happen on the margins,” he says. “You only have to go to The Vic and see the kind of projects students work on among
themselves. We don’t know at the moment what this will produce but it will be very exciting to see how this nexus of artists, designers and architects rubbing along with each other in the Mack for a year will develop. The sort of collaborations that we can’t even imagine now will emerge because they will be rubbing together. That’s creative abrasion – sparks will come and magic will develop.” As for the Stow Building, which already has a long association with the creative industries, Horn believes the new acquisition will not only benefit Fine Art students who will be able to work together in new and improved spaces, but also “futureproof” the School for many years to come. “The Stow is a well-designed and maintained building that fits the kind of practice and spaces that contemporary art needs, with its flexible lines and abundance of light,” he explains. “The things that would make the building less attractive for a commercial development are the very things that make it work for us. It’s just a no-brainer.” “But the governors have looked to the future as well as our immediate needs,” he adds. “We live in a fast-moving world, and we’re at the cutting edge of studio based education, now with the option for growth beyond that, on a three-acre site. “To have a building of this size and shape that accommodates the entire School of Fine Art and brings it together for the first time in 50 years is just amazing. The heart of the School is and always has been here on Garnethill, and to have everyone back home will be wonderful.” As for what all this means for GSA’s national and international position, Horn believes it will enhance an already world-class reputation. Interestingly, he is also a great believer in that intangible something, that Glasgow magic. “I think there are many things about Glaswegians that are reflected in the School – we have a fierce pride in our location, being here is part of us,” he says. “That is one of GSA’s unique selling points and experiences. “But we also feel an overwhelming sense of Glaswegian generosity – if you’re not from Glasgow you can join us and be a part of it. All our students share this and the School sends them out into the world. “It is humbling when you look at the impact our graduates make and have made. They’ve changed the world in terms of building and products, or the way we look at the world in terms of our fine artists. Then there’s the influence on music, acting, the creative industries. “GSA is a global institution, but being rooted in Glasgow is of real importance. Glasgow rubs off on people, GSA rubs off, the Mack rubs off, and from that comes remarkable creativity.”
You can find out more about ways to support the Mackintosh campus Appeal at www.gsa.ac.uk/ mackintoshcampusappeal Marianne Taylor is a journalist and arts commentator
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Georgina Clapham (Painting & Printmaking)
Nathan Wishart Smith (Sculpture)
School of Fine Art Between the reproduction of the antechambers of great art collections, a self-styled art doctor, and a series of tongue-in-cheek Artist Talks, there’s a perceptible self-critical bent to the Fine Art Degree Show 2016 Words: Adam Benmakhlouf
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e start with ‘Doctor Watson’, as his growing patient base have affectionately named him. Maybe you can’t draw and it’s getting to you, or you’re a recent graduate and the illusion of an out-of-reach art world has imploded and left you struggling on alone. If you’ve got some frustrations with fine art or you’re having trouble keeping up with the contemporary, Environmental Art student Lewis Watson will be available for halfhour sessions of his own take on art therapy. Watson explains that the whole project is a way for him to make work out of his own anxieties about being an artist. Without any formal qualifications (as we speak, he’s still preparing for the final exhibition), he’s becoming a repository for coping mechanisms and anecdotes. Looking past the degree show, book ahead as he’s committed to keeping his doctor persona for at least an afternoon a week. But it’s not all art about art – considering care systems more broadly is Sculpture’s Elaine Ang. Spatially referencing the British Standards Agency, Ang’s intention is for all elements of her
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presentation to conform to building standards for the disabled. Within the space, there is a sound piece of a Tesco checkout voice recording, offering apologies from “I’m sorry; unexpected item in bagging area” to “I’m sorry; we are not accepting refugees” and “he called you a terrorist sympathiser” – even “I’m not Adele”. A debossed text piece is also exhibited, which is activated only by Ang’s performed reading, and is otherwise illegible. “It’s all alluding to bodies that aren’t there,” Ang remarks while describing the feint mono print of a lost belt. Nevertheless, Painting and Printmaking student Tracey Campbell proves a degree of disciplinary specificity can be as experimental as multimedia work. While Campbell appreciates there’s an interest in consciousness across the complex spaces of her paintings of impossible rooms, vine covered walls and little fish, she has “left it quite free.” As she explains, “I’m thinking about making mostly, and staying open to different materials.” But for Campbell, there’s not been time for dithering. “It’s so intense [in your final year];
you have to keep making and can’t really be indecisive.” Trying to come up with a name for her distinct compositions, that often involve what seem like separate rectangular paintings within an overall picture plane, Campbell offers “broken imagery,” and describes them as being collated within the painting. Though this structure loosely groups the works, together with a discernible colour identity, there’s definite and confident variety in technique between the long broad strokes of one to the impasto truncated tapestry of marks in another. Disregarding the rewards of practice and training, she mentions that adopting one style is restricting, and “even skill can be limiting.” Campbell will exhibit alongside Georgina Clapham in the Life Room, where large scale painting work will be presented – it’s the Tontine Building’s take on the old Mackintosh Gallery as the venerable GSA structure is renovated following the 2014 fire. Chances are one of the subjects of Clapham’s paintings or etchings will be present on Friends and Family Night – explaining
her choice of models, she says: “Usually they are people around me, so there’s a dialogue between the people I know and the archetypal narratives of Greek mythology to folklore.” Clapham identifies a recognisable “virtuosity” in the paint handling. At the same time, acknowledging and working against Western painting traditions, references to 17th century European portraitists are made more suspect by “a conscious artifice and heightened drama”. Painting is alliteratively combined with performance, publication, posters and postcards in Photography student Ewan McCaffrey’s final presentation. “There will be a series of performances at least every couple of days,” he says. They’ll take the form of the traditional artist talk and PowerPoint presentation. In his own enclosed room, there will be a projector and laptop set up for what he has titled – with subtle double meaning – The Artist Talks. “I’m looking at the modernist myth of the artist in the studio, accessibility, and what artists do today,” he explains. With an eye on accessibility, there will be plenty of free
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printed offerings in the space. Looking now at issue two of Studio News From the Desk of Ewan McCaffrey, with its headings of Glasgow International, Essays I Like and Degree Show Updates, there is also a nod to his job in the Vic Bar: “National Living Wage – I am now worth £7.20 per hour and £8 when supervising.” There’s a distinctive openness and truth to this, as well as a hint of irony. Most of all, he’s looking to “find comedy in what everyone’s doing here.”
“ Even skill can be limiting” Tracey Campbell
A similar shade of self-criticism extends to Painting and Printmaking student Ari Nielsson’s installation. Reproducing an antechamber recognisable from grand art collections, he addresses the status symbols and value markers of the art object. An intricately tiled floor’s pattern refers to the Borromean knot, which as Nielsson explains is “a physically impossible formation of links used to visualise the interrelation of abstract concepts.” Materially speaking, he directly quotes “a variety of exhibition interiors, from the richly ornamented to the white cubes of the contemporary gallery.” Inside this space, there will be a curtain-wall of ‘blind paintings.’ Using long strips of window-blind aluminium, he has rendered profiles of framed painting and familiar elements of interior decoration. Staying true to the hospitable antechamber, Nielsson will also scatter plush seats to provide the potential for restful contemplation. However, they come with a suspicion of their own hypocrisy as they play “a series of monologues which question the paradoxes and complicities of artistic production, aiming towards a criticism of its own structures.” With a similar consideration of the house of art objects, Nathan Wishart Smith from Sculpture explores “the dualism between art and artefact.” Competing presentation methods of the museum’s conservative display and the contemporary gallery’s floor-mounted object, his installation is “a monument to the museum.” Especially for this setting, he has sculpted two bust forms, one made from carrara marble, and another from wood and cast aluminium, bringing a material enquiry into the museum. Cutting departmental ties for good and spitting in the face of the museum/gallery display, Photography student Robert Mills presents handpainted cardboard boxes to be rearranged by whoever’s passing through. They’ll be stacked, restacked, knocked down and played with by Mills and (he hopes) the audience. All this takes place in his red-painted space, and on the windows there will be a poem in blue and another in yellow – one goes “chip shop / hip hop / snip chop / drip mop / tip top.” Bringing in parts of his day-to-day experiences, he’ll be doing spoken word performances during each day’s rearrangements, leaving the content until the time. Broadly, he’s hoping people visiting will have a bit more to talk to each other about, even if it’s just how the space stands out. “It’s not a pristine show,” explains Mills, eschewing the kind of exhibition that has ‘don’t touch’ signs. Instead, he says, “it’s more like what art’s about – more fun and personal in places.” Between criticism, cardboard havoc, and humour with a slash of irony, 2016’s newly certified BA Hons make their cool-headed debut with healthy supplies of wit, cynicism and self-awareness. School of Fine Art Degree Show venue is the Tontine Building, 20 Trongate
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2016
Robert Mills (Photography)
Charlie Cook (Environmental Art)
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Daniel Tulloch (Textiles)
Tomas Palmer (Communication Design)
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School of Design
Naomi Scott (Jewellery)
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School of Design From class and cultural identity to pressing humanitarian concerns, there's a wealth of ideas on display in the ever-diverse field of Design
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aving started aged 17 and finishing at 21, future student president and Communication Design student Laura Glennie wonders, “How can you visually mark the end of four pivotal years? [At the start] I just wanted to be on a ‘scene’ somewhere like Enid Coleslaw in Ghost World or Jordana Bevan in Submarine. Suddenly, when shit gets real and deadlines are looming, having to define who it is that you are and not just what your influences are, you realise that you have somehow created your own scene through the people right in front of you.” “For my degree show,” Glennie goes on, “I conclude that artists probably never ‘come of age’, and continue to have realisations and changes which will spur on a lifetime of ‘becoming.’ I have created a distilled video diary to tell the story of a teenage bedroom dreamer who finds a fantasy of her own.” Moving onto Fashion, Ashleigh Miller looks to the “perception and stigma relating to people from impoverished backgrounds.” Taking different elements of “scally culture and fetish,” she’s careful not to drily reflect on social stratification. With “a certain humour,” she’s worked with “security tags, a kimble gun, and excerpts from The Digger [a controversial, crime-focussed gossip rag based in Glasgow].” Taking inelegant workarounds like gaffa tape mending, these features are deliberately “enhanced by becoming part of the fabric.” She also identifies branding – “the bolder the better” – as an integral style feature to her concept, and has developed a text-based “house check” that she screenprints onto fabric as embellishment along with additions like swing tags. There’s the same attention to finer details of “silhouette and cut … influenced by collaging with a mix of pre-existing tailored and sportswear garments.” Finishing her description of the collection, and as “a functional yet thought-provoking addition,” Miller gives a special shout out to the “specifically shaped shoplifting pockets.” For textile student Daniel Tulloch, there is a strong social, emotional and historical investment to his practice. 12 years ago, he visited South Africa where he “developed a deep interest in the history of apartheid and ideas of cultural identity.” Ten years later, he decided to document his
experience photographically, and since then he has witnessed “the nomadic lives of members of the Basotho Tribe” as well as people more generally from across South Africa and Lesotho. He alludes briefly to “a very personal and at once heartbreaking story,” which he finds he can best acknowledge “sculpturally and conceptually with fabric.” So it is that his work takes inspiration from “the transient living conditions of a nomadic life and the visible patina of age,” and his collection spans a history that goes back to the 1950s. Somewhat closer to home, Product Design student Harriet de Wet’s self-initiated project considers “the asylum seeking community in Glasgow… host to one of the largest communities in the UK.” Volunteering for the Glasgow Night Shelter for Destitute Asylum Seeking Men, she has “befriended many of those hoping to one day receive refugee status,” and who experience “the harsh restrictions from Central Government – such as preventing asylum seekers from working, and forcing many into destitution.” Speaking frankly, she describes them as “an invisible people to most Glaswegians.” For this reason, she proposes “a digital service platform that focuses on areas that are common friction points for asylum seekers in Glasgow. The service is designed to bring stability and peace of mind to the everyday life of asylum seekers, as well as increased social mobility, independence and choice.” At a slight remove from these kinds of intense personal, cultural and historical contexts, Interaction Design (FKA Digital Culture) students describe their fundamental concern with technology. As a group, they promise “a large range of final outcomes will be on show, from computer-generated tiles and 3D-printed islands, to perception of imagery in a visually mediated society, as well as the complexities of social media and the online world.” Stating their overall ethic: “Our degree show centres on user engagement and creative coding, providing an innovative take on the fast paced digital culture that we live in.” Over in Product Design Engineering, there’s a move from the virtual to the physical, as Faidon Filipsson looks to raise awareness of “the global decline of the honey bee population.”
Danielle van Rhijn, Manifesto Pam Hogg (Interior Design)
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2016
Words: Adam Benmakhlouf
More specifically, he’s anxious to encourage recognition “that a part of the problem lies in the ‘fashion’ of keeping bees with little or no prior knowledge of beekeeping.” Not just pointing the finger, he’s come up with a design solution that allows for “a more responsible beekeeping.” Reducing the amount of lifting and interaction with the bees, he’s conceived a more ergonomic update on the top bar beehive and added a visual indication when the hive is ready to be harvested. In this way, the bees aren’t disturbed so often and the beekeeping process becomes “more intuitive and accessible for a wide range of users”.
“ Artists never ‘come of age’, and continue to have realisations which spur on a lifetime of ‘becoming’” Laura Glennie
Thinking more broadly in her concept Fiona Smith takes the idea of the “freak” as her main thematic interest. “The meaning of this word is ever changing,” she argues. “Modern day use of the word ‘freak’, in terms of fashion, can be something that people are beginning to embrace, and the fashion industry is one of acceptance of all walks of life.” Smith looks particularly at “going against the grain of the ‘usual’ silhouette for womenswear.” This gesture is combined with “a carefully selected mix of mediums, ranging from tailored suiting to overtly feminine embellishments, optical illusions and unexpected proportions.” Controversial fashion continues in one of the proposals of Interior Design’s Danielle van Rhijn. Across the entire final year, the Interior Design students create three conceptual projects
Harriet De Wet (Product Design)
within existing buildings in Glasgow – Van Rhijn has designed an exhibition space in an abandoned garage in the West End for “the famous and rather controversial fashion designer” Pam Hogg. Also as part of her presentation, Van Rhijn designed Box Set, a fast food restaurant-cum-cinema where friends come together to very literally watch Netflix, and presumably chill. Keeping the mood mellow, her third design locates mindfulness drop-in centres in public toilets. For silversmith Naomi Scott, a background in textiles has informed her attempts “to bring a parallel and tactile element to the silver.” She’s set herself the ambition of incorporating “drapery fold and liquid movements” into “free-flowing objects and tableware” made from metal. These kinds of forms are intended to give “elegance and a softness” to the material, achieved via “working and adapting tools in order to refine new techniques and making processes of morphing the metal” and allowing “forms to move freely” during the making process. Making sure to maintain a sense of intrigue, Communication Design student Tomas Palmer describes his current interests as “searching, satellite navigation systems, invisibility and matadors.” His presentation will see “all the above colliding – forming a performance – leaving people with the sense they have witnessed some sort of unique individual quest into the unknown.” More concretely, he describes his interest in “designing and controlling atmospheres and moods which are collectively experienced by a gathering of people.” Previously, Palmer arranged an immersive experience with “gentle clubbing” in collaboration with colleague Caitlin O’Connell, where intense organ music accompanied the raising of a thick curtain around a carpeted space. It was deliberately transcendental and affecting. Speaking more about this kind of work, he goes on: “I have a keen interest in designing and controlling atmospheres and moods which are collectively experienced by a gathering of people; my work often takes the shape of an immersive installation, performance or club night.” Most recent reports see Palmer negotiating the installation of a giant curtain pole in the Reid Building.
Samuel Setenyi (Interaction Design)
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Master of Fine Art For the seventh year running the Glue Factory sets the scene for The Glasgow School of Art’s (GSA) MFA degree show Words: Richard Taylor
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cohort of 25 UK, European, and international artists will provide what the city’s visual art audience has grown to expect – exciting, challenging and experimental work that wields the long-established GSA, MFA name. The Glue Factory, used until 1998 by the Scottish Adhesives Company, is a patchwork of bricks and mortar with vast ex-industrial halls, rooms with unused glue vats, and dark stairwells with ill-fitted lighting. In parts of the building history still speaks and some students are using its setting to their advantage, installing work dealing with histories of labour, manufacturing and politics. Canadian artist Alex Stursberg’s multi-layered six-screen video installation Behind Every Great Fortune… features a topical narrative, psychedelic rock music score and imagery appropriated from YouTube. Along with sculptural, assemblage and textile-based reflections, the work focuses on the complex social history of copper and families such as the Guggenheims, who used their fortune to fund the modern Western art world. “The work specifically looks at economic and political events surrounding Chile’s 1973 coup d’état,” he explains, “and examines how the funding of art in one place can ironically be related to its death in another.” Also using video is Olgo Kaliszer, who will show two films exploring our ambivalent relationship with the everyday. Her work uses montage, aesthetic strategies of duration, formalism and abstraction to create imagery. She also introduces sound to disturb the viewer’s spatial and temporal sense of the commonplace. Marija Nemcenko’s mosaic-like digital compositions also look to distort the viewer. Visually complex, they are part of an ongoing series entitled I wish I(t) was more exotic, and comically reference Turkish concubines and a Westerner’s diet of vodka and kebabs. For Mexican artist Rodrigo Sandoval, making is about what is humanly possible, on a dextrous level, by the person and his or her physical interaction with space. His work uses imagery printed onto Play-Doh, rendered more workable using a pasta maker in the studio. Sandoval will create an installation to embellish the surfaces of the gallery, making a “new space” that is playful yet contemplative. Jennifer Yu is also exploring sitespecificity. She uses Japanese printing paper pasted into chosen locations using wheat paste and traces the surface with graphite, charcoal and ink. A set of work, which began its life as rubbings taken from underpasses in the surrounding area, will be scattered around undesirable parts of the building. “It is about temporality,” she explains. “The more a work moves location the more it becomes a palimpsest. The Glue Factory is perfect, the paper is meant to become degraded, and the works are meant to get lost.” Finas Townsend’s minimalist paintings consider logic and aestheticism, working with colour onto black gesso grounds on square canvases. He will make an edited selection from his studio to reach a point, as he explains, “exactly ten years on” from Bauhaus colour theory studies, undertaken in his first year as an architecture student at Mississippi State University in 2006. Townsend is most excited about the conversations that
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Jamie Green ASOS Return Boxes 10, 11, 12, 13, mixed media, 2016
Olga Kaliszer, There About, 2016
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will happen between his work and that of other painters and draftsmen in the show, from academicised considerations about representation and figuration to experiments in layering and reflexivity – such as in the work of Josedgardo Grandados, whose drawings push back in to the fluidity of painting. The work of Callum Monteith will add to this important dialogue. His largescale canvases and screen prints on coloured Perspex are abstract explorations of the former Springburn Winter Gardens, in the North East of Glasgow. Monteith is also working with metal to fashion replicas of broken flowerbeds found at his research site.
“ History still speaks and students use this setting to their advantage” Scrap metal is the medium of choice for Sofia Sefraoui. Made from Moroccan fabrics bounded to offcuts of found metal, her sculptures explore notions of power and dominance, the feminine and masculine, and aspects of confrontation or harmony. Most importantly, her work looks at sustainability in its choice of re-used materials. Also looking at notions of sustainability is Jamie Green. He will show a series of sculptures compiled from altered boxes delivered from the mail-order fashion company ASOS. The forms will be dismantled afterwards and mailed back using ASOS’s free returns service. Green organised two MFA exhibitions during two years of study, one in the group’s first year, and the second at Stirling Castle in October 2015. He now describes his practice as “semi-administrative”, organising people as well as materials. He will also show The empire on which the sun never sets, a complex work using the vast amount of digital images uploaded to Wikipedia, under creative commons licencing, by photographer David Shankbone. Including his MFA presentation, Green has organised 11 exhibitions with organisations around the globe. All will show the same Shakbone images selected by an algorithm. He will then re-hang his version at the Glue Factory each day of the degree show, in correspondence to how the other ten have been curated. Organised protests in these MFA students' first year created a rush of activity, bringing them together as a close-knit group early on. Relationships were formulated quickly, not necessarily through ideologies but, as Green describes, “through gestures and actions.” These are the relationships that will see them continue actively within Glasgow after the degree show. Townsend has strong opinions about this too, believing there is “unfinished business” if graduates move away. First year MFA students are now gearing up for the challenges of second year in different ways. Momentum will build, as it has done for the artists graduating this year. Some of them will leave, but this is met with joy in the fact that others will stick around. It makes all the momentum worth it, and means the degree show is only the start of their important contribution to Glasgow’s visual art ecology. Other artists exhibiting in the MFA Degree Show are: Dorine Aguerre, Celine Amendola, Catalina Barroso-Luque, Alice Brooke, Sian Collins, Samuel Cook, Soojung Jung, Jung Mo Kim, Hyeonju Lee, Uesung Lee, Yeonkyoung Lee, Judith Leupi, Isobel Lutz-Smith, Samuel Robinson and Jamie Russom.
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2016
Alex Stursberg, Behind Every Great Fortune..., 6 screen video installation, 2016
Callum Monteith, Blue Night, Oil on Canvas, 2016
Callum Monteith, Oil on Canvas, 2016
Finas Townsend III, untitled, 2014. New York
School of Fine Art
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Mackintosh School of Architecture Wondering what to expect from the Architecture department at this year’s degree show? Allow yourself to be swept up in the romance of this most misunderstood of disciplines
Bruce Doran, Silk Institute, Zurich (Stage 5)
W
hat makes good architecture? Bereft O N discussion, T E M P O RaAgood R Y : of pretence andClofty building might have a wide and immediate appeal. Sometimes a building will just feel right – its effect is immediate and decisive. The variables of use, shape and size are infinite. A passionate school recognises this and gives its students the freedom and guidance to develop a personal style imbued with an individually and diligently crafted epistemology, moulded through rigorous, often interdisciplinary and contextual discourse and critique. The world renowned Mackintosh School of Architecture (or just Mac for short), needless to say, is a passionate school and the degree show manifests its conscientious attempts to facilitate the self-driven process of its students. Each year is a stage in coming to terms with the many facets of a structure of study which in the end, should elegantly and seamlessly fuse into a whole. So what’s been cookin’ at the Mac in the last year? Look forward, as always, to a talented student entourage tackling head on the possibilities of architecture. No doubt the fifth year students, led by Robert Mantho, intend to match the work of last year’s student Finn Wilkie. The studios are still buzzing from his highly refined,
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Words: Martin Zizka
Ewan Hooper, The Glasgow Gastronomy Athenaeum, Cross Sectional Perspective (Stage 4)
RIBA silver medal award winning work entitled HThe I SHeteroglossic T O R Y City (it’s as complicated as
it sounds).
“Is there any chance of saving the world while designing sexy buildings?” As always, the complexity of the work intensifies from the bottom up. On the ground floor you will find proposals for landscape painting studios, kayak clubs and market places by a freeformat, curated exhibition of first and second years. For those of you who are new to the business of degree shows at architecture schools, here’s a tip: check out the work of the fifth and first years first. It’s a bit of a counterintuitive order to go in, but illustrates well the development of the school’s signature style and the direction it moves as a whole.
Mackintosh School of Architecture
Brigit Luffingham (Stage 5)
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Ewan Whittle, Train station (Stage 5)
Significantly, the Mac is the only department at GSA which shows the work of every year, for the very reason that the school takes pride in working its students hard from the beginning to the end of a 6-year tour-de-force of academic, technical and artistic scrutiny. Every year plays a massive part in learning outcomes, and arguably none is less interesting than the other, in brief as well as outcome. The brief is the mode of work at the crux of a student’s growth in the Mac, in distinction to the freer and looser style of working in the Fine Art departments. In Architecture, assignment begins with a given theme, delimiting the depth, breadth and scope of how far students are encouraged to go with their work. Briefs can be
pieces of art themselves. Carefully crafted by a dedicated staff, they’re often poetic. It’s with a penchant for lyricism that intentionally opaquesounding names are given to briefs, eg Solid Void, Percipio, or Athenaeum. So it is that the student must develop drive and motivation to formulate a creative reading of the brief that will lend to the most effective practical response. First year stage leader Tilo Einenhart thinks of one brief as necessarily equivalent to 80 outcomes – or the number of students in a given year. Significantly, fifth year students essentially develop their own brief. Given a city as a palette to work on, they develop a personal thesis; a manifesto of sorts. Towards the end of the year, a highly informed and researched design propo-
Bruce Scotland (Stage 5)
sal begins to emerge. Often experimental and on the wild side, it’s perhaps the last chance these aspiring professionals will have to play and explore without the constraints and realities of the industry. With the realities of climate change, migration and war, is there any chance of saving the world while designing sexy buildings? Let the fifth year Thesis project be conclusive to that regard. Especially in later years, students are encouraged to tackle issues of personal or social relevance – thus fifth year projects include geodesic nets over the lakes in Zurich which harness energy through hydraulic mechanisms; urban savannas and urban wetlands which clean water in Berlin; and landscaping projects which encourage sociabi-
lity. In effect, proposals can include everything from master-plans to bus shelters, but are advanced through an emphasis on originality and a thorough research and design programme. So if you feel like delving into the intricate world of sensitive and thoughtful technical sophistication that is good architectural design, or want to witness how students attempt to learn to make functional spaces beautiful, head on to the Bourdon Building (let’s face it, buildings are everywhere. It’s a relatable kind of artwork). The degree show of the department of architecture at The Glasgow School of Art will be running from the 18-25 June on the brutalist Bourdon’s three floors and will be the culmination of the blood, sweat and tears of, for some, a six-year journey.
Cristina Gaidos, Altyre (Stage 3)
The Glasgow School of Art Degree Show 2016
Mackintosh School of Architecture
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Summer of GSA
Olga Kaliszer, There About , HD Video, 2016
MFA at citizenM 16 Jun–2 Jul, Glasgow A selection of video from the Master of Fine Art programme at the GSA, 2013-2016. This exhibition runs alongside the MFA Degree Show 2016 at The Glue Factory 16-26 June, sponsored by citizenM. 60 Renfrew Street, G2 3BW
Serena Korda, Hold Fast, Stand Sure, I scream a revolution
Hold Fast, Stand Sure, I scream a revolution, Serena Korda
3 Jun–30 Jul, Isle of Mull GSA’s Glasgow International-supported project, following a successful time in Glasgow, goes on to be staged with our project partner Comar, at An Tobar in Mull. Korda has produced a new sound sculpture that combines her interest in primitive impulses, invented tradition and our skewed relationship to nature.
Credit: Image Alan Dimmick
Degree Show 2016 may be one of the highlights of the GSA year, but you can also visit us for myriad events over the summer in Glasgow and across the UK to Singapore
New Designers 2015 ??
New Designers: Fashion + Textiles, Silversmithing + Jewellery, Interaction Design Part 1: 29 Jun-02 Jul, Part 2: 6-9 Jul, London The annual showcase of the finest from design programmes at New Designers, this year featuring Interaction Design for the first time. Business Design Centre, London, N1
An Tobar Gallery, Argyll Terrace, Tobermory, Isle of Mull PA75 6PB
Communication Design WIP Show, 2013 ??
Hui Ling Toong (Communication Design, GSofA Singapore, 2015)
Communication Design: The Brew
GSofA Singapore: Degree Show 2016
1 Jul (9am-10pm) & 2 Jul (9am-6pm), London Communication Design degree show visits London at The Brew for a pop-up exhibition.
8-15 Jul, Singapore Join us at venues in Singapore for our graduating students’ Interior Design and Communication Design degree shows.
The Brew, London, www.thebrew.co.uk
See website for full details: www.gsasingapore.com
The Lavender BlueVisitors Dress Birthe Jorgensen and Sogol Mabadi, Hosts and
Hosts and Visitors, Birthe Jorgensen, Sogol Mabadi
9 Jul-21 Aug, Glasgow Hosts and Visitors showcases new work by Glasgow-based artists Birthe Jorgensen (b. Copenhagen, Denmark) and Sogol Mabadi (b. Tehran, Iran). Hosts and Visitors takes as its inspiration the subject of diaspora and migration. This theme came out of the artists’ discussions on language and identity and how their art practices creatively engage with it. Jorgensen and Mabadi are both GSA alumna. Reid Gallery
IE 2015
Interior Design: IE (Interior Educators) at Free Range, Interior Design and Architecture Week 14–18 Jul, London Interior Design students showcase in London at Free Range 2016. www.free-range.org.uk
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Feature
Chris Leslie, Whitevale and Bluevale flats, Gallowgate, (2013)
Chris Dwyer, SP15-Falcon (PDE 2015, Graduate Degree Show, 2015)
Graduate Degree Show 2016
Disappearing Glasgow, Chris Leslie
Preview 2 Sep 6-9pm. Exhibition: 3-8 Sep Mon-Fri 10am-9pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4.30pm The annual exhibition of work from students of our myriad postgraduate programmes. This year students will exhibit their final year shows at venues around the GSA campus on Renfrew Street and across the city, including a specially curated series of exhibitions and installations from our MLitt Curatorial Practice students. We invite you to join us at these events in person across Glasgow from 3-8 September. Admission is free.
Preview and book launch: 16 Sep 2016, 5-7pm 17 Sep-2 Oct, Glasgow The skyline of Glasgow has been radically transformed as highrise tower blocks have been blown down and bulldozed. Does this Disappearing Glasgow herald a renaissance in the city? Photographer and filmmaker Chris Leslie is widely acknowledged as the most consistent chronicler of the city’s recent history. His exhibition and accompanying book, edited by Johnny Rodger, documents an era of spectacular change in film and still photography.
Reid Building, other venues TBC
Reid Ground Floor Corridor
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Walking Tours 1 May-30 Sep
Celebrate Scotland’s Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design this summer on one of two walking tours with GSA’s talented student guides. Book now at www.gsa.ac.uk/tours Gemma Lord (Product Design, 2015)
Mackintosh’s Glasgow
Thu-Mon, 11.30am-1.45pm Immerse yourself in the life and times of innovative architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh and investigate Glasgow’s distinctive architectural styles at the turn of the century. DiscoverMackintosh’simpressivecitycentredesigns,hislesserknown architectural gems and buildings by his contemporaries working in internationally acclaimed ‘Glasgow Style’ Art Nouveau.
Product Design: PD Degree Show 30 Jun & 1 Jul, London Product Design’s degree show 2016 hits London for a two-day exhibition. Candid Arts Trust, 3-5 Torrens St, London EC1V 1NQ
Credit: illustration by Emmeline Pidgen
Creative Glasgow
The Lavender Blue Dress Aidan Moffat & Emmeline Pidgen
9 Jul-21 Aug, Glasgow The Lavender Blue Dress is the first children’s book from the acclaimed indie singer-songwriter Aidan Moffat alongside illustrations by award-winning Emmeline Pidgen. It tells the story of Mabel, a little girl who wants nothing more than a beautiful dress to wear to her Christmas ball. Mabel’s family can’t afford to get her the lavender blue dress she wants, but can they find another way to send her to the ball in a beautiful gown? This exhibition shows illustrative work from the book. Reid Ground Floor Corridor
Saturdays, 2.30–4.45pm Explore the city’s unique artistic regeneration and booming creative industries through innovative public artworks and bold architecture. Delve in to the thriving contemporary arts scene, view Glasgow’s vibrant variety of galleries, find hidden artworks installed in the city and uncover the story of this remarkable creative transformation.
Mackintosh at the GSA tour, Mackintosh furniture gallery
Mackintosh at the GSA The Window on Mackintosh visitor centre & GSA Shop are open 10am-4.30pm, 7 days, all year round including public bank holidays. Discover Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s famous furniture designs and the history of his architectural masterwork, with The Glasgow School of Art’s award-winning student-led guided tours. Join an hour-long ‘Mackintosh at the GSA’ tour to investigate the story of the Mackintosh Building and the architect’s life and work, from student to master designer. Examine the exterior details of the Mackintosh Building and uncover Mackintosh’s famous designs with exclusive access to GSA’s new furniture gallery. Please note there is no access to the interiors of the Mackintosh Building whilst restoration is underway. We recommend booking at www.gsa.ac.uk/tours to avoid disappointment, as spaces are limited to 20 per tour.
Creative Glasgow Walking Tour
Visit the online shop at www.gsa.ac.uk/shop
Editorial Editor Subeditor Art Editor Lead Designer Production Manager General Manager
Find more up-to-date listings & events here: www.gsa.ac.uk/events Join the Conversation: @GSofA, #GSA2016 or #DegreeShows
Cover Artist Rosamund West Will Fitzpatrick Adam Benmakhlouf Sigrid Schmeisser Sarah Donley Kyla Hall
Writing Team BA Fine Art Design Architecture MFA Fine Art Mack Campus Appeal
Clara Hastrup was born in Aarhus, Denmark, 1990. She works in a variety of media including photography, video and sculpture and her work is often a very deliberate reflection on the nature and content of images. She has been living and working in Glasgow for the past three years and is now finishing her BA (Hons) in Fine Art (Painting and Printmaking) at The Glasgow School of Art. Get in touch: E: hello@theskinny.co.uk | T: 0131 467 4630
Adam Benmakhlouf Adam Benmakhlouf Martin Zizka Richard Taylor Marianne Taylor
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The Glasgow School of Art – Degree Show Venues 1 +2 Reid Building & Bourdon Building 167 Renfrew Street Glasgow G3 6RQ
Interior Design Interaction Design Silversmithing & Jewellery Fashion Design Textile Design Communication Design Product Design Product Design Engineering Architecture
3 Tontine Building 20 Trongate, Glasgow, Lanarkshire G1 5NA
Painting & Printmaking Sculpture & Environmental Art Fine Art Photography
4 Glue Factory 15 Burns Street, Glasgow G4 9SE
Go to the theskinny.co.uk/art for more Degree Show coverage
Master of Fine Art
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