Two of the main festival venues feature work by Fine Art students.
15 Aug 2013
Students from Fine Art Printmaking BA(Hons) and MA Music and Visual Art (MAVA) courses are staging exhibitions at two Brighton Festival venues; the Brighton Dome and The Old Market in Hove.
The Dome exhibition is based on guest director Michael Rosen’s favourite book and is the result of an invitation to contribute to the festival from Pippa Smith, Head of Learning Access and Participation at the Brighton Dome.
The students were asked to come up with a proposal based on a list of words and topics, working collaboratively to formulate their ideas. The result is an installation based on one of Michael Rosen’s favourite book: Emil and the Detectives, a 1929 children’s novel by Erich Kastler.
Being a building rich in historical heritage meant that students were restricted in terms of how and where they could hang the installation at the Dome. They also had to be aware of the chosen exhibition area’s primary function as a café and busy meeting place. These constraints proved to be a positive however, resulting in the students demonstrating a higher degree of problem solving and inventiveness.
Student Nikki Davidson-Bowman said: “It has been a great opportunity to bring together the skills and ideas of students from two diverse courses. Having to rigorously plan a project from start to finish and to work within building, health and safety, budget and time constraints has been an interesting and beneficial challenge.
“We have sourced, liaised and negotiated with external suppliers and various areas within the university to get priority access. We were given limited time to work in the print studios which meant we had to be organised and efficient and as a result we managed to print over 75 screen-printed panels in two days. We worked alongside the Dome’s technical team to achieve and hang our vision of an Emil installation that both complements and adds to the space. It was a rewarding, invigorating challenge that pushed us mentally, creatively and physically and we are pleased with the final result.”
“As Michael Rosen says in the introduction of the Brighton Festival brochure Emil and the Detectives ‘...expresses hope, invention, dissent, cooperation and originality’ and it’s fair to say that we have experienced all of these things during the project!”.
The installation is free to view during the Brighton Dome Foyer Bar/Café opening hours: 10am-5pm throughout the festival.
The other exhibition by the students is in the bar and surrounding spaces of The Old Market venue in Hove. One of the installations, The Tin Can Choir uses recycled everyday objects reconstructed into a resonating sonic structure and reflects the students interest in contemporary issues of wastage and sustainability, as well as a heightened awareness of sound in everyday environments and objects.
The Tin Can Choir is our reissue of domestic waste, the transformation of the discarded into a sustained and enduring hum. It features wall-based prints, short films and sound sculptures which are open throughout the Festival, from Monday, 6-27 May.
The wall-based exhibition is available to view 45 minutes before performances and on ‘Bar nights’ from 6pm.
The Tin Can Choir installation and the Dry Store Cinema Room are open from 1pm to 6pm on the following dates during May: 6, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 27 May.
Students involved in the exhibitions at Brighton Dome: Nikki Davidson-Bowman, Mary Martin, Greg Myers, Rachel Povey from Printmaking and Luna Cohen-Solal, Laila Hansen, Jodie Rowe, Rosie Smith, Laura Mallows, Phoebe Wright-Smith from MAVA.
And at The Old Market: Poppy Tibbetts, Jodie Rowe, Luna Cohen-Solal, Laila Hansen, Phoebe Wright-Spinks, Rosie Smith, Jamie Gillett, Alex Merron, Jake Sheppard, Laura Mallows
