Faculty of Arts Interdisciplinary Foundation

The Portable Performance Space

Student led project to provide mobile performance space for the 2009 degree show

Project members:

Naqeeb Popalzy, Architecture
Adam Place, Music and Visual Arts
Joe Dunkley, Digital Music
Julie Roche, Graphic Design
David Telfer, Fashion Design
William Jarret, Fashion Design
Kristina Arsenievich, Civil Engineering

We became a society in the 2008 spring term and as a collective we have broader long term aims. However, this sponsorship will be towards our first proposal for a mobile performance space for the 2009 degree show marking the 150th anniversary of the College of Arts and Humanities and Architecture.

As a society we want to encourage and facilitate interdisciplinarity within the College of Arts and Humanities and Architecture. Each year we will be initiating one overriding project, that of a created space for the summer degree shows. Our first proposal is for a space that will stage the fashion show and new events by MAVA and TAVA. Working in partnership with South East Dance we are ensuring the sustainable future use of this ‘mobile’ space.

Our aim is to create communication between the different disciplines and for that to take place we need to find the language to create this communication. In our initial research we have found the diagram as the source for this language since all design ideas are developed and communicated through diagrams (Refer to ‘What is a diagram’ by Anthony Vidler in the brief). We want to continue this research by exploring uses of diagram within the faculty and in practice. Our analysis and findings will be used to address the design of our proposal.

Important to us at this stage are the research resources the CETLD provides and it’s links with the RIBA and museum archives. Also important are the parallels between our project and other CETLD endorsed projects such as the Diagrams 2008 conference and the 'Mobility of the Line' Symposium both focusing on ‘interdisciplinarity’ and ‘diagrams’. We have recognised these projects as good sources for our research. There are also other emerging initiatives that deal with similar themes and we are hoping our project is a realisation and a culmination of these research projects.