As our Foundation students move to the next stage in their creative education, we catch up with them to hear about their final projects and look back over a year unlike any other.
Leo Kerrigan, Bog Bodies
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Leo Kerrigan, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Bog Bodies -
Leo Kerrigan, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Bog Bodies -
Leo Kerrigan, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design, Bog Bodies
"Bog Bodies is a way of creating a visual language for Irish youth to allow them to connect with the Irish landscape. Through colonisation and 1600s Cromwellian plantations, Ireland has been popularised as a mostly green country but with a vast number of native flora and fauna, I wanted to highlight the spectrum of colours found in Ireland, particularly in the boglands. The boglands are an amazing preservative with many bodies being perfectly preserved and mummified there.
My project was a collection of fashionable pieces inspired by the imagery and themes of Ireland and a decontextualisation of Ireland through the foreign eye. I wanted to take it away from the greenery, Catholicism and alcoholism of St Patrick's Day and celebrate its unique landscapes and folklore that are currently failing to survive due to the ethnic cleansing performed by Britain.
Irish youth take a part of their land and culture with them wherever they go, like the bog bodies who were once at one with the soil."
Following your year in Foundation and also working through various degrees of pandemic lockdown, what matters to you now?
"Enjoyment in one's work is what truly matters to me most. I think often people can get very wrapped up in work and the institute that is the arts that they can forget to stand back and realise that it truly isn’t that serious. A pitfall that I had at the depths of working during isolation was getting too surrounded by creating and allowing it to affect my mental health. I have since made a conscious effort to realise that the world itself isn’t going to implode if I can’t create the image I envisioned in my head."
Leo Kerrigan is going on to study BA Fashion Communication: Fashion Communication and Promotion.
Sophie Stalder and Hannah Coen
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Sophie Stalder and Hannah Cohen, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design -
Sophie Stalder and Hannah Cohen, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design -
Sophie Stalder and Hannah Cohen, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design -
Sophie Stalder and Hannah Cohen, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
"We were in the same class and used to peak at each other’s laptops. After a few weeks we started chatting and noticed we were both doing similar work for our final project. We were both working with a 3D digital software called Blender and were complete beginners. We were learning different skills which we decided to combine to make our work stronger.
Technology gives us endless possibilities in terms of design. Separating areas of design into categories doesn’t feel that relevant to us, especially because fashion and architecture are interconnected, both are meant to host and bring comfort to the people that use them. 3D digitak design especially, uses the same tools to make different outcomes thus allowing us to merge our interests in the two different fields quite easily."
Following your year in Foundation, but also working through various degrees of pandemic lockdown, what matters to you now?
"What matters now is how fashion is shifting. The pandemic has shown us how dependent we are of technology. We were forced to find creative solutions to curate and distribute fashion and a lot of that was done by using the digital media. Looking at last year's fashion shows – which were all online – sparked our interest to work in a digital space. For us the future is becoming increasingly digital and there is still endless possibilities we haven’t yet discovered with our existing technologies."
Sophie Stalder and Hannah Coen are going on to study BA Performance: Design and Practice.
Yuki Takaishi, PEEP
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Yuki Takaishi, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design -
Yuki Takaishi, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design -
Yuki Takaishi, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design -
Yuki Takaishi, Foundation Diploma in Art and Design
"Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, our lifestyle has significantly changed. We are more likely to stay in our rooms, which means our body and mind are confined for longer time. At the same time, the digital world has become one of the main living spaces for working, studying and socialising. PEEP explores this confined space and its impact. I collaborated with 10 people, photographing their room remotely from the same angle each time and asking questions about their space and lifestyle. I've created both an Instagram account and a magazine sharing the stories."
Following your year in Foundation, but also working through various degrees of pandemic lockdown, what matters to you now?
"I think what matters is to see from diversified standpoints. Since I worked mostly in my room this year, what I could do was really limited. However, I tried to think differently and I realised that I can document people’s spaces because of this isolated situation. I worked fully remotely and collaborated with lots of people. It was a really fun project and this gave me the experience of unlimited creativity."
