The next exhibition at London College of Fashion, UAL’s student takeover space in the Wolfson Studio at our East Bank campus titled ‘Collaborative Experimental Practice’ opens on Tuesday 26 November.
Students from LCF’s School of Media and Communication will display works that showcase the creative power of collaboration and experimentation, starting with BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Production from 26-28 November, followed by BA (Hons) Fashion Photography from 3-7 December, and finally BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration from 9-14 December.
We caught up with Chloe Shaw, BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Production, Kendal Walker, BA (Hons) Fashion Photography, and Khadijah Heath-Bailey and Evie Conde-Flack, BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration, who are displaying their work as part of this exhibition.
Through collective projects, BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Production students push the boundaries of their practice, engaging in reflective problem-solving and creative exploration.
I am displaying a fashion film that explores a loss of a sense of self; how one may perceive their self-image as distorted or unreal.
My work explores themes of identity, as well as femininity, often incorporating my own personal experiences into my concepts.
I’m overall just excited to see everyone’s work displayed together, I think it’s nice to see what everyone around me is creating and how unique and different it is.
I’ve always been interested in exhibiting work and gallery curation, so having the opportunity to display my work whilst studying at LCF has helped me to gain skills and insight into industry practice.
To anyone considering applying to BA (Hons) Fashion Styling and Production, I would say that it is tailored to encourage experimentation which I have found incredibly beneficial in helping me develop my practice and discover what area I intend to specialise in when leaving LCF. Additionally, the course supports you in being ambitious with your ideas and has many units focused mainly on exploring new techniques and processes.
My project examines how images are consumed and shared in the post-internet age. Today, relentless posting and resharing often distort or obscure memories, placing them in a liminal space rather than preserving them as tangible records. I was interested in this paradox—the hyper-documented lives of a generation with few physical archives. In response, I blended analog techniques with digital imagery by darkroom printing a series of iPhone images referencing contemporary social photography’s aesthetic elements: blurry flash, wide-angle “0.5” perspectives, and selfies, as a nod to the visual language of ephemeral “photo dumps” and shared generational aesthetics.
Recently, my work has focused on themes of connection, environment, and identity, and how these ideas can be conveyed through visual motifs and photographic techniques such as printmaking and collage.
Overall, the work in the exhibition has a shared visual language that really stands out to me. It’s interesting seeing how our work relates through shared concepts and ideas, and how that can contribute to a larger relation as peers. For example, my classmate Leon Lin made a really cool new media piece exploring identity within a virtual environment, using juxtaposition to reinforce the idea of a complex relationship between physical and virtual identities. It’s inspiring being around so many creative and talented perspectives and seeing how they all connect in the group exhibit.
I think exhibiting in shows is an important part of our experience as artists because it gives us an opportunity to engage with others ideas and have dialogue around the work we’re making. Especially now I find myself being drawn to physical spaces to be able to foster community as making work as an artist can be more individually or independently focused. Showing work at the Wolfson gallery gives us the opportunity to be seen by a broader audience in that group context.
I would say to consider what draws you to photography and what type of work you hope to make one day. And if you’re not sure, to take lots of photos. Shoot all the time! It’ll help you enter university with confidence and to make the best decision for which program you want to pursue. And take advantage of everything they have to offer at lcf: the darkroom, the studios, and all of the staff are such incredible resources. Enjoy it too. University is the time to experiment and take risks and have fun :)
In this exhibition, students from LCF’s BA (Hons) Fashion Imaging and Illustration course inspire viewers to consider themes such as the preoccupation and commodification of self-care, the paradox of social media in creating wellbeing collectives, the role of fashion in climate activism and social justice, and more broadly what ‘care’ really means to young people today.
Evie Conde-Flack: This unit's theme, "Collective Care," is part of LCF’s Cultural Programme for 2024. It explores the connections between care, fashion, objects, and wellbeing. We aim to create innovative image-making by examining fashion as a culture of cooperation and collective action. During the Collaborative Experimental Project, I collaborated throughout this unit with 3D image creation while working with Khadijah on our project titled "The Future Without a Home."
Khadijah Heath-Bailey: For this exhibition I am displaying mixed media images I created digitally in collaboration with Evie. My images are inspired by the idea of a dystopian future where global warming has reached its limit and there is no water left on the earth turning it into a dessert wasteland. The remaining humans roam the earth as nomads with other organisms attached to them, as they fight for survival searching for a new home.
Evie: Drawing inspiration from Yinka Shonibare's sculpture, "Refugee Astronaut." Our theme centres on the nomad and the global housing crisis, particularly focusing on the lives of refugees in a future devastated by human impact. In this distant future, water is scarce, and the Earth resembles a desolate wasteland. The remaining elements of nature adapt to merge with human life as a means of survival. We used 3D applications like Blender and Nomad to bring these images to life.
Khadijah: The themes we explore in these works are global warming, climate change, the worldwide housing crisis and homelessness.
Evie: There are a lot of really interesting takes on this theme and a couple that stand out to me is Orla Drury's work on creating a juxtaposition between the past and the future, blending vintage advertisements with a futuristic, dystopian feel. Aiming to highlight and glamorize toxic beauty standards that young girls encounter online, using comic and ironic elements to show how absurd and concerning these standards are.
Holly Baxendale's idea explores the physical manifestations of care, such as armour and shields, and the soft internal bodies they protect. It draws parallels to knights who defend and fight for others. This concept serves as a metaphor for safeguarding our peace and highlights how we can collectively protect and shield one another.
Khadijah: I found Paulina Prawdzik’s project very interesting, where she explores the reimagining of brain chemicals as self-care products.
Evie: I believe it's an important opportunity for our class to showcase our work. Being in the third year of our undergraduate degree, this event could provide a valuable head start in creating industry connections and enhancing our future employability.
Khadijah: I feel that showcasing is important, not just for me but for everyone at LCF because every student works so hard on all these amazing creative and important works, but we don't always get to see it. It's also important for opportunities such as cross course collaboration or career related opportunities that we wouldn't normally get from simply posting on social media or talking about our work.
Evie: If I were to offer advice to anyone considering Fashion Imaging and Illustration, I would say this: While this wasn’t the course I initially applied for, it turned out to be the best decision I could have made. Over the past three years, I have discovered and evolved my discipline as an image-maker. If you’re eager to expand and develop your practice in image-making - a broad and exciting field - I wholeheartedly recommend this course. It has allowed me to transition from strictly analogue methods to enhancing my digital skills, enabling me to integrate them with my traditional background.
Khadijah: If you really enjoy several methods of image making but don't know what your specialty is yet, or have mediums that you're scared of and want more knowledge in, this course can teach you more than just illustration, and you could end up loving a method of creating art that you never even considered before.