AUCB Foundation Diploma in Art and Design Final Exhibition

A Sensory Experience - Final Piece

When it came to deciding what to do for my final project I decided to base it on what I had learnt from the beginning stages of the diploma, such as learning to draw using senses other than the eyes. This got me thinking about how costumes are mainly made to be visually aesthetic. It is very rare to find a costume that alerts all the senses, therefore I decided to set myself the challenge of doing this.

Final skirt with cinamon stick cage and bustle pad stuffed with ground cinamon

After 10 weeks of research, sampling, designing and experimentation I came up with a final piece. I made a skirt that had hidden smells, sounds and textures through layers of fabric, a bustle pad and a cage made out of cinamon sticks inspired by the Eiffell Tower structure.

It may be a part of the child in me but whenever I go to an exhibition it has always excited me when there is interactive art. It just has that added interesting element to it that I am sure adults find alluring too! I initially had the idea of allowing the audience to touch, smell and dance in the skirt at the exhibition. But after speaking to my tutor I realised that in order to allow the audience to be aware of their other senses I could take the sound and scented elements of the skirt and display them without the costume. This way they can imagine what the costume would look like by using their other senses.

 I designed an exhibition piece that included small bags of different spices that I used on the skirt. I had a recording through headphones of the skirt being danced in along with a photographs of the skirt being danced in. All the elements together would create a sensory experience.

Overall, I think that this project has been extremely challenging and difficult, which is what I wanted as I have learnt so much. Throughout this Foundation Diploma I have gradually been building in confidence.

After seeing the Tim Burton exhibition on my research week in Paris I was completely inspired by him. I adored his character illustrations and was captivated by his creative way of thinking.

“’Fuck it, I don’t care if I can draw or not. I like doing it.’ And I swear to God, from one second to the next I had freedom which I hadn’t had before. From that point on, I didn’t care if I couldn’t make the human form look like the human form. I didn’t care if people liked it. There was this almost like drug-induced sense of freedom.”

“I’ve never been able to predict or think what an audience would like to see. I’ve always felt: how can anybody else want to see it if I don’t want to? And if I want to see it, and nobody else wants to, then at least I get to see it. So, there’s one person who’ll enjoy it.”

·         Tim Burton: “Burton on Burton” Edited by Mark Sailsbury (10)

I really like Burton’s positive way of thinking. This also encouraged me to be more confident in my ideas.

I was really happy with my final exhibition. My project as a whole was graded as a distinction which I am so so pleased with! I will be going to London College of Fashion to study a degree in Costume for Performance in September.

Final Exhibition Show

Final Project - Costume Illustrations

Final Project - Design work and sampling

Here are a few sketchbook pages from my current project about the Human Senses.

Making a basic skirt to experiment with when exploring the senses

Experimenting with hair and buttons - working with how things feel and sound

Working with plastic bags - how things sound/feel

Working with plastic bags and tissue paper

Initial design ideas

Dying with man made dyes and pinning on the mannequin

Experimenting with a Parisian colour scheme

Dying with tea, coffee, cocoa and chilli to develop scented fabric

Experienting with paper - working with sound

Working with spices to develop the sense of smell

Experiementing with a toile to see how fabric moves when danced in

Experiementing with a toile to see how fabric moves when danced in

Design ideas

Dying with cinamon and vanilla. Felting with fennel seeds, cinamon and basil. Keeping to the Parisian colour scheme.

Rock Challenge 2012

The Global Rock Challenge has been the best experience of my life.

I have taught myself so much and learnt about what I really want. No matter how hard I worked in life I felt I was always that tiny bit disappointed. There was something about the Rock Challenge that made me want to do well. It made me want to succeed. When I was 13 years old I participated in the Rock Challenge as a performer and year by year I fell more and more in love with the idea of performance.

Something that we would never get anywhere near enough recognition for was the amount of hard work that goes into being a team leader. The 6^th form committee would always put their heart and soul into the Rock Challenge, persistent to have as little help from the teachers as possible, which has been truly inspirational. We would work so hard as a team and often get disappointed for not getting placed in the top 3. However, we came back fighting, willing to work harder every year!

Year after year we would get picked on and made fun of by other kids in school because of how “rubbish Carisbrooke’s Global Rock was”. I’m going to be honest; this was a horrible thing to have said to you, no matter how jokey it was.

After experiencing being a team leader last year I realised how much work goes into making a production like this. Deciding on a theme, soundtrack, choreography, teaching, costume, set, hair, makeup, lighting and fundraising is just the start of what we do as a 6^th form committee! On top of all this, try to make it fun for the performers and backstage helpers taking part. The fact that we do this around our school studies out of our own free will speaks for itself about how much this means to us.

We first got our top 3 placement in 2010 but yet somehow I still wasn’t satisfied. I felt like people still didn’t truly recognise, understood or care about how good we were at what we did! Therefore, being a team leader the following year encouraged me to work exceedingly hard to the point that it was exhausting and stressful. It was so important to me to give our school a good name.

This year I have been involved with costume and makeup which, again, has taught me so much about how to work with a client: not easy! I thought I would miss being a performer on stage this year but I felt I enjoyed it more to watch the rest of the team on stage dancing with all their heart and soul.

This evening has been one of the most emotional evenings of my life when Carisbrooke College was awarded 1^st place along with best makeup, choreography and set! I felt like after all these years our hard work had finally paid off and I was completely overwhelmed with happiness. Every group of team leaders for Carisbrooke has taught us so much and we have learnt so much off each other’s mistakes, so much so that we have managed to exceed beyond our expectations which is a feeling that I really cannot describe.

Overall, taking part in the Global Rock Challenge for 6 years has been an overwhelming experience of ups and downs but ending on a natural high: something you really cannot get from drugs or alcohol, which I believe is the intention of this project. Next year I intend to study a degree in costume for performance, completely inspired by the Rock Challenge. I feel like I am now capable of anything and it really proves that if you’re passionate about something you can achieve the unimaginable.

Thank you so much Rock Challenge for the opportunity. It will be an experience that I will truly never forget.