New York City Student Residential 2012

Each year the staff and students in the School of Arts Design and Media in Higher Education attend a residential in a European or International City. This year we took 93 students to New York City. 

We believe strongly in the value of the annual residential. Students who come on the study trip become 'part' of the course / college, its traditions and its values. 

This is where the student 'connects' with their peers and with the philosophy of the course, often this is where the penny drops. Being together 24/7 in a city far from home is impossible to replicate. 

Here are a few highlights from the trip this year.

The BA (Hons) Graphic Arts & Design course took part in 8 studio visits whilst in New York this year! One of the highlights has to be visiting Condé Nast in Times Square, the world's leading publisher of upmarket glossy magazine. Twenty-five students and staff arranged to meet with Carl Kelsch, Production Manager, of Self magazine. As we entered 4 Times Square, students were in awe of the grandeur and scale of the building, not to mention the publications on other floors such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker!

Self magazine has a total audience of 5,904,000 in the USA, made up of both newsstand and subscription users. Carl discussed the challenges of the changing role of design within the publishing industry. He explained how revolutionary technologies now enable the display of information in a range of formats, and that it is crucial for the industry to respond and keep up to maintain readership. It was so valuable for students to be talked through the design process from print to tablet, hearing of the kinds of considerations that need to be taken in to account.

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The students from the BA (Hons) Contemporary Photography course received a special introduction to the photographic collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. We were lucky enough for Malcolm Daniel, Senior Curator in the Department of Photographs at the museum to agree to spend an hour with us showing us some treasures in the archives of the Alfred Stieglitz collection held at the research centre in the museum.

Malcolm started by making a powerful visual demonstration of the difference between archival prints and vintage prints. This is particularly important, as the prevailing attitude towards photographic print currently is to treat them as simply hard copies of what appears on a computer screen. We were reminded that prints are part of the creative process and that the photographer can convey meaning through prints simply through the choices of process used and the technique employed. We discussed whether there is no truer print than that made by the photographer, either at, or around the time the negative was made.

We had an exclusive viewing of a number of vintage prints from Gustav Le Gray as well as a range of nineteenth century prints from the collection. Perhaps the highlight was to see a set of three different prints made by Edward Steichen of the flatiron Building in New York taken in 1905. This was a unique opportunity to see three prints, each treated very differently by Steichen.

 

Finally we were treated to a selection of photographs taken by Stieglitz of the artist Georgia O’Keeffe during their tempestuous relationship and subsequent marriage in the 1920’s. A set of astonishing prints which are one off originals and take pride of place in the collection.







ABC TV Studios, New York

As part of the residential trip to New York, students of FdA TV Production visited ABC Studios to watch the TV recording of "The Chew" (a cross between "Ready, Steady, Cook" and "Saturday Kitchen") and "Katie", a networked live daytime chat show hosted by Katie Couric.

"The Chew" proved to be a lively, upbeat, take on our somewhat more staid UK TV coverage of food, with lots of audience interaction and humour - we also got to see Billy Ray Cyrus who was the special guest.. The crew were very welcoming and - on realising that were were TV production folk - chatted to us at the end ... and asked if we knew of any jobs going at the BBC!

"Katie" was a very different experience - a live-mixed one-on-one chat show the day after the result of the US Presidential Election was announced was bouind to prove a lively occasion! But perhaps the major attraction was the presence of Michael J. Fox as the headline studio guest.

Alongside the hectic challenge shooting their own short pieces, the visit to ABC Studios proved to be the icing on the cake of a busy, industrious - but hugely enjoyable - trip to the Big Apple.

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The students with crew on the set of "The Chew"

 "Katie"

BA (Hons) Illustration Michele Zackheim, School of Visual Arts

The course has had an association with Michele Zackheim, a tutor at the School of Visual Arts, New York (SVA) for a number of years now. When Michele knew we were visiting New York on a student residential, she invited us to attend her class. I took a mix of Level 5 & 6 students (who were particularly interested in narratives of their own) and we joined a class of 20 masters students on the Illustration programme.

The students had been issued with a short story called ‘Yellow Woman’ by Leslie Marmon Silko, prior to the session.  Written in 1974, the story tells of woman who momentarily goes off with a strange man she meets on a walk along the river. The woman is swept up in the traditional Native Ameriacn myth of Kochininako, the Yellow Woman, who left her tribe and family to wander for years with the powerful ka'tsina, or spirit, Whirlwind Man. The story becomes unclear and blurs the boundaries between myth and everyday experience. The session was then led by one of the students from SVA who addressed the class and asked them questions regarding their interpretation of the text. They were all very opinionated and clearly used to discussing work in this way without fear of being chastised.  Our students joined in the discussion and offered an alternative view of the text.

In the second session of the class, Michele provided a range of postcards splayed out on a table. They were a combination of photographic and artists cards. We were asked to select an image quickly and without overthinking our decision. It was important to choose an image that instantly connected with the individual. We were then asked to answer a series of questions to embellish and add layers to the image:  Was it a male or female voice that spoke when you looked at the image? What era was it from? What colours did it evoke? What did it smell like inside the image? How do you relate to the image? What does it say to you?

We then spent 45 minutes, unpacking these initial thoughts and wrote a short story from the perspective or point of view from something or someone in the image. We then took it in turns to stand at the front of the class and read the story aloud. This was a wonderful experience. The students’ stories were so imaginative and we talk so much about visual language in our students images on our course but when they read aloud, you could also hear their personal voice, stance and how they see the world. It was obvious that there is a connection between, the way they write and the images they make. The SVA students were keen to talk with our students and some exchanged contact details. We intend to extend this new link and hope to work on collaborative projects in the future.