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.
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
"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.
pictures
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.
"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.
pictures
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. 
