Collaborative Awards
Name
- Hazel Bruce (lead)
- Heather Burgess
- Mo Morrow
- Alison Gault
- Lucy Smyth
- Trish Belford
- Maureen Collins
- Dean Ligget
- Mary Callan
- Shonagh Galbraith
- Kevin Burns
- Jamie Kerr
- Barbara Dass
Department
Belfast School of Art
About the Team
Textile Art, Design and Fashion is a multi-faceted programme with 5 specialisms. We encourage individual pathways, diverse approaches and support students to develop confident, authentic work. They are asked to embrace a culture of ambiguity and experimentation, to discuss their work in all its stages in tutorials and group critiques. This is a challenging landscape and there can be a tendency to hold back, waiting for the perfect idea to materialize.
The Envelope Project was designed to address this hesitancy, to illustrate the importance of committing, not waiting for the perfect idea before beginning
For the first project, all academic and technical colleagues, graduates in residence and researchers associated with the course were given an envelope containing a mundane selection of dyed paper. There was no brief, just a week to make something. It was a deliberately uninspiring beginning, we wanted to show that no matter what the starting point, if you commit, something interesting can happen, work exists, confidence grows and it’s easier to move on.
The project is now in its 7th iteration, each time set by a different colleague. We present our work to the students, describing thinking processes, motivation, successes and failures. Importantly we are not showing successful finished work, but the tentative beginnings of the process.
The team is leading by example, showing how much work can be made in a few hours, while watching a Nordic drama on Saturday night because we want to be part of something. We work together to motivate ourselves, our students, to demonstrate the diversity of the subject and to take part in a project which is now embedded in the programme. Students tell us how influential the project is, in the development of their own work and their understanding of the importance of a community of practice. The next one is remote!