Introduction

Unit X at Level 5 gives you an opportunity to develop areas of interest that will compliment and extend your practice. The project options set out by staff from across the Art School allow you as a practitioner the opportunity to place yourself and your practice in a real world context. This not only allows you the opportunity to have a supported view of potential career paths, but also allows you to further develop your professional skills.

Making a Choice

You will choose from the projects descriptions in this document, or you may choose to negotiate a placement or work experience.

Please read through this document thoroughly and speak with your personal tutor before making your choice.

Submitting your choice

Online choices recording will go live on Moodle on Thursday 14th January 2016 with a final deadline of Sunday 24th January - Midnight.

Question and Answer sessions will be held in the second week of term should you want to find out more about the projects you are considering before making a final decision. Staff running each of the projects outlined in this document will host a ses-sion and give a brief presentation, this will allow you to make a more informed deci-sion. See project description for Date, Time and venue.

It is advisable you speak with your tutor before making your decision as they will be able to advise you correctly and ensure you get the most from this opportunity.

There will be one introduction per project and none will be repeated. Check Moodle regulalry to ensure you have the schedule - once it has been finalised and circulated.

General information

The project options are numbered in relation to the moodle sites you will be linked to. For example Options 1 & 1a will share a moodle space, as will 4 & 4a. They will be taught as two separate projects but will share some events or input, hence sharing the moodle page. Options 2, 3, 5, 6 &7 have individual moodle spaces.

Once you have made your option choice you will be linked to the appropriate moodle space by your programmes administration team.

During the Unit, when you access Moodle you should see a header outlining – Unit X option (Number), scroll down the page to find the location for your specific project. This is where your project leaders will upload information. If you have any problems contact a.digaudio@mmu.ac.uk for help.

Project 1 – Educator

Introduction talk - Wednesday 20th January 3PM Chatham 312

In this project you will work with local Primary/Secondary Schools, or Community Arts groups to develop and deliver an event or workshop activity for them. You will be introduced to a number of different ways of working as an artist educator, be that Artist in Residence, Teacher or Independent Artist delivering workshops to the general public. Working in small teams you will use your own practice, approaches and experience as a starting point for engaging others in creative activity. This might be delivering practical courses at an arts centre based on your own work, working with and/or mentoring secondary age pupils seeking help to develop their portfolios or helping primary school children or adults with learning difficulties to explore the world through creative activities. You will also gain experience in project development, planning and delivery as well as developing expertise in skills sharing and mentoring.

This project is suitable for people who think they might in the future want to deliver workshops as part of their own practice, or have an ambition to become a teacher. Our external partners for this year include; Schools in Greater Manchester, Experienced Workshop Leaders, Manchester Art Gallery and staff from the PGCE course team at MMU.

Unit X options 1 & 1A

Project 1A – Pass it on: Catalyst

Introduction talk - Tuesday 19th January 10AM Chatham 312

This unique project is a learning collaboration between Manchester School of Art and MMU’s Faculty of Science & Engineering. Working in art studios, science labs and galleries, students from the two Faculties will be exposed to each others curiosities and methods. You will experiment together, accelerating new questions and knowledge that will change your learning habits, and develop your science and art practices. You will also have opportunities to assist international artists and Manchester Art Gallery’s education team, helping a wide range of age groups and abilities engage with art and science.

We will also stage a learner-curated Thursday Late gallery intervention in response to The Imitation Game. This major international exhibition, during spring/summer at Manchester Art Gallery, will critically examine robotics, computing and engineering, and the impact of such technology on our understanding of life.

During Pass it On: Catalyst you will work alongside professional artists, scientists, curators, gallery educators and science communicators. The project is led by artists Annie Carpenter & Dave Griffiths (MSA) with physicist and poet Sam Illingworth (FSE), and curator Clare Gannaway (MAG).

Please note that the main meetings for this project will take place on Wednesday afternoons.

Placements/Work experience (work based learning)

Introduction talk - Wednesday 20th January 4PM Chatham 312

Students may negotiate to undertake a full-time work placement during Unit X. This must be discussed with your programme tutor to establish suitability of the placement to your studies. The organisation of your placement must be undertak-en with the support and guidance of the Placements team. For more information please visit;

http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/hlss/about-us/placements/

For documentation around work experience please visit;

http://www.artdes.mmu.ac.uk/administration/workexperience/

We define Placements and Work-based Learning (PWBL) as any period of vocational or academic activity where students engage with a third party as part of their programme of study, and where there is transfer of direct supervision to this third party.

You can also contact Kirstin Burke Placements Officer at K.Burke@mmu.ac.uk or call her landline on: 0161 247 6611.

As with all other projects there will be a Q&A session delivered by staff with experi-ence of supporting these opportunities to students.

Unit X option 2

Project 3 – fashion industry

Introduction talk - Wednesday 20th January 6PM Chatham 312

The fashion-based brief concentrates on developing a range of 12 looks for an external client. Focussing on Men’s or Women’s wear for a high profile Brand, for example in the past two years of Level 5 Unit X, this has been KENZO and DKNY.The project will be undertaken in groups, identified in the first weeks and allocated according to your design/creative philosophy and approach to practice.

The project will consist of tutorials and workshops that enable you to further develop your research and design skills, together with range planning, finishing and fabric skills – essential in intelligent fashion design.

During this project there will be an emphasis on improving on existing fabrics, for example bonding knits to wool, woven ribbon through perforated fabrics, rubberised denim, quilted fabrics, foiled fabrics, embroidery and applique.

You will not be making full garments, rather you will be improving your design skills, and finishing through practical hands-on sampling.

This project would be of use to students wishing to develop their ability to work in a brand – led creative consultancy model. It will be fast-paced and Industry focussed.

Unit X option 3

Project 4 – Design studio/Creative hub

Introduction talk - Thursday 21st January 1PM Chatham 312

A project to re-think and re-propose how we inhabit, socialise and work within city workspace. Working with Bruntwood as a client (who with over one hundred offices in the North-West, are one of Manchester’s leading commercial landlords), students will be working on proposing reasons that transform the obvious, the styled and the unconsidered to spaces that breathe, are exciting, magical and source of energy for the day to day worker and the visitor alike, create new methodologies for spaces that encourage wonderful work and community. Bruntwood are establishing themselves as a landlord that provides spaces for creative companies, this does not eradicate lawyers, accountants or others but should provide an environment that is creative and energetic in it’s outlook. The essence of the brief will be to rethink the working environment and to establish wholesome, beautiful, useable space that helps the city worker to think/ make/ work/ play/ com-municate and grow. The space is yours to change. The project will see students working as newly formed ‘design studios to design, make, pitch and create proposals that redefine creative space in the city. The aim is that proposals pitched to Bruntwood at the end of the unit will become real spaces that are commissioned, produced and installed!

Unit X option 4 & 4A

Project 4A – City rooftops

Introduction talk - Wednesday 20th January 1PM Chatham 312

This project will allow you to reinterpret and transform rooftop spaces with creative problem solving through up-cycling and re-hashing existing ‘industrial materials’ towards contemporary solutions for seating, skins, sheltering’s, coverings, fencing, divides, bird boxes, follies, parasols, gazebos and or sculpture for the urban rooftop space.

Sustainability - This project will involve the interrogation of sustainable materials. You will be sampling, testing and manipulating a range of media to identify opportunities for new products and processes.

Materials and suppliers are currently under discussion. - Final draft will be published on moodle.

This project will suit those wishing to develop new approaches to material manipulation and through practice, identify opportunities for future products around the theme of sustainability.

Project 5: Archive: The Imagined Museum

Introduction talk - Wednesday 20th January 2PM Chatham 312

The Archive as a Catalyst for inspiring creative and reflective work

This project introduces you to diverse museum collections and archives, offering a wealth of creative inspiration and information. You will create a response to this material, through the process of retrieving or inventing a narrative. A series of lectures, including those by contemporary artists and scholars who are actively using objects and narratives in their practice, are provided as research material to help in the shaping of your responses. Visits to collections will offer direct engagement with the materials and open opportunity for discussion with archivists / curators. Following an initial period of research and interrogation around a single object or collection of objects, you will develop a creative response. This will lead to a narrative, for further in-depth exploration, to take one of the following three forms:

Book

You will create a sequential series of images that corresponds to your developed narrative. The book will be 32 pages long and this should take into account front and back endpapers, a title page and a copyright page.

Animation / Moving Image

You will create an animation, or moving image piece that corresponds to your developed narrative. The piece may take any form you choose and may work creatively with the space / exploring frame ‘boundaries’ or the wider possibilities of projection.

Open response

You will create your own ‘museum’ and this might take a number of forms. It may be an essay, a visual essay, a three-dimensional piece, or another appropriate creative outcome, which is developed through your research (and to be further negotiated with support from project tutors).

Unit X option 5

Project 6 – Whitworth Threads

Introduction talk - Tuesday 19th January 3PM Chatham 312

This project places the student in partnership with the Whitworth Art Gallery and supports the development of emerging creative practitioners who broadly sit within the field of making. You will investigate the Whitworth as an archive, gallery, space and building, set within a public parkland. In addition to privileged access to archives and exhibitions, student will meet staff from various teams within the organisation including curatorial, visitor engagement and commercial staff.

Working in response to the venue, exhibitions, collection and archives, the Whitworth Project provides an opportunity to propose designs and artefacts for a range of purposes:

A proposal for a Product that is appropriate to be sold in the shop Development of gallery craft pieces that are appropriate to be shown within a venue such as the Whitworth Designs or artefacts that respond to the visitor experience, and their relationship with exhibition – building – internal/external space

This project should be of interest to students who wish to develop their practice as:

An independent craft practitioner A designer responding to client brief An artist responding to location / collection

Students will respond to the brief in collaboration with others as part of a design team or creative partnership. An ‘event’ during the first week of the project will facilitate the finding and forming of collaborative partnerships.

The Whitworth are seeking to work with emerging designers and makers from the School of Art. They would like students to develop proposals that convey their Playful, Intelligent and Personal ethos.

Unit X option 6

The Whitworth exhibitions on at the time of Unit X include:

Tibor Reich

This retrospective celebrates the centenary of Tibor Reich, a pioneering post-war textile designer, who brought modernity into British textiles… introducing bright new colours and textures into the drab interiors of post-war Britain. The exhibition explores the ideas behind his innovative textiles, photography, ceramics and drawings.

Nico Vascellari

Italian artist Nico Vascellari occupies the Whitworth’s Landscape Gallery. Haunting installation Bus de la Lum (‘Hole of Light’) draws on the arcane powers of the forest and suggests the deep secrets within it. Shrouded in mystery, the void emits a strange light that has long been associated with magic and satanic legend. Vascellari also connects us to another place, Darvaza (‘Door to Hell’) a vast, burning crater in the desert of Turkmenistan. The stories of these two magical places are interwoven by light, shadow and an extraordinary soundtrack created in collaboration with Turkish-born musician Ghédalia Tazartès.

Unit X option 6 (continued)

Project 7 – Publishing

Introduction talk - Wednesday 20th January 5PM Chatham 312

There has never been a better time to self-publish. Titles proliferate on almost any subject you care to think about and often there are a range of approaches to popular subjects aimed at smaller or niche audiences. Social networking and mobile devices offer a range of opportunities for extending the brand of a publication and delivering content in ways that are no longer limited to the printed page.

This option will take a collective and collaborative approach to the creation of publications, while emphasising and encouraging other entrepreneurial behavior across disciplines. It will challenge you to think about how we begin to articulate and document practice, while also questioning the role that art and design has to play in not only delivering visual content, but also in persuading an audience about the viability of a project.

The generation of content may include personal responses to themes, spaces, interviews and artist studio visits alongside projects within Unit X and externally across Manchester and beyond. The first week will include a workshop with Rotterdam based Studio Dumbar, a world-renowned, multi-disciplinary studio to kick start this project. Keynote speakers could include Hey Studio, Intern Magazine and Mucho amongst others.

This option will be delivered through collaborative projects, workshops and events all focused on an inter-disciplinary approach, with opportunities for self-initiated publications and events. There will also be the opportunity to respond individually to live briefs set organizations (such as Topman) and studios operating in Manchester and further afield.

Key Skills:

Concept, Presentation, Teamwork, Professionalism, Leadership, Industry Employability

Unit X option 7

About partners –

Studio Dumbar

STUDIO DUMBAR IS AN INTERNATIONAL AGENCY WITH A DUTCH HERITAGE.Design is at the heart of what we do. We describe our work as ‘visual branding, online branding’, meaning we create every visible expression of a brand or organisation — offline and online. This involves expertise in strategy, communication, branding and process-management.

It is in our nature to look for the pure essence — in the people we work with, and the projects we take on. It’s a mentality that helps us to build a great team and achieve extraordinary results, no matter how complex or demanding a project might be.

Hey Studio

HEY IS A GRAPHIC DESIGN STUDIO BASED IN BARCELONA, SPAIN.We specialise in brand identity, editorial design and illustration. We love geometry, colour and direct typography. This is the essence of who we are. We take care of every single step of the design process and we always work closely with our clients, big or small, in one-to-one relationships. We also undertake side projects.

These activities aim to play with new ideas, push our creative boundaries and develop a passion that is then injected into client’s work.

Unit X option 7 (continued

Remember

Online choices recording will go live on Moodle on Thursday 14th January 2016 with a final deadline of Sunday 24th January - Midnight.

Introduction, Question and Answer sessions are scheduled as follows;

Unit X option 1 - Project; Educator - Wed 20th Jan - 3PM CH312

Unit X option 1A - Project; Catalyst - Tue 19th Jan - 10AM CH312

Unit X option 2 - Project; Placements/Work Exp - Wed 20th Jan - 4PM CH312

Unit X Option 3 - Project; Fashion Industry - Wed 20th Jan - 6PM CH312

Unit X Option 4 - Project; Design Stuido/Creative Hub - Thu 21st Jan - 1PM CH312

Unit X option 4A - Project; City Rooftops - Wed 20th Jan - 1PM CH312

Unit X Option 5 - Project; Out of the Archive - Wed 20th Jan 2PM CH312

Unit X Option 6 - Project; Whitworth threads - Tue 19th Jan - 3PM CH312

Unit X Option 7 - Project; Publishing - Wed 20th Jan - 5PM CH312

If you have any problems with making your choice and would like to speak to amember of the team who coordinate Unit X please contact;

Clare Campion - c.campion@mmu.ac.uk

// OR //

Adriano Digaudio - a.digaudio@mmu.ac.uk