The ECA Advent Calendar 2015 takes up where the 2014 calendar left things.
This year’s calendar includes offerings from students at Edinburgh College of Art, in varied programmes such as Animation, Music, Film & TV, and Textiles.
Like in 2014, there is a wide variety of content, and lots of humour and talent on display.
Every now and then a project brings the whole team together and combines everyone’s knowledge and expertise.
It’s always extremely rewarding to see a final product so we’re very excited to announce the launch of the University of Edinburgh’s ‘Research Impact’ site. Going live today after months of planning, building, recording and editing we’re pleased to say it looks great! We will be adding new case studies and improving the website over the next few months but are very happy with announcing what’s in place to the big wide world. And so without further ado… (drum roll please…) here it is!
http://www.impact.hss.ed.ac.uk/
As a world leading university much of the research that goes on in Edinburgh is helping to change world politics, law, economics, social thinking and practises (to name a few!). Here at the uni we felt that the impacts of many of the research studies in the College of Humanities and Social Science were so outstanding that they had to be showcased. The Research Impacts site has taken some of the biggest personalities and most impactful studies and given them a platform. From rebuilding the face of an ancient Egyptian mummy to the impact of neuroscience on The Church of Scotland, the topics and staff featured are vast and all equally fascinating. Building the website, and in my case producing the video features, was (and is) a huge task given that even though these academics are leaders in their fields they can be far too modest or, heaven forbid, camera shy!
Over the last two weeks I’ve been working on a mini-site for the Confucius Institute showcasing the exhibition on propoganda poster art of China they are hosting at Adam House.
The exhibition, which features 133 posters dating from 1913, is just a small sample of the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Collection, which has over 5000 examples of these rare artefacts. The styles and subjects give a fascinating insight into the cultural and political shifts in China through the twentieth century.
Details from ‘Model Opera: Red Army Women’, 1971
Having such a wealth of visually interesting and colourful material made building the website a lot of fun. Using a timeline plugin allowed me to place poster images in context alongside text explaining the shifts in styles and messages used in the artwork. Text from the exhibition catalogue is illustrated with some of the fascinating background details from the posters.
The exhibition runs from 6 June – 12 July at Adam House, Chambers Street. Full details of of opening times and times of guided tours are available on the exhibition website:
Poster Art of Modern China website
Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center (PPAC)
With The Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2014 due to open this weekend (24th May) we’ve been chasing the very best students in sculpture, architecture, interior design and textiles looking for their most exciting pieces of work. Using the teams’ DSLR 60D camera we captured ECA’s weirdest and most wonderful creations on film. (Keep a look out for the video next week!)
Calling this year’s show one of ‘The brightest and most joyful’ shows to date, Textiles’ Programme Director Lindy Richardson was keen to show off her students’ finished products. Using everything from jelly to concrete as inspiration for items of clothing fourth year Jennifer Ellery had some particularly stunning textiles in her degree show collection. Despite being exhausted following the run up to the show Jennifer was happy to chat through her ideas and show off some pieces, all of which were designed with texture and ‘feeling’ in mind. Jennifer chatted about how fabrics and sensations can evoke memories and how she wanted to explore this in her collection.