Brave New Alps

stop. swap

2009

stop. swap, the sequel of The Skills Workshop, is a week of cross-departmental workshops and talks in the Hockney Gallery at the RCA which we organised in collaboration with our friend Ana Viegas and which took place from the 5th to the 9th of October 2009. It represents an attempt to temporarily lower the various barriers that separate the 20 departments of the college from each other.
stop. swap aims at bringing together students from different fields of practice in order to encourage them to share their methods and approaches to a certain subject. It provides a fertile ground for exchange and, like this, facilitates possible future collaborations between students operating in different though neighbouring fields.
stop. swap is an experiment through which we try to explore a possible path in design education, which is based on the exchange as well as the collaboration between practitioners from diverse fields. We believe that the cross-fertilization this brings along bears a huge potential for innovative projects.

 

Here is the program of the week:

MONDAY 5 / LANGUAGE
9:30 Communal breakfast.
10:30 Jon Ang, Letty Stott and Eiko Azuma from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama share some of the rhythmical patterns they learned in Bali last summer on improvised instruments.
14:00 Meeting Hal Silver , a newborn collective of 9 photography students of the RCA.
16:30 Darragh O’Callaghan talks about Q-Art London , a forum for visual art and visual culture students and graduates from across London’s major art universities.
17:30 Ronan Leyden from BioRegional brings news for product designers from the Olympic Site.

TUESDAY 6 / SPACE
9:30 Breakfast with Tord Boontje , the new Design Products Head of Department.
14:00 Jewelery workshops with Florie Salnot & Billur Turan from Design Products.
16:30 Coffee & Cake.
18:30 Guildhall Musicians come in for a jam. They are looking for people to collaborate with, so come along if you’re interested.

WEDNESDAY 7 / COLOUR
9:30 Communal breakfast.
10:30 Workshops in textile and color with Anaïs Tondeur (Textiles), Marie Paysant-Le Roux (Textiles graduate) and Jrumchai Singalavanij (Textiles).
12:00 Alison Thomson (DI) and Chloë McCormick (Textile Futures, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design) talk about their collaboration and screen their film about colour.
13:00 Presentation Formal with Maki Suzuki and Kajsa Ståhl from Åbäke (who wants to join in should bring a salad ingredient and a question about their practice).
15:00 Across RCA, previously known as Thinking & Practice Group hold one of their sessions in the gallery. Come along to share some thoughts about what you’re currently working on.
18:00 The Acoustic Images group (CA&D / moving image) screen some of their films from 2009.

THURSDAY 8 / RITUAL
9:30 Breakfast the department administrators Pam Martins (CA&D), Gail Romanes (School of Communications), Brigitte Lelievre (DI) and Amanda Mansell (GSM&J).
10:30 Linda Brothwell (GSM&J graduate) shows recent works in the Lisbon public realm and shares wood inlay techniques she learned there, showing how to apply them to the Performing Arts Lab old wooden bench.
14:00 Jewellery workshop with Josephine Winther (Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery): how to make a brooch from scratch.
16:30 Green RCA comes for tea.
18:00 History of Design screening: La Chinoise by Godard.

FRIDAY 9 / TIME
9:30 Breakfast with rector Paul Thompson .
10:30 Adnan Lalani, Silas Money, Callum Cooper and Mike Please from Animation hold different workshops with different techniques: praxinoscopes, drawing on film, pixelation.
14:00 Continuing the morning workshops; Animation Attack with Callum Cooper and friends; Presentation of 3d image facilities at Design London.
16:30 2nd year Animation students show their 1st year films.
+ Celebration of the end of the week at the Art Bar.


 

And here a bunch of pictures (roll-over for details) and clips produced during the week:

stop-swap_musicians stop-swap_halsilver

stop-swap_ronan stop-swap_boontje2

stop-swap_florie-billur stop-swap_anais-marie

stop-swap_alison-thomson_chloe stop-swap_abake

stop-swap_across-rca stop-swap_acoustic-images

stop-swap_administrators stop-swap_linda-brothwell

stop-swap_linda-brothwell_inlay stop-swap_josephine

stop-swap_paul-thompson stop-swap_silas

stop-swap_pixelation stop-swap_adnan

stop-swap_animation-screening