It’s the end of the year. Yes, Christmas might be on the horizon. Yes, summer is already burning up the bitumen. And yes, the end of the year means one other inevitable fact: it’s grad show time!
While thousands of students toil slavishly to produce their final works or thread together the final bits of their graduating collections, the rest of us can smile and relax comfortably into our role as spectator. After all, grad shows are a highlight on the calendar, the final coup showcasing some of our state’s most amazing talent.
FASHION
The fashion grad shows in particular seem to garner a whole heap of attention, and this year promises more of the same. And all eyes seem to be shifting between two of the most highly anticipated grad shows of the year: Sixteen Acts at Central TAFE and Home Ground over at Curtin University.
‘Sixteen Acts is a culmination of three years of hard work studying Fashion and Textile design at Central TAFE,’ explained Sixteen Acts organiser and participating student designer Hannah McGrath. ‘Each graduate student is showing a collection of garments that show off the design ability, textile design, and personal design aesthetic we’ve learned and fine tuned while studying here.’
It’s a process McGrath described as ‘surprising, fun, inspiring, stressful, exhausting, useful, exciting, motivating and rewarding’… all at the same time. And she isn’t alone. Joining her collection on stage are Jessica Shirras and Tim Watson, both of whom appeared at OUTinPerth’s Perth Fashion Festival (PFF) event, Tilted Couture.
‘I’ve created a collection called Protective Fragility,’ Shirras says of her final collection. ‘The silhouettes have a hint of science fiction to them as i have been playing with the idea of alter egos. The idea that as a child you create an imaginary world for yourself and even when you get older you put on a professional, strong face, yet all of this can just be a cover for how fragile you really are.’
Watson has taken his lead from French poet Charles Baudelaire, creating clothes for Flaneurs, or people who experience the city by transpiring it. ‘It’s sort of like a dark take on dandy,’ explained Watson. ‘I really wanted to create elegance for men because I feel that that market is lacking and there is a real need to push men’s fashion at the moment.’
Another student involved in Tilted Couture was Curtin University’s Emma Brown, who will be appearing in Home Ground. Brown’s work explores fashion as a necessary extension of the self, yet one through which the wearer takes on attributes beyond themselves creating a tension between reality and desirability.
‘When I create characters or Avatars I think they represent unconsciously pieces of me, it becomes hard to explain as I don’t yet completely understand them,’ explained Brown, who is contemplating honours in graphic design and digital printing, necessary extensions of textile creation.
‘I have an attachment to these characters, which represents the link between these to the digital or the computer generated. This allows me to translate the otherworld – the digital – through digital fabric printing into this world. The cloth virtually comes alive: it moves, reflects light and becomes highly textured. When lit up the cloth transitions into the 3D World.’
An abstract notion? Possibly. But then that’s what grad shows are all about. They allow for – nay, demand – a scope of ideas that push and form at the edges of reason and thought, creating new shapes, forming new instances of inspired communication.
And Home Ground – so called because it takes place at Curtin Stadium – has plenty of brilliant thinking graduates, be it Daniella Caputi’s exploration of laser cutting and balsa wood or Ellen Aunis’ deeply poetic examination of the space between the clothing and the skin. In fact, eight of these students were finalists at PFF’s Student Runway awards.
Still with Curtin University and the Fashion faculty itself has come up with a unique exhibition format for its fashion merchandising students: they’ve literally taken their skills to the streets. Colour Me sees Curtin and OnWilliam band together, giving students the opportunity to recreate the shop windows up and down Northbridge’s shopping precinct.
‘I feel industry experience is a valuable experience for the students,’ said Curtin’s fashion merchandising lecturer Ann Nie. ‘They gain knowledge of the real world of professionalism, client interaction and deadlines. This opportunity working with William Street Collective not only helps the students creatively, but also introduces them to local successful designers in the arts arena.
‘It allows them to network within the design industry and their peers. The exhibition also is a great opportunity for the students to show their abilities to others like design field future employers and future students whom may want to study fashion design at Curtin University.’
Find out for yourself at The Butcher Shop, Red Stripe Clothing, Lala Orange, Harry Highpants, William Topp, Mixtape Gallery, Last Chance Studios and Fi & Co. And there are even collectable colouring in pencils to collect!
ARTS
If the previous shows have piqued your interest, maybe you’re looking for something a little more unusual, something a little more out of the norm. Sunny 16’s may be the perfect solution. It’s a showcase of Diploma of Screen students from Central Tafe and takes place at Movies by Burswood.
‘The term ‘Sunny 16’s’ is a film and photography term used to set correct exposure in sunny outdoors situations, and also refers to our 16mm films,’ explained Diploma of Screen coordinator Perrïe Louise Taylor. ‘We have produced 4 short films shot on 16mm film including Find Me, directed by Daniel Maloney, Re-Write by Aidan Edwards, Watching the Train Wheels from David Smith and Distant Future by Aaron Moss. Short behind-the-scenes films will also be screened.’
Edith Cowan University’s Honours students are also putting on a fine show well worth catching. Called Tracing Lines, the Inaugural Graduate Diploma of Arts (Visual Arts) exhibition explores self-expression from three different perspectives, namely those of Yolande Bennett, Susan Williams and Jane Lawton.
‘The “Portrait Series†represent a reinterpretation of found images from past to present,’ Bennett says of her work in Tracing Lines, which plays on heritage and blood lines. ‘The ancestral images are up to 200 years old and are the only references available of our family’s Russian/Latvian legacy. I have transposed these images through speedy technology and transformed them with traditional painting methods. I am highlighting how globalisation has impacted upon all of us through these works. ‘
‘My aim for this body of work has been to construct images that are compelling personal narratives as an attempt to capture the intrinsic essence of the life of the displaced person,’ added Williams. ‘My focus provides a definition of the necessary common good in society and the need for a fundamental ethics of care toward all humanity.’
‘My interest is in mythology and symbology, especially bull mythology,’ added Lawton.’In contemporary life there is no mythology. There is no reverence for bulls as a symbol of the spirit, but only an interest in beef as a commodity. I am attempting to locate a middle ground between the reverence and slaughter of the bull.’
Down at Swan TAFE, mature age student Cathy Rankin is completing her Advanced Diploma in Applied Environmental Arts, a course which encompasses sculpture, painting and visual culture.
‘It is quite an experience, nothing like I’ve taken on before,’ Rankin said of her time at Swan TAFE. ‘At times it was very stressful and others exciting. If I had my time over again I would do it part time as there is so much work to do, sometimes you run out of time.
‘As much as I’m over studying and can’t wait to finish, I am thinking of doing more study in the textile field. It’s all a matter of tracking down the avenues you want to learn in.’
Which hopefully is another thing these grad shows will achieve: they will inspire people to further their own educations and push thoughts even further.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
What’s coming up…?
Sixteen Acts
Nov 23, His Majesty’s Theatre
Home Ground
Nov 26, Curtin Stadium, Curtin University
Colour Me
Nov 4 – 10, William Street shopfronts, Northbridge
Sunny 16s
Dec 4, Movies by Burswood
Tracing Lines
Opens Nov 9, 6-8pm
Nov 10 – 14, Kurongkurl Katijin Building, Mt Lawley ECU
Vox 2009
Opens Dec 2, 6-9pm
Dec 3 – 16, The Junction Gallery, N Block, Swan TAFE
