UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 13 JULY 2017
A selection of first year BA (Hons) Jewellery and Objects students recently exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society Chatsworth Flower Show as part of a live project with Horticulture Week.
The brief, as part of the Professional Collaboration module, asked all of the students on the course to design and make either an item of jewellery or an object to celebrate 175 years of the Horticulture Week publication. These students were shortlisted down to 10 who exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society Flower Show at Chatsworth House, with two receiving prizes for their work.
Students were asked to respond to the briefs by generating, developing and realising their ideas through the form of relevant primary, secondary and contextual research, alongside 2D and 3D design development, experimentation and investigation.
Horticulture Week’s technical editor Sally Drury visited the students to talk to them about Horticulture Week and the role it has played as the voice of the professional horticulture industry over the past 175 years.
Alise Zlatkina was awarded a prize for her ‘Transfiguration’ object, built from gilding metal, brass, silver, gold, plate and oak. Transfiguration aims to translate an idea of an unbreakable cycle between nature and the artificial world the human race has created.
“At the beginning I thought about flowers and nature, so I went to the botanical gardens and really got interested in tropical plants where I got my inspiration for the form of my submission” Alise said afterwards.
“It’s amazing working on live projects such as these – it’s real life and out there for the public to see. It’s really nerve-wrecking being shortlisted from the whole year and then to find out who won.
Arlena Paraschievescu prize-wiining necklace ‘Counting’ is inspired by the life-cycle of a plant. She said afterwards:
“I’m very proud to win this award alongside Alise. We had over 50 students enter, so I didn’t expect to win. It was a really interesting, wide-ranging brief. I was really inspired by life-cycles, so I picked the three most important elements: The seed, the flower and the fruit. I liked the connection from going from one stage to the next through photosynthesis. The medal spins, and each spin represents a year.”
Kate Lowe, the Editor of Horticulture Week had nothing but praise for the students:
“I was particularly struck by the diversity of interpretation of the brief and outcomes on display - again a clear reflection of the effort that each of the shortlisted students had put into researching and developing their own unique interpretation of the brief.”
“This was a very impressive body of work from students in their first year. The fact that the shortlisted work delivered two winners speaks volumes!”
Completing live projects such as these give you the opportunity to work within a professional context and introduces students to aspects of professional practice, gaining awareness of possible future career directions within the discipline.