Wayfinding

Navigation and orientation is a fundamental human activity. During the first stage of the Foundation Diploma, Extended Diploma 2nd year and Access to Higher Education courses – the ‘rotation’ – students must ask themselves ‘where am I and where do I want to go?’. This last cohort of further education students have therefore had to negotiate an expansive, undulating and creative terrain in order to answer this question as burgeoning artists or designers. In this exhibition, you see just a fragment of the work produced at UCA Rochester by these students as they investigate the possible ‘pathways’ at UCA Rochester: fashion and textiles, visual communication, fine art, 3-dimensional creative practice, moving image, photography and creative media.

Each pathway project has a characteristic and identity which has been honed over many years through creative invention and practice-led teaching and evaluation. Devised by specialists in their fields, the ‘rotation’ projects allow students to navigate through unchartered territory to find their own identity as creative practitioners. Each project instils various foundational landmarks for the student to orientate themselves around, from deconstruction to reconstruction, reinventing the way one sees, exploring light, creating mash-up, experimental layouts and opportunities to re-imagine our world. Through this work, students demonstrate they are open to getting lost and finding themselves, creating their own paths that allow for investigation and—we hope—a realisation of their creative identity.

It seems fitting that, in this ever-changing landscape of creative education, we celebrate the outcomes from the various projects students have engaged with; each project and activity following a trusted art school history that stems from Bauhaus practice and innovation. How lucky we have been to have these well-mapped paths to explore, each allowing for an exploration and realisation passed down through generational experience, of one’s own foundation year and those before us.

Private view: 4.30-6.00pm, 27 October 2022