AOD:
Designers reach for wings
Academy
of Design (AOD) is the principal organizational body behind the
inception and continuation of Sri Lanka Design Festival (SLDF).
Since SLDF was founded in 2009, the AOD faculty, staff and students
continue to support it in various and numerous ways. Academy of
Design is Sri Lanka's only fully integrated design school, which
offers students a unique, holistic undergraduate education in the
fields of Fashion Design, Graphic Design, Interior Design and
Jewellery Design
Ishara JAYAWARDANE
Sri Lanka Design Festival (SLDF) 2010, organized by the Academy of
Design Sri Lanka, is over, yet it has achieved its objective to showcase
the talents of the students and exhibit their work to the big names in
the industry. It also serves as a meeting between the students and the
industry professionals.
This is basically an exhibition of the graduating batch of AOD. This
is the final project of the BA as well as the HND batch. At the
industrial exhibition all architects and people in the industry could
see the students work.
Creativity unfurls |
Highlights of Sri Lanka Design Festival 2010
|
Graphics
Advertising
Fashion
Interior and Architecture
Jewellery design
Crafts workshops
Photography workshops
Discussions
|
"Tonight we are having a small cocktail just for the industry people.
As you know we are graduating the first Sri Lankan batch of BA in
interior design. They are all going out into the world, so we try to
introduce them to people in the industry," said staff member Joel M Rapp
"This is so they can start engaging in what to do after the
graduation. In three or four years they will finish their studies, then
they will be out looking for jobs, clients, projects and this night is
about starting that process; getting them used to talking to people
about their work and talking about work they can do for them." Said
Joel.
Daily News spoke to Yamini, a BA student; her final project is Human
Trafficking Combat Centre.
"It is more like a board for those councillors working for the
victims as opposed to addressing the victims directly. It act as a
campaign centre for future funding. This initial project was funded by
USAID, so something is getting done here, so this centre acts as an
awareness centre".
Managing Director of AOD, Linda Speldewinde started the entire school
with a very small batch, 20 students. The interior department was
started only a couple of years after that. She began the school in the
year 2000.
British Council Country Director Gillian Westaway |
The AOD is done in partnership with the University of Northumbria.
This is the first batch engaged in a BA in affiliation with the
University of Northumbria. Linda Speldewinde has tied up with
Northumbria University to offer fashion, graphics across all
disciplines.
"Design week is a project created by Linda Speldewinde to bring the
foreign market, the European Western Market of the garment field into
Sri Lanka and show them what all the garment industries are all about.
There is a big collaboration between ETB and Sri Lanka Apparels to
promote this whole event.
"It is all about promoting craftsmanship and design of Sri Lanka
abroad," said Fashion Designer Tiziano
Tiziano further added that the industry then gets to showcase their
clothes, the young crafts, young designers get to exhibit their work and
the graduates of the Academy of Design exhibit their work in front of an
international audience. "European designers will give them the input on
how to increase and make better designs so it is more accepted abroad.
It is all about ethical work, environmental, all about the development
of work within proper standards," said Tiziano.
"The BA program is really important. A lot of other schools have
satellite programs. They get lesser degrees.
Some exhibits.
Pictures by Angelo Samarawickrema |
"We are a franchise program. We deliver less in curriculum and it is
adjudicated by the same examiners in Britain. So if you get a first
class degree from AOD it is equivalent with a first class degree in
Northumbria, England," said Joel M. Rapp.
The degree is valid for employment, for professional service
contracts anywhere in the US or in England. HND is a National
certification program. But with a BA you have the right to join
professional associations, you are qualified to teach and work with
firms - this is with a level of professional certification. "In this
room 27 people are BA candidates - we are not done yet, we have one more
piece to do but I think they will all graduate, that they will all do
their last piece. 13 on the other side and just getting their HND, they
are coming out of their second year. They will start on their BA next
year. There are HND graduates who are going to start their degree and BA
graduates who have completed it," pointed out Joel.
The second year's final project is six months long. The BA is a
one-year long project which incorporates comprehensive research and
paper writing, applied feasibility and design to create a fused
technically complex piece that shows off all their skills and designs.
Yasangi Yatawara shared her views on the project too.
"This is actually for disabled people since Sri Lanka does not have
enough equal opportunities such as education facilities and
accessibility. So this uplifts the spirit of disabled people. We will
rehabilitate them and they will go as normal people in society."
Raking Leaves is a publishing organization set up in 2008 by Sharmini
Pereira. They were invited by AOD to come and take part in this Design
Festival. It basically commissions and publishes artistes' projects in
the form of a book.
"The connection to the design festival is to look broadly at design
in terms of how it connects to the way Sri Lankan contemporary artistes
are working and how book design might be thought of as another form of
exhibition making.
And if you are curating, issues that surround this festival are
there. This is with regard to content, communicating with the pubic and
supporting the creative industries." Raking Leaves Director Sharmini
Pereira said.
"Today the curator has become a key figure in the arts field invested
with power, glamour and an oracular authority," added Pereira |