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Politics,
politicking,
politic,
political correctness,
political economy,
polity;
all words derived from the central notion - to be ‘POLITICAL’. This singular
adjective is described in the dictionary with the following definitions:
This single word has many different interpretations, proven firstly within the
dictionary, then secondly within the individual. Politics means many different
things internationally, nationally, regionally and personally. Influenced by the
media, social groups, religion, relationships and government (another list that
is by no means finite), POLITICS is another mind-blowing genre contemporary
artists can comment upon.
The University of the Arts nurtures and supports some of the world’s most
talented artists. For this issue of ‘Less Common More Sense’ we invited the
future cream of the creative crop to submit their interpretations and creations
regarding POLITICS. In return for their artistry and creativity we at Less
Common provide a platform for the next generation of contemporary artists.
TH
E P
OLIT
ICA
L ISS
UE
.
Rachel BrownDeputy Editor of Less Common More Sense
1 an act relating to the government or public affairs of a country,
2 one who is interested in or active in politics,
3 to act in the interest of status within an organisation rather
than on principle.
MANIFESTO
03
© COPYRIGHT 2008
The Students’ Union, University of the Arts London and the authors.
No article may be reproduced or altered in any form without the written
permission of the editor(s). The views expressed by the contributors/
writers are not necessarily those of the editor(s), the publishers or the
University of the Arts London.
Editor-in-Chief Ronan Haughton
Deputy Editor Rachel Brown
Journalism Sub-Editor Chris Ackerley
Fashion Sub-Editor Huma Humayun
Lead Designer Hei Shing Chan
Designer Tatiana Woolrych
LMCS Logo Design Daniel Camacho
Proof Reader Hannah Devoy
Proof Reader Louisa Koussertari
Proof Reader Alex Linsdell
Advertising Amelia Davis [email protected] 0845 1300 667
Production Advisor Guy DeVilliers
CONTRIBUTORS
CAMBERWELL COLLEGE OF ARTS Hei Shing Chan MA BOOK ARTS Lemma Nour Shehadi FOUNDATION STUDIES IN ART AND DESIGN Damilola
Odusote BA ILLUSTRATION CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN Nicky Nicole MA FINE ART Alexa Hall CRITICISM, COMMUNI-
CATION & CURATION Hannah Devoy BA PRODUCT DESIGN CHELSEA COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN Jonny Briggs BA FINE ART Ian Giles BA FINE
ART LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION Chris Ackerley MA JOURNALISM Jonny McDevitt MA JOURNALISM Christopher Hunt BA PHOTOG-
RAPHY James Tye MA PHOTOGRAPHY Will Kay FDA GRAPHIC COMMUNICATION Philip Yalley FDA DIGITAL MEDIA PRODUCTION Souhail Alzaatari
BA PHOTOGRAPHY Rachel Brown BA PHOTOGRAPHY Tatiana Woolrych TYPOGRAPHIC DESIGN Norman Wilcox PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY
PRACTICE Sarah Victoria Kane BA PHOTOGRAPHY Amanda Johansson BA PHOTOGRAPHY Daniel Camacho BA GRAPHIC DESIGN Alex Linsdell
BA MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES LONDON COLLEGE OF FASHION Katie Helen Bishop BA Fashion Studies Huma Humayun BA FASHION STUDIES
Louisa Koussertari FASHION MARKETING AND PROMOTION ONLINE FOUNDATION DEGREE
04
COLOPHON
Political Work 05» 08
Farewell you streets of sorrow 09» 13
Political Blemish 14
Interview with Damilola Odusote 15» 18
Ian Giles 19» 20
Alexa Hall - Noki Interview 21» 24
Katie Bishop 25» 26
Trapped in a Grown-up World 27» 28
Lion Club 29» 30
Political Art or Liberal Propaganda? 31» 32
American Postcards 33» 36
Less common More sense issue 11THE POLITICAL ISSUE
Publisher
The Students’ Union
University of the Arts London
65 Davies Street
London
W1K 5DA
THANKS TO
John Bloomfield
Johnny Eveson
Andrea Strachan
Duncan Mann
Art Kaligos
Noki
GET INVOLVED / SUBMIT YOUR W
ORKV
isit ww
w.suarts.o
rg/lesscom
mo
n to submit yo
ur wo
rk or find o
ut how
to becom
e part of the m
agazines volunteer team
. You
must be a current student to be part o
f the team.
You m
ust be a current student or an
alumni o
f the University o
f the A
rts Londo
n to submit
your w
ork.
Cover A
rtwork by W
ill Kay
printed on recycled paper
Condoleezza Does Detention
OW rk
P liticalN
icky
Nico
leThe argument th
at substa
nce in politi
cs is
losing out to
personality
and spin sh
ows no sig
n
of abatin
g. The codes o
f mass
communication
ensure that m
icro-sound bite
s are re
peated
and re-re
peated, creatin
g a convenient net th
at
allows im
portant f
acts, tr
uths, and alte
rnative
perspectiv
es to sli
p through ra
tional d
iscourse
.
This work fo
cuses on in
sights
into three W
estern
political c
haracters and th
e spin th
at has a
ttached
itself t
o them, in
terwoven with
wilfully
hopeful
yet recalcitr
ant questi
ons.
We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother
country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we
have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down
to posterity representing Liberty.
Wel
com
e to
the
Wild
Wild
Wes
t
To take this theme of war and terrorism further I
shall tell you a story about a little girl. She heard a
loud boom and felt the ground move; the explo-
sion was at her father’s church. At that moment the
little girl’s friend was dying, because of the blast that
the little girl felt and heard but did not see. It was a
racially motivated terrorist attack. It was September
the 15th 1963, and the terrorists were not Muslim
extremists, but American white supremacists. The lit-
tle girl was Condoleezza Rice and her friend who died
was Denis McNair. The question that the chalk and oil
painting ‘Condoleezza Does Detention’ asks is:
‘Did she learn grace and understanding from the experience, or has the bullied become the global bully?’
Vis
ion
Test
To this piece we add an-
other, a supporting ‘Vision
Test’. In life it is the exact
size of the Snellen eye test
and as such sets itself up
as a ‘Vision Test’. The
‘Vision Test’ makes fun
of Bush’s idea of ‘A War
on Terror’. Where does
the terror start? The
nightmares of a child,
a fear of the dark, of
spiders, of dentists
or maybe the most
terrifying thing of
all: war itself.
Cen
tral
Sai
nt M
arti
ns M
A F
ine
Art
ww
w.n
icky
nico
le.c
o.uk
05
06
The piece, entitled ‘Welcome to the Wild Wild West’, stands 1.2 metres
tall and mirrors the proportions of the Stars And Stripes. It reflects upon
the irony of the sentiments of George Washington, when he said:
My atte
ntion was
first d
rawn to
Bush. It was
at a tim
e
when ‘Bushism
s’ were pourin
g out o
f our T
V sets,
as the
new President w
as esta
blishing h
imself as th
e comic g
enius
of Americ
a. It was
a biza
rre moment, w
hen the world
felt politic
s slip fir
mly
into the re
alm of su
rrealis
t abstr
action an
d disjointed justif
ication. I r
emember
with re
gret th
e sunny d
ay upon which
Bush smiled at
me from a c
ollage of th
e
The Simpsons, Frie
nds and Heat m
agazin
e and sa
id, ‘I don’t r
ead many
books’. It was
at that m
oment that I
leant forw
ard to
the edge of m
y seat,
and thought (i
n unison with
a growing g
lobal conscio
usness), ‘W
ell maybe
you should, you’re the fucking President o
f Americ
a’.
The contemporary reading – that the
red stripes stand for the blood of those who
give their lives for freedom – is no less ironic. And in front of this
great symbol of America is the obvious pose of the comic book president, living out
his fantasy of being a Texan cowboy and challenging us to remember all his great lines of
wit. Could he have been more prophetic, in the millennium year, when he said, ‘Ameri-ca better beware of a candidate who is willing to stretch reality in order to win points’?
Beware Weapons of Mass Distraction
Forgive me Father for I have sinned
A gracious response at this stage is to offer Blair
luck with his newfound spirituality. So,
as a gesture of goodwill – or as a
retirement gift – the next piece is
a set of black and white rosary
beads. These offer the pearl of
wisdom that nothing is simply
black or white, and are finished
with a Christian cross made of
two silver rifles.
Our conclusion takes us to the heart of
politics, addressing the politicians’ tendency to cast
blame and manipulate others in order to further their
own aims. This final piece, ‘The Puppeteer is not
God’, draws a line under these pieces of politically-
inspired art. So, moving from the comic, to the
bully, and to the Christian cross at the end of
Blair’s rosary beads, the puppeteer dangles
the symbols of the three Abrahamic
monotheistic faiths in front of us. As a
case study of blame and manipulation,
it poses the question: is it religion (or
some other symbol of blame) that
causes war, or the tangling of the
strings by the puppeteers?
Political or otherwise,
we cannot know if the
visit was tinged with
some level of regret or
remorse, and so the piece
stands as a confessional
box with a little black sliding
door. On one side, ‘Forgive
me Father for I have sinned’.
On the other, the smile;
famously labelled as ‘evil’ by the
Conservatives, it beams back at
us from behind the wire mesh,
protecting the identity of the per-
son making the confession from the
eyes of the forgiving Priest (or Pope,
for those in high places).
About NickyNicky Nicole studied
communication theory as part of a BA in
Australia, which included illustration, life drawing, and
mass media, as well as painting, at the Canberra School of Art.
She is currently studying fine art at Central Saint Martins.
Her interest in the relationship between
communication and art is a constant theme in her studies and work (in advertising,
design and communication). Nicky practices concept-led art from the fine art perspective,
where the choice of medium is inextricably linked to the concept and realisation. The aim of her work
is to make the audience question its accepted reality. The overriding theme of her work is the exploration of
the relationship between ‘perception and reality’.
‘My work is developed around themes and by adopting socially unfamiliar perspectives I seek to reveal an alternative perception
and to question the premises of socially accepted truths. To do this I use the discipline of fine art and take advantage of the
inherent semiotic codes within a medium, thereby communicating the desired message with the medium supporting the communication
rather than it being predetermined.’
Recent work from Nicky has been based on the three Abrahamic monotheistic faiths and politics. Her work is clearly influenced by McLuhan’s
argument that ‘the medium is hot’, with the medium and message creating total communication. In conjunction, she has drawn intellectual and material inspiration from the ready mades of Duchamp. As such she sees herself as one in a growing list of recalcitrant artists.
The
Pupp
etee
r is n
ot G
od
Pearls of Wisdom
Is it religion that causes war, or the tangling of the
strings by the puppeteers?
07
08
From here we add another piece to the puzzle, ‘Beware Weapons of Mass
Distraction’. The subtle change in the word from ‘destruc-
tion’ to ‘distraction’ is spelled out in Morse
code, so that when you move closer
to the piece you can hear the military
intelligence clicking away. To which it is
apt, once again, to quote Bush: ‘Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.’ At least Bush has
clarified that England and America can no
longer call themselves free nations.
This brings us, conveniently, to England. How
did we get caught up in all of this? What was
Blair thinking? ‘Forgive me Father for I have
sinned’ is the last political character piece,
and takes Blair to the end of his reign. His last
official overseas engagement, as the Prime Min-
ister who took England to war on the grounds
of ‘weapons of mass destruction’, was to meet
the Pope at the Vatican. Cherie, his long-suffering
wife, whom Blair always seems publicly embar-
rassed by, came into her own; her Catholicism
shone as brightly as a pot of gold.
A r
etro
spec
tive
lo
ok
at I
rela
nd
’s m
usi
c an
d i
ts p
lace
in
the
nar
rati
ve o
f th
e co
unt
ry’s
tro
ub
led
pas
t.
you
str
eets
of
sorr
ow
Jonn
y M
cDev
itt
FA
RE
WE
LL
Last year, Ron Kavana released a retrospective anthology
of Irish music, which was saluted for comprising an excit-
ing new form of academic report. The four CD collection
reorders songs chronologically, from the Norman invasion
to modern day Ireland, interspersing them with spoken word
tracks about the historical development of the Irish nation.
However, as the man who once lent his vocals to the uncom-
promisingly hard-hitting Pogues track ‘Young Ned of the Hill’
- in which he sang:
A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell
You who raped our Motherland
I hope you’re rotting down in hell
For the horrors that you sent
To our misfortunate forefathers
Whom you robbed of their birthright
“To hell or Connaught” may you burn in hell tonight
- his powers of historical objectivity were at once treated
with suspicion. The trend of scholarly revisionism in Irish
history, which has attempted to trace the influence of the
Celts through to the present day, has always been imbued
with nationalistic undercurrents that surface through Irish
music. The Pogues, who did much to perpetuate the notion
of the Irish as drinkers, thinkers and tinkers, addressed many
of the events that forged such enmity with their neigh-
bours across the sea. ‘Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six’
condemned the imprisonment of ten Irishmen who were
convicted of the murder of twenty one people in 1974. The
track was banned for its incendiary lyrics, which include
the lines:
May the whores of the empire lie awake in their beds
And sweat as they count out the sins on their heads
While over in Ireland eight more men lie dead
Kicked down and shot in the back of the head
Just as Bob Dylan’s song ‘Hurricane’ points a confrontational
finger toward the wrongful imprisonment of, and alleged
institutionalized racism suffered by, the boxer ‘Hurricane’
Rubin Carter, ‘Birmingham Six’, highlighted the fault lines
that existed between Ireland and Britain in the late 20th
Century. Indeed, the parallels between the civil rights strug-
gle of black people in America and that of the Irish across
the Atlantic have in some ways been coextensive. The great
musicologists John and Alan Lomax chronicled the suffering
expressed through the music of black people during slavery,
and that of Irish-Americans during civil discrimination. The
Irish diaspora in America – often on the receiving end of a
hostile reception - found an abundance of issues to be artic-
ulated through music, with songs like Pete Seeger’s ‘No Irish
Need Apply’ emphasising the lack of opportunity afforded
09
10Photography: Sarah Kane, BA Photography, London College of Communication
In Martin Scorsese’s film ‘The Departed’, Matt Damon’s character considers one of Freud’s lesser known frustrations: that the Irish are the only people impervious to psychoanalysis. While there may be truth in the idea that Ireland’s uneasy history has etched an impregnable idea of ‘us’ and ‘them’ onto the subconscious, Irish people have never been shy of impas-sioned self-reflexivity. A preoccupation with oppression has fashioned within that identity an underdog status, a dissident mentality, which finds itself manifest in music. When an Irishman succeeds, he has beaten the odds; even given Ireland’s cur-rent culture of affluence. Indeed, Ireland has reaped more from her membership to the European Union than any other con-stituent nation, and the larger problems in the North have subsided. Surely, then, his-torical precedent would lead us to expect that, with the advent of a new sociopoliti-cal and economic prosperity, the blights of famine, of subjugation to foreign rule, and of the IRA, would quickly fade from the minds of songwriters.
Philip Yalley _FdA Digital Media Production Yr2
14
to the Pats and Dans of the world. The unqualified success
of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘We Shall Overcome: The Seeger
Sessions’ demonstrated that a widespread interest in
expressions of Irish history and identity through music re-
mains. Linking black emancipation songs like ‘O Mary Don’t
You Weep’ with the traditional Irish song ‘Mrs McGrath’
(which refers to Irish soldiers in the American civil war)
highlights the connection between the struggles of these
two peoples in the great melting pot, and suggests that
for people shackled by social inequity, music has become
inextricably bound to those hardships. Yet such expres-
sions of Irish identity rely heavily on the belief that a fixed
identity even exists. Interestingly, a recent trial revealed
that most Irish men do not carry the DNA of the Celts;
the findings show that their genes far predate the arrival of
the Celts in Ireland. The common symbols and clichés of
Ireland have been rehashed and exhausted musically. House
of Pain enjoyed a profitable, albeit ludicrous, career based
on a scarily tenuous affiliation with Ireland; they did little
to dispel the stereotypes of the Irish as nomads, chancers
and vagabonds. Among the Boston based hip hop group’s
repertoire was the identity-desperate ‘Top O’ the Morning
to Ya’, with lyrics including:
Ya see, I’m Irish, but I’m not a leprechaun…
A descendant of Dublin with titanic skill…
These Irish eyes are smilin’, I’m buckwildin’…
Similarly, the 1990s saw Boston’s Dropkick Murphys and Los
Angeles’ Flogging Molly synthesise the fiddle, kettledrum and
banjo with punk styling and references to the ‘home coun-
try’. Yet the same decade saw a generation of Irish bands
ignore their country’s historical plight, a notable exception
being the Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’, which refers to the 1916
Dublin uprising. Sinéad O’Connor and U2 have rarely ap-
proached such subjects, and perhaps this is a reflection of a
willingness to move on from the sorrows of years gone by.
With the advent of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, and the cosmopolitan-
ism that it brought to Dublin and Belfast, maybe the time
has come to embrace a future that previously looked so
uncertain. Americans who hanker after a greater and more
ancient sense of cultural lineage have adopted the revolu-
tionary tales of the Fenians, the great boat exodus to New
York in the late 1800s, and a hazy dream of a distant home
in the Emerald Isle as their own. But rather than shamrocks,
limericks and pints of Guinness, it is the homegrown songs
of Ireland, composed and performed during the country’s
numerous episodes of turmoil, that will remain as central
reference points in the mythologisation of Ireland’s turbu-
lent history.
13
DAMILOLA
ODUSOTE
ALTHOUGH
YOUR ILLUSTRATIONS
ARE AESTHETICALLY
BEAUTIFUL, THEY HAVE A
CHAOTIC NATURE. IF YOUR
WORK IS TO BE SEEN AS A
2D REPRESENTATION OF LIFE,
DOES THIS CHAOS REFLECT
YOUR VIEW OF THE
WORLD/NATION/
LONDON?
2
INTERVIEW BY CHRIS ACKERLEY
15
16
1Throughout my
day there are many issues that
I come across. Living in a society that is
so rich and diverse provokes me to think about many
political subjects. These feelings and ideas flow onto
my page; it’s almost as if I have set a subject on the
canvas for debate, or there is a huge question mark
which invites the viewer to engage with it.
My upbringing was strange, having been fostered by
white working-class parents in an essentially white
town. I had to face many race issues growing up, simi-
lar issues which are still very important and significant
to me today.
Living in London has been like travelling the world. I have
become a much more open minded and educated person
by living in a place where so many different cultures and
peoples live side by side.
I call on my viewers to recall
their past experiences and
to comment on the subjects
of my work, hopefully show-
ing that we all share a com-
mon experience in life; that
of being a human being.
I like to believe that we all
have similar human qualities.
We are not all that dissimi-
lar. It is hard not to involve
some kind of political or
social meaning in your work
when you experience living
in London. I express my
views on current issues
through colour, in an
abstract, epic way.
YOU
SAY THAT
YOUR WORK IS
A ‘WINDOW INTO THE
VIEWER’S SUBCONSCIOUS’.
DO YOU ALWAYS AIM TO
PROVOKE A REACTION FROM
THOSE VIEWING YOUR WORK,
AND, IF SO, TO WHAT EXTENT
DO YOU FEEL THAT YOUR
WORK CONTAINS A
SOCIAL OR POLITICAL
MEANING?
The chaotic nature
of my work does indeed
reflect London life, the buzz and en-
ergy of London is all around us. The things I feel and
see throughout my day end up on the canvas sooner
or later: my mind is endlessly absorbing images.
I grew up outside of London, in Essex. There the land-
scape had its imperfections; the town I grew up in was
essentially marshland and so the greyness of the huge
buildings in London, and all of the city’s imperfections,
became very appealing to me.
London itself has been thrown together; if you
look at it from a bird’s-eye view it’s a mess,
compared to the formal grids of the US at least.
However, it is this chaos that makes London so
appealing; it works.
The way I approach design comes down to
two options – parallel and unparallel, equal
and unequal. I always ask: how would some-
thing look if it were equal or parallel in
some way? London provokes me to
lean more towards the unparallel
and different.
Damilola Odusote studied at Camberwell College where he undertook a BA in
illustration. His new book of illustratio
ns with poet Ronke Osinowo, titled ‘I Bring
You Tilbury Town’, has been published by Author House and is available now.
THE BOOK
YOU HAVE ILLUSTRATED
WITH POET RONKE
OSINOWO DELVES INTO
A SURREAL ‘NEVER-WORLD’
OF POVERTY AND WORKING
CLASS LIVING. WHAT WAS
THE PERSONAL BACKGROUND
BEHIND THE BOOK, AND
TO WHAT EXTEND DO ITS
THEMES REFLECT YOUR
OWN EXPERIENCES
GROWING UP?
The book touches on many
different social and
political aspects of
life in Tilbury Town,
such as alcoholism,
poverty, violence,
race, powerlessness,
unemployment and social
dislocation. It’s a part of
British life that exists but is
rarely spoken about.
As with all the work I
produce, I wanted this book
to make people stop: to see,
question, think and debate
the issues and experiences
mentioned. The themes and
stories in this book give you
a snapshot of life growing
up in this town. The aim is
to convey my strong feelings
and emotions through the
illustrations. If I provoke
feelings and emotions in
just one viewer, then I have
done my job.
This surreal ‘never-world’
is indeed my hometown;
it is essentially how I
remember it. Having made
a forever-standing impact
on my character, the poems
and illustrations are all
products of growing up in
that environment. I wished
to express these memories,
feelings and experiences
through my illustrations; my
sister, Ronke, wished to do
the same through
her poetry.
Although we are from
different generations, it
was easy for Ronke and
I to collaborate on this
book. We had the common
experience of growing up
in the small house with our
foster parents, in the small
town that is Tilbury, so
immediately we were on the
same page.
3
17/ 18
PHOTOG
RAP
HER
- R
ACH
EL B
RO
WN
ST
YLI
ST
- JEA
NIE
ANNAN LEWIN MAKE UP - CELIA VARVILL MODEL - NINA @ FM
MO
DELS
DR
ES
S - S
/S 08 N
OK
I
If Cha
nel’s
signa
ture p
iece
is the
skirt
suit a
nd
Calvin
Klein’s
is th
e t-
shirt,
then
it’s f
air to
say
that N
oki h
as m
ade t
he fa
ce m
ask
his ow
n. At h
is sh
ow-ste
aling
Fash
ion
East
colle
ction
this
Septe
mber, a
ll of
the m
odels
wor
e the
m, in sw
eatsh
irt
marl o
r silk
scar
f prin
t acc
ordin
g
to ou
tfit.
21
ORNOKI HOUSE
OF SUSTAINABILITY
PRESENTS A MANIFESTO
STYLE
:Alexa Hall
REVOL
UTION
ARY
A
few
memorable
snapshots of that
show: mass-produced t-shirts
(eighties metal bands and Disney
cartoons being particular favourites) are
slashed to ribbons, plaited and knotted; a neon
cocktail dress is hoiked down to become a skirt, a puffed
sleeve accentuating each hip; Mickey Mouse with his eyes cut
out; rainbow-coloured wigs that any drag act would be proud
to own. All held together with coils of industrial strength
fluorescent rope. These models didn’t look like models
(and some of them weren’t; a large Boombox contin-
gent made an appearance on the catwalk). They
looked like the mutant survivors of some
nuclear disaster visited on East London.
Had apocalypse come to the rave?
This is customisation, but not
as we know it. The idea
has lost its edge of late,
but Noki and his
comrades are set
to change all
that.
At
the
centre of
it all is a masked
figure in customised
sportswear with a strong Glas-
wegian accent. At a time when the likes
of Gareth Pugh and Christopher Kane are
almost as recognisable as the clothes they produce,
JJ Hudson has cultivated an enigmatic persona equal to any
underground political leader. With a fondness for impenetrable
acronyms (his show was titled ‘NOKI-NHS-CUSTOMISATION AND
AFTERCARE SERVICE’ ), quoting political texts (Kalle Lasn’s ‘Culture Jam’ is a
favourite), and those masks, which, wouldn’t you know, are SOBs (Suffocation Of
Branding masks), he’s very much a radical.
This is not some callow fashion school graduate using shock tactics to garner a job at a major
fashion house. A product of 90s Hoxton, he’s been operating for long enough to establish his style
22
This particular piece has been created in response
to family politics and sibling rivalry. My mother,
who forged the identities of my sisters, sits within
the picture, representing two of them following
an argument. The paradox of their conflict occurs
through its origination from their similarity, shap-
ing the mirrored composition. This symmetrical
set up was intended to emphasize their distance
and similarity simultaneously. On closer inspec-
tion however, it is evident that the sisters are not
as similar as first thought.
The abundance of space within the image was intended to
dwarf the figures, emphasizing their psychological divide
while also drawing attention to the confining repetition of
cage-like wallpaper. This background was drawn in Vector-
works, including hidden images within the replicated design,
forging a parallel between the repeated sisters and their rep-
etitious environment. Their beige clothing also merges with
their background, linking to the standardization of the piece,
while also producing a warm, inviting glow. Forging to form a
Viking boat, their shadows are produced through a spotlight
suggestive of sudden discovery of misbehaviour and blame.
CHELSEA COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN | BA FINE ART 24
JON
NY
BRIGGS
Some fashion bloggers have suggested that, far from
being anti-establishment, Hudson is too well in with
some major fashion players to be able to provide any
relevant critique. After all, Fashion East is run by his
friend and supporter Lulu Kennedy, so one can only
assume that he didn’t have to apply in the usual way.
Another old friend, Nicola Formichetti, superstylist
of ‘Dazed And Confused’, styled the Fashion East ex-
travaganza. When I snarkily ask him by email whether
his collaboration to produce footwear for Luella’s
A/W 08 shows signifies a move to the mainstream,
his response is emphatic. ‘Very much so. It’s a
wonderful nod to the Noki style being accepted
by the ‘said’ mainstream.’ And it’s great that he’s
unapologetic about this. What’s the point of be-
ing a revolutionary without an audience? Surely,
getting major magazine coverage with designs
that subvert the insignia of some of their top
advertisers, could be considered a triumph.
If Hudson is going mainstream, he’s doing it on
his own terms. With a range for Kickers due
for release in the spring, a Brick Lane shop is
now in the pipeline, showcasing not only the
NHS range but also Hudson’s young protégés,
Good One and Dig for Victory, whom, with
likeable humility, he names as ‘inspirations‘.
And he’s optimistic for the future of fashion.
‘Sustainable thought processes have come out
of the customisation trend, and this is your
revolution within the fashion industry.’
Noki wants to challenge his customers. ‘Fash-
ion is very much a visual revolution that will
forever inspire its wearer into a beautiful war
of change.’ And as the soldiers in the war on
homogenised fashion take up arms, I think that
what Noki makes is riot gear.
| www.jonnybriggs.com
23
credentials. As a music stylist and artist, he’s exhibited in the
V&A and has his work photographed by Nick Knight. But Hudson
is scathing about designers who play lip-service to the values of
customisation with clever-clever parodies of the big corporates,
before being absorbed by them. ‘I find this uninspiring, as they
have reduced this special moment to just a trend. They followed
through by being what they fought against.’
The only alternative to the rather arch approach to branding - es-
poused by designers such as Jeremy Scott and Russell Sage - is the
type of eco-clothing which seems a bit worthy; all hemp, sludge
colours and dubious ethnic touches. But Noki shows that there is
another way. His creations both critique the commercial power-
house branding that he subverts, and provide a genuinely beautiful
afterlife for their discarded products. They transform recycling
from a safe middle-class activity into something altogether more
rebellious. When other designers endlessly rehash ideas from the
past using wasteful new materials, surely the only reaction is to
create something thrillingly new from something already existing.
‘With a little thought, future design can be achieved by custom-
ising what has already been produced.’ And, let’s face it, some
’future design’ is what fashion needs right now.
But isn’t there a danger that, in encouraging the kids to do their
own thing, he’ll render his own job obsolete?
‘True fashion is always playing with this concept of revolution. It’s
a passive-aggressive outlook to the fact that we do not go naked
and will always want to look different’, he says.
IND
EPEND
ENZ To ce
lebrate 60 years
of Independence in
I DIA
STAT
E OF
IndePendenz
DesiG
n Rationale
First and Second year Fashion Design students
were asked to make a 100 page book,
including designs for a 16 piece collection and
a final garment celebrating 60 years of India’s
Independence from Britain.
Katie took inspiration fro
m
the Shri Swaminarayan
Mandir, a Hindu Temple
in Neasden, London. Th
e
exterior and interior of the
temple is white and hand ca
rved
and therefore quite a surreal sight
amidst the surro
unding council
estates of Neasden. Th
e ‘otherness’
of its arch
itecture is incongruous in
such
a typically Britis
h location; it re
presents
a very vis
ible separation from Britis
h
architectural co
nventions, and, im
plicitly,
a separation from Britis
h culture. But also,
rather encouragingly, the erectio
n of the temple
demonstrates th
e opportunities, v
alues, and ski
lls
that different co
untries and co
mmunities ca
n offer
one another.
Katie was particularly drawn to the ornate
arches se
en throughout the building. Fr
om
sketches and photographs sh
e began to reproduce the arch forms in
fabric, cu
rving seams and
exploring the folds and gathers of th
e material. Katie cu
t curve
d shapes out of interfacing
and bonded them to the fabric, gathering it o
n the underside; s
he deliberately
controlled the material, givin
g it structure in one area and allowing the rest
to drape and fall naturally.
The final garment was made fro
m ivory
sand-washed silk. Th
is is an ideal fa
bric to use as part o
f a Spring/
Summer collectio
n because it is so
ft and lig
htweight, and the
colour is reminisce
nt of the Hindu temple.
The collectio
n is predominantly designed for
young, single women, aged between
18 and 35 years o
ld.
Independenz Project — Katie Bishop, BAFS Year 2
25
26
Katie H
elen Bishop
London College of Fashion
BA (Hons) Fashion Studies PT Year 2
Honour Bound
Political art or Liberal Propaganda?Le
mm
a N
our S
heha
di
A per-form-ance pro-duced by the Sydney Opera House and Malthouse theatre, featured at the Barbican from 14th-17th November as part of the Ozmosis 2007 performing arts festival. Conception, direction and co-design by Nigel Jamieson, Choreography by Gary Stuart and music by Paul Charlier.
‘Honour Bound’ is an account of David Hicks’ experience
as a Guantanamo detainee. The controversy around David
Hicks lies in a disagreement between the Australian public
and the American Government over Hicks’ conviction. Hicks
is accused of having visited Taliban camps in Afghanistan,
and participating in operations with Al Qaeda, that did not
involve killing, but transmitting information. The Australian
public disputes this vehemently; however, I will not speculate
about the political motives behind Hicks’ imprisonment.
The performance itself has two layers: a collage of TV jour-
nalism, and dance. Projections are shown of video interviews
with Hicks’ parents, images of Guantanamo Bay (and Abu
Ghraeb), and relevant news clippings, while the dancers
perform choreographed contortions of human suffering. Ini-
tially the choreography was intriguing in its live depiction of
physical and mental torture. Choreographer Garry Stewart
believes that through this the ‘struggle becomes real and not
illustrated’. However, the routines became repetitive and
the dancers were so swift and graceful that they struggled to
convey the idea of human suffering. Much of the dramatic im-
pact was clearly intended to come from the music; however,
for 70 whole minutes a drearily symphonic sci-fi/suspense
movie-style soundtrack droned on and on. The opening and
closing scenes feature Arabic chants, incorporating a record-
ing of the Muslim call to God, but when used within this
context such recordings come across as crude, hackneyed
politicising. In this way the director seemingly contradicts
the message of his work from the outset of the perform-
ance: that this is a production by
Australian artists, about an Australian
citizen, for an Australian audience.
Half of the piece was dedicated to the video documen-
tary. The ingredients for liberal propaganda were all included
in a glorious parade of journalistic clichés. Passages from the
Declaration of Human Rights were both written and recited,
presumably working on the assumption that the audience
had either reading or hearing difficulties. Later, a juxtaposi-
tion of the interrogation techniques and Hick’s personal
account of the tortures he experienced appeared also in
both visual and audio formats. The funny quote by George
Bush was not funny. Interviews with Hicks’ parents, Terry
and Bev, presented them as the typical tabloid heroes: white,
middle-class, victimised citizens. The scandalous newspaper
pictures, supposedly depicting the treatment of prisoners at
Guantanamo, mostly turned out to be photos of the atroci-
ties committed in the Abu Ghraeb prison in Iraq.
The piece is so anti-Bush that it becomes pro-Osama. For
a performance that tried to expose secrets of the Bush
Administration, it did very well in concealing details of Hicks’
conviction; these can be found on Wikipedia, listed in bullet
points. But this is an increasingly widespread malady, as the
polarisation between Bush haters and supporters increases.
Many support the American War on Terror, whilst disagree-
ing with their tactics. They point to the incompetence and
disaster of American foreign policy in Iraq. They criticise the
security
measures
taken within our
cities that have stubbed
out our civil liberties. Others
who are more extreme begin to
deliberately support targets of the Bush
administration, such as the Ba’ath regime in
Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine or
detainees in Guantanamo.
The idea of combining journalism and performance had po-
tential, but it didn’t work in ‘Honour Bound’. The beautifully
sculpted dancers kept the show going despite their incom-
patibility with the harrowing setting of an interrogation
prison. The politics behind it were weak, but it was mainly
the use of clichés and misleading information that rendered
the journalistic component of the performance a failure.
3132
“Wel
com
e to
the
Wild
Wild
Wes
t” P
aint
ing
by N
icky
Nico
le
Norman W
ilcox an
d Amanda Johansso
n
AmericanPostc
ards
Following in the traditio
ns of an iconic s
train of photographic documenta-
tions of America
, our project fuses an awareness o
f these tra
ditions w
ith a
contemporary critica
l edge. The project is
an attempt to encapsulate our
individual co
mmentaries on the culture and its
people, from the persp
ec-
tive of th
e outsider. P
lacing itself a
t the forefront of co
ntemporary west-
ern civilisa
tion, America
’s dominant cu
ltural influence has embedded
itself w
ithin our individ
ual conscio
usness. Our previo
us understanding
of America
was based on fictionalise
d and romanticised forms of
popular culture relayed to us th
rough the media. The juxtapositio
n
of cultural and politic
al influences, a
t a time of potentially great
political sig
nificance, affected our experiences, c
reating con-
trasts and co
nflicts in our im
pressions.
By adopting the picture postca
rd format we are using the
popular means of expressin
g candidly one’s
feelings and
experiences of a place and a culture other th
an one’s
own. Restri
ctions in
the format limit w
hat can be co
m-
municated, w
hile conventional modes of expressio
n
affect how these experiences are co
nveyed – the
choice of language, and the subject m
atter. The
passage of tim
e and distance in the process
of the postca
rd reaching its destin
ation are
evident in
the end product. Th
ese scars a
nd
marks become an integral part o
f the project
itself, s
ince they illustra
te the whole proc-
ess, from beginning to end.
‘American Po
stcards’
is a co
llaborative
project documenting
the experiences
and impressions
of three UK-based
photographers
in post-electio
n
USA (2004). This
photographic project
is a co
llection of
individual and
personal ca
ndid
commentaries in
picture-postca
rd
format. Each
postcard co
nveys
our immediate
experiences through
a combination of both
visual and lite
rary
forms, each image
juxtaposed with text.
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