RCA WIP Show: an exclusive interview with the tutor of the Dialogue Academy. The students led the way to the WIP Show review site. The RCP WIP Show is an annual grand exhibition and also a mid-term exhibition for students. After Christmas every year, students will begin to prepare for the exhibition, which is usually held from the end of January to February. The full name of WIP is "Work in progress Show", which means "work in progress". Whether it is the work you are thinking about, or the work that is half way through, or the work that is close to the end, it can be used for exhibition as long as it is your work.

Usually, students are used to working in their own professional studios, either individually or in a team work, but WIP gives students the opportunity to see their creation outside the studio in different environments. Students need to try to show their works in an unusual way. During the exhibition, students also need to "guess" and try to "influence" the audience's understanding of their works.

This exhibition is not only an opportunity for students to experience the development of thinking, but also an opportunity to work together to curate the exhibition. It is also a large-scale Presentation+Critique. When students' works are displayed, they will receive many suggestions or opinions from people from different professional fields. That is to say, WIP is Huangyi's "midterm exam" - work review, Huangyi even has a midterm exam? Do you have to catch up with the project progress during the mid-term exam? Students not only have to do projects, but also prepare their own exhibition plans. What kind of exhibition is it that students complete all by themselves? Last weekend, natural light was connected British art study Mr. Gao and some students studying in RCA brought the scene of RCA WIP Show 2019 in the form of photos or videos, as well as the Open Day Lecture session and the exclusive college tutor's interview question and answer!

Natural light in Huangyi RCA WIP Show:

　　 Open Day&Lecture

My colleague once briefly introduced "Open Day" in our "onepedia" column. Let me explain again in detail here. It is a permanent "column" in overseas colleges and universities. It is called an open day in Chinese and generally lasts for 1-3 days. It is a chance for students who are preparing to apply to the school to enter the campus and learn about the school.

During the WIP Show, it is actually RCA's Open Day. On the Open Day, different colleges will prepare small activities in the form of lecture, workshop, student gatherings and so on. At the same time, the college exhibition hall and studio will be opened, so that students who intend to apply to the college will have the opportunity to feel the atmosphere of the college like current students, and can also have face-to-face exchanges with current students or instructors.

　　 Dr. Adrian Lahoud, President, delivered a speech:

First, let's review the speech given by Dr. Adrian Lahoud, the dean of RCA School of Architecture during the Open Day, which Mr. Gao brought us:

Dr Adrian Lahoud, Dean, School of Architecture, once served as the director of Goldsmiths architectural research; Forensic Architecture ERC Project Researcher; Director of UCL Bartlett March Urban Design. Different from his cold appearance, Dr Adrian Lahoud is really a very gentleman and patient person. During his speech, when some late students came in from time to time, he would stop and say kindly, "Welcome, come here, there is an empty seat." Later, until the classroom was full, he still stopped from time to time to care about the students who did not have seats: "Sorry, you can only sit on the floor."

Dr Adrian Lahoud showed the enrollment of the whole architecture school. In the data and figures he gave, we can see: With more than 200 students in school, China and the United States are far ahead of other countries outside the United Kingdom Later, he also interpreted the Master of Architecture major and college study:

RCA's School of Architecture is a very attractive school, where you will have many opportunities to participate Real project (real project practice). This means that you have the opportunity to participate in practice, to explore independently, but also to learn new knowledge with others.

Compared with other stages, the biggest feature of master's study is that we hope you can have Ability to learn independently , we attach great importance to training you in Cultural thinking , and whether you can critical thinking Ability to look at a work or any project.

Master courses need to be more in-depth, so in terms of course form, we also attach importance to whether we can have diversified ideas. We not only have Lectures, tutorials, but also various workshops.

For example, you must learn critical thinking in our critical workshop, so that there are "engineering contacts" between you and your classmates; In the practical workshop, you will focus on practicing your practical ability.

Secondly, in terms of the ability to cooperate with people and learn from professionals: during the learning period, your communication ability and solidarity and cooperation ability are more important. You should learn“ make the connect work for you ”It is necessary to establish your contact with students in other majors, communicate with them technically, and more importantly, connect with them ideologically. This is a very important ability.

No one makes a decision for you. There are many excellent colleges and students here. You can take the opportunity of open day to see the current exhibition of RCA, and then make your own decision slowly. You can also think about which college you want to study in, and ask more students in the school. They will give you many different answers.

In the short lecture above, we can see that Dr Adrian mentioned several key points (I also used different color fonts for marking).

First, "real project". What is a real project? In my opinion, what corresponds to the real practice project is the project that really helps students to improve their ability. We often say that a collection of works is a combination of 4-5 projects. Some projects may look casual, especially in the pure arts major or Film Animation Design Professional direction. Some students' themes may be illusory or experimental.

But in fact, even if the projects are so seemingly random, they actually need you to carry out repeated research and experiments, and you need to think about what materials can be used to better display the works; What kind of artistic method is used to deal with a certain link, etc.

Secondly, we can directly take a project in this WIP Show as an example, which is called< Re-reeding>/ Reseeding:

For this project, the designer is a sophomore majoring in RCA interior design. The theme of this interior design unit is "Interior Matters". Students need to solve some actual interior matters in life with their majors:

　　re-reeding is a production and education workshop that encourages the use of reeds as the material for furniture making and material experimentation. Reeds are highly abundant within Cody Dock where they remain untouched.The harvesting of reeds will improve the health of the lea River and increase local knowledge of its biodiversity.

Reseeding: Reseeding is a workshop project integrating production and education, which encourages people to use reeds as materials for furniture manufacturing and material testing.

This project is actually a very specific real project about culture. Cody Dock is an ecological environment public welfare organization, which has developed a community based art and creative industry park on the Lea River.

This project is based on Cody Dock. The students found that the yield of reeds in Cody Dock was very high, but what was inconsistent with the yield was that they remained unchanged and were not used well.

Therefore, this project is the improvement plan proposed by the students. First of all, preliminary research and visit were carried out, and it was found that as long as these cannot be well used reeds are harvested and utilized, the ecological environment around the riverside can be greatly improved, and as a protection, the local biodiversity can be increased.

Finally, the students conceived a new production mode of "seeding", and put the harvested reeds into the furniture production link to solve this problem.

In addition to attending the Open Day School of Architecture, Dr. Adrian Lahoud's lecture, Professor Gao and students interviewed Dr. Adam Kaasa, a researcher of Huangyi Architecture, to see how he understood the School of Architecture.

　　 Interview with Dr. Adam Kaasa, a researcher of Huangyi Architecture:

　　 Q1: Does a doctor of architecture must have relevant background?

This is a good question. The answer is, no. This problem is easily misunderstood. It is believed that the Doctor of Architecture must have some connection with architecture at least in his previous work experience, but in fact, it is totally unnecessary. My students have studied philosophy, humanities, biology, and there is no fixed professional restrictions.

Because the stage of Doctor of Architecture is very, very different from that of Master of Architecture, and there are very few students coming to study for Doctor of Architecture. The composition of our doctoral students is relatively diversified. By the way, I have no architectural education background before.

　 Q2: Can an undergraduate apply for a doctor of architecture?

Theoretically, it is possible; But in fact, it is almost impossible. Because you must have a master's degree as the link; Or, you can have relevant ability certificates at the same level. For example, you have 10 years of relevant experience in a certain field, which is still possible.

　　 Q3: What do we learn?

This is different. It depends on your subject. For example, one of my students' subjects is the application of philosophy in architecture. However, what you must learn in the first year is: how to read, how to find the information you want from the literature, and how to find the correct literature. Remember, not to learn to write, but to read, how to extract the information you need. Because to be honest, the process of writing is like painting, which is a skill that can be improved through practice, but the process of "reading" is not like this.

　　 Q4: How can I enroll a doctor?

Do your own research materials and send them to the instructors you are interested in. If they are interested in your research, everything will be easy.

As for whether the undergraduate major must be in line with the master's major, it is actually one of the most frequently asked questions by students who come to the consultation. Some students will ask me: "I am majoring in medicine/economics/finance/mathematics/e-commerce... Is it difficult for the master to study art and design? Is it worse than the undergraduate students in art and design?"

Actually, it is not. As Dr. Adam Kaasa said, this is true for doctors and masters, as well as for undergraduates and masters. Most British and American universities have no mandatory requirements. To apply for architecture major for master's degree, students must be majoring in architecture for undergraduate degree. On the contrary, many colleges and universities welcome students from other majors to apply for majors, because we are now in a diversified world, and "interdisciplinary" has become an inevitable trend for more and more schools and majors.

Combine the ability or thinking dimension of other fields to treat each art or design problem comprehensively and critically. Sometimes the ability of other professional fields will stimulate students' creativity and thinking depth.

Take today's WIP Show as an example. The show itself is a large-scale interdisciplinary presentation and critical event. WIP Show is synchronized with the Open Day of each college. Students' works are not only displayed to their own supervisors, but also to teachers and students of all majors, and give suggestions. Go to a larger environment and carry out critical.

　　 WIP Show 2019

Finally, I talked about WIP Show. I always said that this show is a large presentation+critical, because it is not only an opportunity for students to show themselves, but also to review themselves; It is also a place to listen to more voices and suggestions. Students show their unfinished works, which is actually to show all the ideas and projects they are thinking about or immature.

This exhibition is for every RCA Royal College of Art As for students, they are all very important, not only because their works need to be displayed, but also because this is a rare opportunity to criticize. Students often ask me why foreign teaching attaches so much importance to critical. Critique is a process in which students show their works, teachers or professional students give suggestions or improve ideas according to their works.

Many students are used to working hard on projects, and they will never stop to reflect on their previous steps; I don't think much about whether there is a better plan to improve the project progress; I will not share my ideas with others too much. Ideas and creativity can easily be limited to a fixed range or a single clue.

Whether it is a collection of works or specific to each project, each step is not just to achieve the "completion" result, but to improve the ability through the whole process. In fact, this is also an important role of Critique, which allows you to stop in the middle of your work creation, reflect on your own work, listen to others' suggestions and ideas, get more inspirations for improvement, and then improve your own project.

In fact, the natural light has always insisted on non-stop, allowing students to criticize in the portfolio course. For example, I just got it last week with someone Rhode Island School of Design During the communication with RISD offer students, she mentioned that the most feared and expected link in class at ordinary times is critical. Her portfolio of works has only been taught for a few months, but critical has been done four times in total.

First of all, after finishing the preliminary research, she just had an idea and made a preliminary model, her professional tutor reviewed and reviewed it for her; Later, in the middle of the project, when materials were tested and thinking diverged, other mentors of the same profession took her to recheck in the form of a group; 75% - 80% of the project was completed, and when the project was basically ready to close, the heads of multiple departments of the "six major departments" conducted another review at the same time due to the interdisciplinary integration of the project; Finally, the collection of works was completed, and two natural light admissions officers also took her to make the final critical.

Although it is tedious and "terrible", she will have new ideas after every critical, re sort out every step of work before, and think over and over again the teacher's "what is the purpose of your step?"; "Are there other better feasible solutions?".

We can also see from Mr. Gao's live broadcast of the exhibition that almost all the students' works are relatively "rough", some are models, some look like, and even models may not be called models. But the idea of each project is very interesting.

　　 Interior Design First Year WIP Show 2019 Works

Theme interior display

Project 1 - Chinese Dumplings

"Chinese dumpling" is inspired by Chinese dumpling. Because of its unique nature with family feelings, Chinese dumpling has become an indispensable food in Chinese New Year and many festivals. It is also the representative and symbol of Chinese family feelings. Inspired by dumplings, the author created the outer package of gifts to convey the warmth of the family.

Project 2-Halfway home

　　This project is a collection of over 270 letters to Roman Zawadzki, a polish officer,immigrant,faithful husband,beloved son,and a best friend.Full of loneliness and nostalgia,it is a deeply capitating representation of the past and in turn,an inspiration for better understanding of the present.

This project is a collection record of more than 270 letters about Romanzawazki. He is a Polish official. At the same time, for his family, he is also a loyal husband, a beloved son, and a best friend. The work is full of loneliness and nostalgia. It is a profound expression of the past and a better understanding and experience of the present.

others

　　 WIP Show 2019 works of the second year of interior design

Subject: interior matters

Project 1 - Floating farm (design and ecology)

　　Floating farm is an aquaponic farm, market and restaurant promoting locally grown,organic food offering an unique dining experience on the river lea.

Drifting Farm is an aquatic farm, market and restaurant to promote locally grown organic food and provide visitors with a unique dining experience.

Project 2-Frost Pavilion (Design and Climate Change)

　　Temporality structure are set up during the cold winter months to reenact the ancient tradition of the forest fair these structures will offer celebratory space to engage attention to climate change.

In the cold winter, these temporary structural dwellings will provide space for people to pay attention to climate change and reproduce the tradition of the ancient forest exposition.

　　 Second year theme works of interior design

Theme: Interior futures

Works of students majoring in architecture

　　 Summary:

Today, under the leadership of Mr. Gao and RCA seniors, we shared the WIP Show with you. Why share this exhibition of "semi-finished products" with you?

Whether it's video or pictures, you can see that almost all the works in this exhibition are very relevant in form, no matter what theme the students choose. At least formally, they are unfinished. During the WIP Show last year, one of my students asked me why RCA is still the best art school in the world even though its students are "semi-finished products".

First of all, I would like to correct your misunderstanding that this exhibition is not the final graduation exhibition of students. The exhibitions you see are actually divided according to the theme and grade, not only the second year students to graduate, but also the new first year students.

And as I said, this is not so much an exhibition as an open one for all people. "Interdisciplinary presentation+critical about creative ideas" is more appropriate. Students "rudely" display their ideas in such a way that visitors can comment on them, communicate with them, and discuss with each other. After the exhibition, students can also have more ideas and inspiration to give practice when they really complete the project.

Natural light shares more topics for you:

How does the Royal Academy of Arts apply for self help? Explain step by step the DIY application on Huangyi RCA official website

This article belongs to the original article of Natural Light International Art Education Team. Without permission, it cannot be reproduced commercially in any form. If it is found, it must be investigated for legal responsibility.