POPUPInstallation

This assignment was to challenge us to work in groups of mixed skills - made up from students on BA Surface Design and BA Graphic Product Innovation. Our aim was to produce environmental design as a ‘pop up in installation’ in a selected area of ‘dead space’ around the college building.

“The pieces produced by the teams of 6, may be linked; develop-ing ideas around navigation, map-ping and signage, or may individually temporarily alter the function of the space. It may pro-voke a reaction or change of mood, but will be based on inspirations gained by visiting an environment or experience outside college, and will aim to recreate something of this external starting point.

The materials used in the piece will be wholely sustainable, using recycled goods, or give consideration to the protection of natural resources by reducing consumption of energy and materials. The installation should be temporary and could be moved and exhibited elsewhere as necessary.

Our starting point for this project was to visit Columbia Road Flower Market.

meetthe Te

amROS

AALEX

ji

su

ciara

louise

LOCATI

ONsChoosing our space was the most time-consuming task, not due to lack of choice - on the contrary, there are a multitude of ‘dead spaces’ in the LCC building - but mostly because we couldn’t decide on the concept of our installation.

A few of the un-used spaces we stumbled upon are the following: - The vast open air terasses accessible from the 4th floor of the media block. There are about 4 or 5 of these large terasses with beautiful views of London which are never used (and probably unheard of for most students) because of health and safety reasons.- The slim space in between the workshop block staircase- The strange ‘entrance’ to the main lecture theatre. - The white bridge leading from thr library to the quiet zone.

To start with, we desperately wanted the Atrium because of it’s impressive size and the extra impact it would give to our work. We wanted to hang ob-jects from the ceiling to create a hovering layer of sustainability. Unfortunately we had to change our mind when we realised there was no hanging infra-structure available, not to mention the hugeness of the atrium would be impossible to fill.

Our second idea was to keep the concept of hang-ing but apply it to a much smaller space. We found a great spot in the main hall - a fenced off ‘balcony’ leading to the floor below, flooded with light from the big glazed windows. However, due to the ongo-ing exhibitions on the bottom floor, we were not allowed to take up that space. What’s more, there was a lack of hanging infrastructure.

It became clear to us that ‘hanging’ objects was going to be very difficult. What’s more, our favorite found objects were the big empty oil drums. They didn’t specifically need to be hung - their shape allowed them to be stacked, rolled, squashed, alligned...

our space

In the end, the space we chose is very different to anything we had seen before. And not only is it an unusual ‘dead’ space, it’s actually a series of spaces.

On the ground, second and third floors of the work-shop block there are a few small square alcoves built into the walls along the corridor. They measure about 1m wide and 1.50 m tall and have a depth of around 30cm. They are completely empty, except for a small tap issuing from the bottom side. Originally one of these alcoves was used to store a fireman’s hose in case of an emergency in the college. But now with modern fire extinguishers, they were disposed of, and their quarters left untouched.

We decide on these spaces firslty because they framed our oil drums perfeclty: we could snuggly fit in 3 rows of drums arranged in 3 collumns. Secondly, we really liked the fact that there was more than one - which meant that we could play around with the idea of a reoccuring installation.

sustainablethingsWe found one of these empty cooking oil barrels randomly in east London, not far from Co-lumbia Road Market. Made to be used once then thrown into landfil, we thought it possessed an interesting aesthetic quality - retro typography, block colours, mass production - and decided to make it the main feature of our installation. Thus the hunt began. We wend around Whitechapel, Hackney, Elephant & Castle, New Cross, all these areas well known for their abundance of greasy spoons ang fried chicken joints. Prior to this project, none of us had ever noticed these oil drums before. Now they were everywhere, outside shops, in bin bags, dumped on the streets, behind kebab counters. It was an easier job than expected and in no time at all we had gathered a good quantity: 29

thebig idea

Initially we thought of keep-ing the found oild drums ex-actly as they were because their look was already very pleasing. But we soon real-ised there would be no sus-tainable message behind our installation if we did this. Visu-ally, the 3 x 3 block of drums was quite impressive but depth lacked.

Eureka! The group came up with the bright idea of cov-ering some of the drums printed surface with our own prints. Similar, but with an en-tirely different message.

We replaced half of the ‘vegetable oil’ labels ‘low on cholesterol’, and ‘longer life’ slogans into similar looking labels, which when passing by swiftly are undetectable, but looking closer are quite star-tling.

WASTESO DISPOSABLE

USE ME & DUMP ME

ALMOST EXTINCTLIFESPAN: 1 DAY!

USE AND ABUSE

NEW CONCEPT OLD CONCEPT

screenprinting

It was really good for Alex and me to work with surface design because it enabled us to learn so much from them and vice versa. I have always wanted to learn how to screen print, but the studio downstairs is always packed ad the technicians not very helpful. So this project was the perfect opportunity! Rosa, Ciara, Su and Ji are all masters of the trade and taught us eveything. we needed to know. Alex and I designed the images on photoshop, then photo-copied them in order for the prints to be as black as possible.

Next step was to coat the screen with emulsifyer - this is a light sensitive liquid. After a few hours of letting the screen dry, in warm air we placed the black and white image on the screen and put the whole into the --- machine, which blocks out the white areas and leaves the screen untouched where the image is black. Our image is projected onto the silk screen which is now ready to be used with paint.

lino

Printin

g

Because of the ‘pop up’ nature of the instal-lation, we couldn’t print direclty onto the floor boards, so we thought lino was the perfect solution. I went to West Wikham to collect samples of lino from a friend’s shop. These are sustainable because as they are samples we got them for free!Our plan was to cut out puddle shapes in the lino and to print patterns from our sketchbooks onto them. These would represent our inspiration from Columbia Road Flower Market but also symbolise the leaking oil from the oil drums.

SECOND FLOOR THIRD FLOOR THIRD FLOORGROUND FLOOR

Looking at sustainable ways of creating design, these oil drums were put together as an example of the chronic waste currently flooding our landfills. Surface Design second years and Graphic Product Innovation students collaboratively chose and acknowledged the items as still valuable in terms of aesthetics. The ironic brand ‘Consumer’s Pride’ prompt-ed our screen printed re-labelling of the drums, and inspired our oil spills which signify excess waste that is avoidable through recy-cled and sustainable design works.

The presentation of our pop-up installations in their LCC location was very successful. As a result, we were asked to transfer them into the container outside which served as a little gallery for the Museum Futures exhibition.

In conclusion, this project was ex-tremely dyniamic and fulfilling. The success of our work can mainly be attributed to the solid group we formed and active participation from each of the group members. We shared and criticised ideas in a constructive manner only to emerge with even better ones. What’s more it was super inspiring to work with students form a different degree. It really shook things up a bit and allowed us to watch and learn, and in return teach them the best of our skills. I especially enjoyed working in the screen-printing room, there’s so much buzzing creativity going on

in there! Now that I’ve been prop-erly introduced to screen-printing, I’m sure I’ll be spending much more time up there. Concerning sustainability, I’m very glad that we had this long project to reflect on this very important issue which affects every stage of the design process. Equally, lectures from professionals such as Thomas Matthews (who place sustainability at the centre of their work) was incredibly inspiring. All of this had deffinitely opened my eyes to this crucial topic and I hope it has done so to everyone else who worked with us and saw our installations.

the end