About Cultural Dialogue
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Cultural Dialogue
The International School of Creative Arts’ (ISCA) guiding philosophy is to foster creative minds and provide the best possible opportunity for students to fully realise their artistic potential. Guided by principles set in place by University of the Arts Lodon (UAL), this entails access to unparalleled academic resources and staff; a dedication to conceptual and innovative thinking; and a commitment towards culture and creative education globally.
Expanding on UAL’s established international network of schools and colleges, ISCA is uniquely placed to offer peer learning through shared projects at three levels:
Cultural Links
At a cultural level, ISCA aims to facilitate an ongoing creative dialogue to support a wider understanding of existing cultural links, within the international setting of the creative industries needs and consequent educational requirements.
Organisational Networks
Developing relationahips with international counterparts, ISCA provides training and developmental opportunities for both professional and academic staff, through organised events and virtual links.
Developmental Projects
Drawing on ISCA’s ethos of being at the forefront of art education, the School offers opportunities for students to interact and benefit from shared projects, workshops and dialogue with select peer institutions worldwide.
Spring Term: Highlight 1
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As the Spring term draws to an end, we reflect over some of the highlights…
1. Guest speakers
Honorary President of ISCA and shoe designer extraordinaire, Professor Jimmy Choo OBE, joined the students at the beginning of term to share his experience of being an international student studying a creative course in the UK. Emphasising the importance of hard work in achieving goals, the students were later given the opportunity to quiz him in person as he viewed the ISCA studios and students work.
Ms Mai Yoshida, animation artist and UAL alumni, shared her work and the art of animation with our students in February. Giving an insight into the artistic and technical requirements of animation, Ms Yoshida used her own experience to present the idea that there are no boundaries between artisitc disciplines. Rather artistic disciplines often cross over, or can be expanded upon, like in her case where a B.A. Illustration degree at Camberwell College of Arts (UAL) paved the way to an international animation career.
UAL curator, Ms Medeia Cohan-Petrolino, visited ISCA to demonstrate the numerous elements needed to be considered by artists when establishing a career. As head of the Emerging Artists’ Programme at UAL, a curated scheme aimed at providing recent alumni with opportunities to develop their careers during the formative years after graduation, she outlined the support offered by UAL through the programme – the only one of its kind in the UK. Showcasing select work from the 200,000 UAL alumni and former staff, across 148 countries worldwide, Ms Cohan-Petrolino emphasised the need for graduates to understand how best to present and promote their work in order to successfully develop their careers.
Flour+Salt+Sugar
Posted by admin | Filed under Enrichment Programme
Flour + Salt + Sugar…Water + Yeast Enrichment Programme
Part of the Enrichment programme, Flour + Salt + Sugar uses the rudimentary of baking bread to introduce students to the idea of preparing food from scratch – an economical and healthy way to manage ones diet when living independently.
Led by Mr Green, the baking demonstration started from the very basis with an explanation on how flour is ground, where it comes from, how yeast is formed etc before the actual making of the bread. Choosing to discard the use of machines, Mr Green used the traditional and simple procedure of creating a well in the flour into which the yeast and warm water solution was poured before mixing and kneading the dough by hand.
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- Baking attempt
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- The different results
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- Viewing finished product
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- Students getting stuck in
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- Baking – a group effort!
The students were deliberately not given any measurements but were instead told that they would recognise the proper consistency with practice and according to their individual taste. Students were asked to feel the demonstration dough before proceeding to make their own loaves and shapes which were left to prove and grow for an hour before being baked (time constraints did not allow for the usual second moulding) in a hot oven.
Tags: baking, demonstration, Enrichment Programme, PSHE
Q&A – Animator Mai Yoshida
Posted by admin | Filed under Lo-Fi Animation
Q1: You came to England to study a Foundation Diploma at Camberwell. How did you find your experience?
My English skills at the time were a bit poor and I had difficulties understanding the tutors. However, the group projects meant working with other students who explained the briefs or points when I was having difficulties.
Q2: Once you overcame the language barrier, what do you feel the Foundation Diploma and the BA Illustration degree taught you?
During my BA, my head tutor invited an animator to teach and you could sign up for his class (outside of regular teaching hours). He taught us how to do flash animation and, before even understanding anything about storyboards or narrative, I saw the possibilities this offered by seeing my illustrations move for the first time.
At the end of term we had a show and I exhibited my really short 2 min animation. The show was arranged by my tutor, as a combined show for both professionals and students, with lots of people seeing my animation and giving me positive feedback. The audience came from all over the world – Tokyo, New York and London. I felt quite professional at the time by making business cards and leaving a comment book (looking back, I wasn’t really).
I think this was one of the best experiences – seeing the professional field and feeling I wanted to be a part of it. It gave me something to strive towards.
Q3: And what do you do now?
I produce and show my work in galleries, exhibitions and film festival across the world.
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- Colours, 2008 (Animation)
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- Last Snow Before Spring, 2007 (Animation)
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- The Fish’s Wish, 2006 (Animation)
Q4: You still take the time to give talks to students – why?
I was aiming to become a professional tennis player until I was 19 but my real ambition since I was little was to be an artist. At the time I was worried that I didn’t have enough experience, but I still made the decision to study Art, and now I think I didn’t need to feel worried. All the experiences, including tennis, were very important in shaping who I am and how I see things.
At University of the Arts London, I started to have a lot of ideas, and I used these ideas to make drawings and messages in my sketchbooks. However, I didn’t feel that I could express all my feelings only with drawings. I tried many different things such as ceramics, printing and paintings. Finally, at the age of 22, I found that animation was the most suited way to express myself and my art.
When I was younger, art was presented as a narrow field focused on painting and sculpture. I wasn’t introduced to any other field and I didn’t know that I could convert or transform my skills. I felt the numbers of choice were limited but now I have seen many artists who are doing many different things through a variety of medium.
I think everyone deserves to learn and have choices and, since the students are younger than when I turned my life around, I want them to have as many opportunities as possible to find the most suitable way to express themselves. I like to introduce students to the idea that animation could be a way for them to express themselves and, if this resonates with them, I’m there to help. A student asked me to keep in touch and some asked me to come to the school again – I’d definately love to see them again!
For more information on Mai Yoshida and her work, please visit www.maiyoshida.com
Tags: animation, lo-fi, mai yoshida, presentation, ual
Campus Visit – Animator Mai Yoshida
Posted by admin | Filed under Lo-Fi Animation, School Life
Animation Presentation Academic Enrichment
Animator and UAL alumni Ms Mai Yoshida visited ISCA on Wednesday 27th January to hold a talk on her work and the world of animation as part of the Lo-Fi academic enrichment programme.
A screening of her work was held in our graphic studio to a rapt audience of students with Ms Yoshida explaining the process and techniques used to create the different animations.
After the screening, students were treated to a viewing of Ms Yoshida’s work in progress. The work in progress not only demonstrated the hundreds of drawings, and sheer amount of work, required in creating an animated human but also the links and opportunities between illustration and animation as an art form.
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ISCA students viewing Mai Yoshida animation screening, 27th Jan 2010
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Demonstration of work in progress
Tags: animation, lo-fi, Lo-Fi Animation, mai yoshida, presentation, ual
Campus Visit – Professor Jimmy Choo OBE
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The 2010 Spring term started on an exciting note with a campus visit from Professor Jimmy Choo.
Students and staff alike were thrilled to welcome ISCA’s newly appointed Honorary President, and internationally renowned accessories designer, Professor Jimmy Choo OBE, on Friday 22nd January. Addressing the inaugural year at ISCA, Prof. Jimmy Choo shared his own experience as an international student at Cordwainers College (now part of London College of Fashion) and discussed the role this played in both his personal and professional development.
Professor Jimmy Choo (L), Honorary President & Mr Colin Kerrigan (R), Academic Director
As a student with English as a second language, Prof. Jimmy Choo said that there were times when his command of the English language caused him distress but that he overcame this by way of self-study (with the BBC as his guide) to go on to graduate with distinction. Highlighting another episode where he arrived late to class and was told he could not enter, Prof. Jimmy Choo told of his initial anger but how this was quickly dispelled when it was explained that punctual behaviour is a necessity to succeed within working life.
During the hour long presentation, Prof. Jimmy Choo told students that the key to success was hard work, respect for others and the determination to not give up. Happiness, Prof. Jimmy Choo said, was the most important factor in life and not necessarily reliant on monetary success but rather influenced by other aspects of life including health and family.
Studio tour - Professor Jimmy Choo (Right), Tutor Hannah Carter (Middle) & First year student (Left)
Sighting his father and his Buddhist belief as key contributors his personal success, Prof. Jimmy Choo spoke of the need to remain calm in the face of adversity, humble in the face of success and the importance of knowledge sharing. An inspiring talk, students were given the opportunity to ask questions face-to-face during Prof. Jimmy Choo’s tour of the studios with the visit ending in a group picture of the students and Prof. Jimmy Choo (below).
Professor Jimmy Choo (Middle) & ISCA students
Tags: choo, Jimmy Choo, presentation, Professor Jimmy Choo, student talk
The Brief: Lo-Fi Animation
Posted by admin | Filed under Academic Life, Lo-Fi Animation
Lo-Fi Animation Academic Enrichment
Part of the academic enrichment programme, the aim of the Lo-Fi animation project is for all students to experience an alternative aspect of the Graphics discipline, regardless of their chosen art discipline. Students will explore a variety of simple animation techniques and concepts through a series of workshops and presentations fortnightly over two terms.
Examples of workshops:
- Storyboarding
- Building a zoetrope
- Creating a flick-book
- Simple stop-frame animation techniques
Apart from developing their drawing, composition, model making and CAD skills, students will learn to work as a team to make choices that involve the selection, delegation, planning and final production of the project.
The result will see students gain a wider selection of presentation skills that can then be utilised to express their own concepts and ideas in other aspects of their main A-level studies.
Tags: animation, brief, lo-fi, Lo-Fi Animation, project
A glorious riot of colour!
Posted by admin | Filed under Gallery Images
In only a short space of time (16 weeks to be exact), the studios have undergone a dramatic change in appearance. Instead of the white refurbished walls that greeted students in September, each studio is now a glorious riot of colour and a continuously evolving gallery space!
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- Welcome to the Fine Art studio!
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- Student at work station
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- Student at work in Fine Art studio
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- Student working on Fine Art project
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- Student hanging finished work
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- Student adding finished piece to gallery space
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- Portrait on Fine Art wall
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- Display of first taster project
Tags: gallery, student work, studio
A New Year, A New Blog!
Posted by admin | Filed under Academic Life, School Life
Welcome to our new blog!
As we move into 2010, and the new term, we will be keeping you updated on the events happening within our creative community at the International School of Creative Arts. Mostly covering the academic projects, studio work and guest talks held on campus, the blog will also give you a taste of student life at ISCA.
If you would like to know more about the School, or if you have any questions regarding how to apply, feel free to email us at enquries@isca.uk.com or call on +44 (0)1753 208820.
Tags: about, contact us, Welcome
