Image courtesy of Kritian de la Riva
Future Map is the annual University of the Art’s exhibition in which they have selected the best of the current graduating year (MA and BA) from across their vast range of colleges. This year the show opened on the 25th November at 20 Hoxton Square with the awarding of the 176/ Zabludowicz Collection Future Map Prize going to Cindie Cheung for her wryly-amusing short video pieces titled “One Girl in an Office with Coca Cola and “Untitled.” Accordingly these films appear to ask questions about the representation of women in popular culture, mainly through celluloid mediums such as Film and TV. The music also composed by Cheung added additional feelings of extreme posturing at the slight film roles offered to women in British and American Cinema. In the shorts Cheung’s smile comes across as a grimace extracted by the camera, her feelings of frustration being borne out upon a sleek wooden table in the manifestation of a patriarchal society: the office.
For the past twelve years Future Map has provided the opportunity to see the variation within the field too often shortened to “Art and Design” through the inclusion of MA and BA Jewellery designers, Fashion Artifacts MA students, graphic designers interior and spatial designers alongside the usual elements of contemporary Fine Art; painting, drawing, Sculpture and video.
This decision results in the inclusion of the starkly clinical pieces created by Leyla Kashanipour . These innovative, politically motivated designs refer to female suppression in Iran. Compared to the currently fashionable ‘hard’ adornments adorning the fashion pages Kashanipour’s physically aggressive pieces takes the breath away, with their hint at the suppression which can arrive in the form of a box.
The animation CUT by MA fine artist Kristian De La Riva is based upon the loss of a relationship and creative partnership. The beautifully cartoon drawn through an apparently simplistic black line, drew a far amount of giggles on the opening night. Subjected to various actions of bodily destruction, repairing itself endlessly, the cartoon’s stuck in its own version of Groundhog Day. Doomed to a life of perpetual self-debasement at the end of a relationship.
Zoe Paul’s translation of Hellenistic Sculpture re-expresses art historical notions of worth and grandeur through the language of the bathroom tile and its accomplice; grout. Paul expresses the tensions present on the surface of sculpture through her considerations of the relationship between material and subsequent fetishising by the museum.
Una Burke’s piece created for her MA in Fashion Artefact encapsulates fashion and the history of art’s prevalence to cast the female form as an object of fetish desire through representing it via the idea of human trauma. The sculpture’s kneeling position enables it to function as a modern update of Greek statues and their portrayal of an ideal femininity. The beautiful piece occupies the right hand side and is mesmerizing for it’s delicate strength.
Courtesy of Raju Rahman
A particularly attractive piece of communication design came from Raju Rahman BA Graphic & Media Design – London College of Communication in the form of a poster reminiscent of the old underground designs advertising a sale of artifacts created by the artist. Where as the slightly more typical graduate sculpture of Maurice Daniel Citron MA Fine Art – Central Saint Martins drew eyes to its central location with the gallery space.
Courtesy of Elisa Strosky
Elisa Strozyk’s (MA Design For Textile Futures, Central Saint Martins) beautiful balance between 3D and 2D left the viewer transfixed at the re-presentation of geometric shapes, that appeared to be woven but on closer inspection turn out to be constructed from tiny pieces of wood, questioning ideas of textile function sitting between home furnishing and sculpture.
A particular favourite being Sonny Sanjay Vadgama’s Eye for an Eye video, in which the watches the endless destruction and rebuilding of the Biruit Hilton, the narrator providing moral outrage at the endless consuming nature of war and ideological clashes.
The exhibition runs until the 23rd December 2009 at 20 Hoxton Square Gallery. Opening Hours: Tuesday – Friday 11am – 6pm, Saturday 12am – 6pm Nearest Tube: Old Street.
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