1. Where are you from?
I come from a small, tiny village on the Lake Garda, Italy. My hometown has been an essential part of my life. It is one of those quite and beautiful places where everyone knows to each other. It taught me the importance of human connections within a pristine place, the pleasure of the walking distance, the beauty of sailing and the joy of food. It is still the best spot in the world for me to go, clean my mind and put my things back together.
2. What are /were you studying?
I did a full time Masters in Interior and Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art.
3. Life before Chelsea?
Right after the end of high school I decided to take a sabbatical year. I kept that time to travel and figure out what was the best way to continue my studies. I eventually started in 2008 my BA in Interior Design at the European Design Institute in Milan, which ended in 2011. Throughout that time I collaborated in team to many different projects, from interior and pop-up design to architecture, from light to furniture design.
Just afterwards the final exhibition in Milan I went to America for a few months to gain some work experience and I then decided to permanently live abroad. So that I moved first to Cambridge in the UK, where I took some times off to apply to college and refresh my English and I eventually move to London where everything started in 2012.
4. Influences?
I am very interested in the discarded and the overlooked. My work is always based on this uncanny idea of objects and places having a peculiar grain or patina, a sort of life on their own. I consider the cityscape as a very lively burst of inspiration for my practice. Richard Wentworth is surely the photographer I look the most at. His way of documenting the city has been a constituent part of my last pieces. Beside it I am very fascinated by the work of JamesPlumb, a duo of artist based in London whose work is a very interesting way of linking design and art on one level. Their practice is strictly related to this charming idea of turning forgotten objects and rough materials into one-off assemblages, interiors and luminaires.
5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I luckily got the chance to start an internship while I was still doing my MA in Chelsea. Thanks to one of the alumni events we had in College I got to know a previous student and I started working with him as Display Artist for an American company here in London. It’ s been a constant growing path, which turned into a freelance position and eventually into a permanent position.
I fell in love with the workshop while doing my Masters and now I can say I succeed in having a workshop on my own. My job is very practical and based on making display set up on a daily base. I would probably picture myself within this Company in 5 years as I really enjoy what I do there and it will be a great opportunity for me to constantly improve myself in what I am really good at and I like the most, making stuff.
6. Any stand out moments at Chelsea?
I have to say that the whole experience in Chelsea made a huge difference to the way I approach things in general. It’s been a massive change that I have been through and I personally have to say that if you let things happen and you never stop trying different methods until you get to catch what you need to research and express you will surely end up with a more clear understanding of who you are as a designer, as an artist and eventually as a person.
7. Any helpful tips for new students
My first and pretty much only rule is ‘if you don’t ask you don’t get’. This is the most valuable tip I can come up with in a few lines. Being vocal is one the most important things in life. A good and easy communication with the others always helps to make your life easier and most of all more enjoyable.
8. How can we improve our workshop?
To be honest the workshop in term of space and tools is absolutely great and tidy and I miss hanging out there very much! The only thing I would probably say concerns the possibility of giving the students a sort of quick training at the beginning of the year to avoid queues and ‘rush hour’ at the end. The most of them have never even stepped into a workshop and they obviously don’t know what a jigsaw (for instance) is meant to be use for. I believe that a brief explanation of how the tools work in the first place would be a good way to make everyone’s life easier ;)
1. Where are you from?
- I am from Hong Kong, a place used to be colonized by UK.
2. What are you studying?
- I just finished my interior and spatial design MA. I also did a graduate diploma course in chelsea before the MA.
3. Life before Chelsea?
- I have been engaged in the interior design industry since 2002. After graduating in Hong Kong at 2005, I have worked for three interior design companies throughout five years in Hong Kong and Macau. I participated in a wide range of design projects, from residential to Restaurant, from Hotel to Casino.
4. Influences?
- Black Box Exercise (2000 & 2003) by zuni icosahedron is the most important works that I participated in and which have always influenced me. It introduced me what art is and what art can be when I was 15. It suggested to me that art can be more than self-expression, but to provide a chance for others to express. Black Box Exercise not only shaped my interest toward design and art, it was also the starting point of my MA research on participatory art and design work. Ai weiwei & Antony Gormley are two others important artists that I always reference to. How Ai weiwei engaged with the mass in the process of making art and the way he integrated the historical artifact to his work are so fascinating. Antony Gormley has a particular way of collaborating with people. How he creates rules for collecting information to build up his creative database in Allotment inspired my initial experiment in the course.
5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- I will first work for a small interior design studio in London or Europe for as least one to two years. Hopefully I may team up with some of my mates to form a design studio afterward.
6. Any stand out moments at Chelsea?
- There were too many, I enjoyed every single moment with my fellow no matter when we were working together for a competition or drinking in a pub. It was such an amazing moment when my piece was finally finished after more than two months in the workshop.
7. Any helpful tips for new students
- Be patient! Be patient! Be patient! Try to think how to solve the problem before you ask for help, then you will learn more.
8. How can we improve our workshop?
- The wood workshop is really good already. I worked smoothly in the past few months except the experience with the laser cut machine. It would be great if there is bigger and also stronger machine that can cut through 6mm thick MDF. Or even better if there is a CNC machine.
Lene Shepherd MA Fine Art
1. Where are you from?
- Originally from a small island off the north coast of Norway and grew up in Scotland and the south of England.
2. What are you studying?
- MA Fine Art
3. Life before Chelsea?
- I completed my degree in Fine Art at Norwich School of Art and Design and then moved to Berlin for a few months. I carried on mainly drawing and painting and then did a three-month residency in a small town outside of Amsterdam. After the residency, I came back, moved to London and started at Chelsea.
4. Influences?
- During my degree I was obsessed with Constant Nieuwenhuys and his New Babylon Project. A member of the Situationist International, Nieuwenhuys endorsed a more dynamic way of existing and moving through space. Various writers and theorists such as Merleau-Ponty and Paul Virilio have helped shape the way I approach my work.
5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- I would like to be able to work part time, doing something that involves making things and allows me the time to work in the studio and carry on exhibiting. I’d like to have participated in lots of residencies and lived in various places and have found somewhere interesting to settle.
6. Any stand out moments at Chelsea?
- I can’t think of just one particular moment, I think that the other students and the technicians, and the supportive friendships, have generally made the experience at Chelsea stand out.
7. Any helpful tips for new students?
- Throw yourself into the workshops straight away and enjoy the learning process.
8. How can we improve our workshop?
- I think the workshop is pretty great, definitely the best thing about being at Chelsea is having access to such great workshops… maybe longer opening hours?!
Adam De Boer
1. Where are you from?
- I was born and raised in Southern California.
2. What are you studying?
- I studied on Chelsea’s MA in Fine Art 2011-2012.
3. Life before Chelsea?
- I graduated from the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006 with a degree in painting and drawing. Following that I moved to the east coast of the United States and lived in Boston and Washington, DC where I worked at art museums, made paintings, and began to show my work nationally at both commercial and non-profit spaces. I also traveled and taught throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia and specifically came to Chelsea (and it’s renowned woodshop) to make work about my mixed Indonesian/Dutch/American ancestry using traditional textile and woodcarving techniques.
4. Influences?
- Travel has been a very important source for imagery, themes, and materials in my work. I am particularly influenced by the American artist Ashley Bickerton, who over a decade ago turned away from a footloose and fancy free artist lifestyle in New York City and moved to Uluwatu, Bali, Indonesia to work in isolation and surf each day. His work is amazing, incorporates imagery from his weird and wonderful ex-pat experience, and also uses the tools and materials that surround him in his newfound home.
5. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Hopefully in a situation not so dissimilar from Mr. Bickerton. Somehow I’ve managed to make a life and career whose rhythm has been traveling, making work, and then showing that work. I hope to continue it for the rest of my life. I’ll be participating in a two-month residency in India beginning in October and then another in Bogotá, Colombia in the spring of 2013. These experiences may very well change my work and direction considerably.
6. Any stand out moments at Chelsea?
- I especially enjoyed the first room divider project, Baturaden Room Screen, (http://adamdeboer.com/artwork/2589938_Baturaden_Room_Screen_Between_the_Adored.html)
that I made for the interim show. I had been planning the piece for months and seeing each piece being crafted from boards of hard wood in the shop and assembled in just a week was really exciting. Certain group and individual critiques with Neal Tait, Stephen Wilson, and Brian Chalkley are also high points for me as well.
7. Any helpful tips for new students?
Be very professional, patient, kind and assertive when working with technicians at Chelsea. The school is crowded (and definitely getting worse in that regard) and you’ll find that you and your projects will be treated with the exact same amount of respect that you show to the tutors and technicians.
8. How can we improve our workshop?
I suppose my only suggestion would be to allow students to take courses and tests on safe methods for certain power tools and saws (i.e. chop saw and table saw) so that less time is wasted on waiting for technicians to make simple chops etc. so one can move on in a project. You guys are very skilled and your time and energy should be used on complex projects or in teaching students how to do things for themselves, not making their work for them. I spent a lot of time waiting for BA’s (with their arms akimbo) to have their canvas stretchers made for them, and that, to me, is silly. It wastes time and I think it makes for an unhealthy working practice for most students since they leave, sometimes even with masters degrees, not knowing how to make even simple versions of their work. It is disingenuous to the patrons of the school and those who apply because they have a false understanding of the level of work actually achieved by the students. When I applied last year I was blown away by the level of craft certain work I saw online had—now I know why.
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