‘Creative Generation: Design’ A QAGOMA learning pilot program to engage senior secondary students in the collaborative process of exhibition design

‘Creative Generation: Design’ is a QAGOMA (Queensland Art Gallery, Queensland Gallery of Modern Art) learning program, supported by the Department of Education, Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority, and Queensland University of Technology’s School of Design, and developed in consultation with Senior Design teachers Evie Skinner and Tim Osbourne.

The program will provide Year 11 Design students with the opportunity to work with peers and professionals to contribute to the design of the ‘Open Studio’ interactive space in the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG). Open Studio has been designated as a space in the QAG building where contemporary Australian artists are invited to share their studio practice with QAGOMA’s audiences to provide insights into their creative processes. Throughout the course of the ‘Creative Generation: Design’ program, students will design an interactive space within Open Studio to engage audiences with Queensland design.

Aims

‘Creative Generation: Design’ aims to:

• recognise and nurture design excellence in Queensland schools
• work with young designers to develop an interactive space that reflects the currency of design in Queensland
• generate new design-education resources for students and teachers
• connect Queensland schools with tertiary and industry networks.

Program structure

‘Creative Generation: Design’ participants will work with QAGOMA staff to deliver a real-world outcome to open in June 2021. Successful students will be required to participate in online workshops on selected dates across Term 4 in 2020 and Term 1 in 2021, as well as work independently (with teacher support as required) in between sessions.Each successful student will receive a kit of design materials that will be sent to their schools at the beginning of Term 4 in 2020.
‘Creative Generation: Design’ will be delivered in a virtual capacity at the following times throughout Term 4 in 2020 and Term 1 in 2021. Each session of approximately 70 minutes will take place outside normal school hours (i.e., 3.20–4.30 pm).Explore phase (three sessions)
Thursday 15 October, Thursday 22 October and Friday 23 October 2020Develop phase (three sessions)
Thursday 5 November, Thursday 12 November and Thursday 19 November 2020Design pitch (three sessions)
Thursday 11 February and Thursday 18 February 2021

Requirements

Students will:

• attend all online sessions and consistently contribute to the aims of the project
• meet deadlines set as the program progresses through the design phases
• actively participate in group discussions, critique and reflection
• support peer learning and development.

Teachers will:

• support their students in the role of mentor/coach
• arrange access to the school’s design-studio space/s outside of class times as required
• have access to continuing professional development as part of their students’ involvement in the program
• contribute feedback to assist with the development of future ‘Creative Generation: Design’ programs and initiatives
• be able to engage with design colleagues and students in ‘Open Studio’ and through QAGOMA Learning programs.

QAGOMA will:

• ensure an equitable and transparent selection process informed by a panel of experts from design education, gallery learning and the design industry
• facilitate online workshops in Term 4 in 2020 and Term 1 in 2021, and provide a productive and safe online-learning environment
• provide students with design kits that include materials and learning resources
• manage intellectual property developed by individuals and groups through the documentation of the creative design process
• promote the program and its outcomes through QAGOMA-supported promotion and publicity material, including QAGOMA’s website.

Submissions

The program is open to all current Year 11 Queensland state school and non-state school students who are enrolled in Senior Design. Nominations close Wednesday 2 September 2020.To nominate, students are required to develop a response to the Design Brief. The student’s response must be authentic, communicate their innovative solution to the design problem, and should include both written and visual content (maximum: one x A3 page in JPEG or PDF format; 5MB).Teachers must also provide a 25-word written statement supporting each student’s nomination. A maximum of two students per school can be nominated and each teacher must have the support of their Head of Department and Principal.Nominations may only be submitted by teachers; students are not eligible to nominate themselves. Teachers must upload their nominations and student responses to the Design Brief using the designated online form by Wednesday 2 September 2020. Submissions may not be accepted after this date.

Design Brief

‘Creative Generation: Design 2020’

To nominate for the inaugural ‘Design: Creative Generation’ program in 2020, students are asked to respond to the featured artwork, Stuart Ringholt’s Double pencil 2008 (Figure 1 below). Using the develop phase of the design process, students need to design a self-sanitising drawing implement/device that will assist the Queensland Art Gallery in providing visitors with a COVID-19-safe way of responding to drawing activities.

Students will need to:

• propose a design concept based on ideas devised in response to Double pencil 2008
• communicate ideas and the design concept using ideation sketches and illustrations
• annotate how their design concept addresses COVID-19 safety and sustainability considerations.

The submission should be one x A3 page with sketches and annotations, in JPEG or PDF format (up to 5MB). Successful responses will meet the following criteria:

• sophisticated representation of the design concept and design information
• coherent and logical synthesis of ideas to propose an innovative design concept.

About the Artist

Stuart Ringholt’s practice challenges and disorientates by playing on audience expectation. In his performance works, Ringholt flouts customary bounds of social interaction and self-awareness by purposefully constructing embarrassing situations that threaten the ego.In his ‘aerosol’ set of sculptures, Ringholt repurposes familiar objects, recasting Coca-Cola beverage cans with aerosol spray nozzles in the manner of flyspray or deodorant. Ringholt’s objects serve obtuse or impossible functions that deny logic. Following the tradition of the Readymade, they dryly continue modern art’s penchant for the marriage of the unexpected. Funny and serious, these works play on our fears of disorder, delusion, illness and dysfunction with irreverent slapstick.

About the Artwork

Double pencil takes the common object of a graphite pencil and places it on top of a humble ply presentation box. In so doing, Stuart Ringholt raises the status of an everyday item to an object of artistic merit. The playful elevation of a pencil is doubled by a fusion that at once hybridises and confuses. Ringholt’s Double pencil is not doubly useful—this hybrid is rendered dysfunctional. The work invites playful debate about the role of art, the use of found objects in the work of a sculptor, the difference between art and design, and the line between form and function.

Timeline

Application form

Please go to the QAGOMA website www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/forms/creative-generation-design-application for the online submission form.