Exhibitions

As part of Sydney Design Festival 2019, UTS Library in collaboration with the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building (DAB) presented an exhibition that showcased the outcomes and speculations of the Transformative Technologies + Data Poetics (TT+DP) group. The TT+DP research group are a multi-disciplinary collection of designers and makers operating in and around emerging technologies in architecture, visual communication design, and data visualisation.

Through their explorations in visualisations of complex data, mixed reality and automation within the building and construction industry, this exhibition illustrates how new technologies are enabling more inclusive design and review processes within various fields. Over the past months, TT+DP have developed two distinct projects that comparably use new technologies to assist complex ideas in becoming more accessible: Adrift, a data visualisation project that uses citizen science to collect data to map ocean microbes and Structural Hybrid, a real-world testing of robotic fabrication machinery to manufacture a complex structure.

As a part of Sydney Craft Week 2018, UTS Fashion and Textile practice-based academics, Cecilia Heffer, Armando Chant and Donna Sgro exhibited the collaborations they had undertaken exploring contemporary embroidery forms with master artisans from India.

The works on display, although diverse in content, spoke of the strong cross-cultural relationship between the UTS Fashion and Textiles program and master embroiderers from India. The partnership was initially established by Julie Lantry, Director of Artisan Culture, with the development of the Global Studio program for UTS Fashion and Textiles students and is now extended upon by the three exhibiting artists.

The Magic Pudding is an iconic Australian children’s story, written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay in 1918. The Magic Pudding is Norman Lindsay’s first and best-known children’s book and its legacy continues today as explored in the exhibition. After 100 years the book has never been out of print and has been translated into many other languages, interpreted into musical and theatrical productions, and an animated film. The exhibition featured items from the UTS Library collection including monographs, journals, manuscripts, audio-visual materials, ephemera, and toys.

In conjunction with National Science Week 2018, this exhibition showcased student projects from UTS Animal Logic Academy's initial two years, including an animation, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences , and the PhD research project of Simon Rippingale.

Animal Logic Academy (ALA) is a unique collaboration between UTS and Animal Logic – a world-leading creative animation and production studio. UTS ALA offers the first industry-led postgraduate degree of its kind in Australia - a Master of Animation and Visualisation (MAV) - and practice-based PhD research opportunities.

2017 MAV graduates: Carol Amadio, Daniel Baird, Halil Basiacik, Andrew Battye, Hannah Chu , Emma Cooney, Jessica D’Ali, Aaron De Leon, Alejandro Garrido, Alessandra Grasso, Akishi Ling, Ravi Naidoo, Mai Pham, Ben Streek, Grace Testa, Laurie Wu, Ding Yu, Jason Zhao.

UTS Library proudly showcased four video campaigns by students from the Bachelor of Design in Visual Communications program as part of the D&AD New Blood Awards.

The D&AD New Blood program is open to students, recent graduates, and aspiring creatives 18-24 years of age and aims to help young designers launch their careers. The New Blood Awards receive entries from over 40 countries with a highly competitive judging process determining prize-winners, who can receive a Wood, Graphite, Yellow, White or Black Pencil. Taking home a Yellow Pencil is considered a highpoint of any career, not only for the prestige of the award but for the professional advancement and opportunities that come with it.

In 2017, UTS students Annabel Cook, Lina Lindberg and Samson Ossedryver won a Yellow Pencil for their campaign Down to Business. Up to No Good. In 2018, two UTS Visual Communication student teams were awarded 3 pencils at the D&AD New Blood awards ceremony in London. The Dirty received a Yellow and White Pencil and Stack received a Graphite Pencil.

Just Spaces presents the work of UTS Master of Design graduate Ella Cutler. This body of work emerged from Ella’s thesis research into the microaggressions experienced by Lesbian, Bisexual, Pansexual and Queer (LBPQ) women and non-binary identities in their everyday lives, and how she as a designer can help facilitate and imagine safe spaces for this community.

On display were a series of works on paper that respond to two workshops facilitated by Ella, in which a group of LBPQ identifying people were asked to imagine and plan new safe spaces for the future, for them and their community. The series of six double-sided risograph prints are Ella’s visual translations of the stories, anecdotal data, and the solutions that the workshop participants offered. Workshop outcomes included the necessity for safe spaces to be: for all (identities and sexualities), accessible, inclusive of narratives so they become culturally accepted, maintained and committed to by everybody, educative, equipped with medical and counselling facilities, and to be everywhere.

This exhibition showcased hand loomed weaving and artisan woodblock prints made by UTS Fashion and Textiles students as a part of the 2017 India Global Studio.

The first group of students were based in the Himalayas where they worked with the Kullu Karishma Weave Studio. Students learned about the traditional methods such as spinning, weaving, knitting and natural dye processes – practices that have been developed in Himalayan communities over centuries.

The second group of students travelled to Bangalore to work with an internationally recognised woodblock studio known as Tharangini Prints. Students explored a variety of techniques that focused on organic eco-friendly colours and sustainable print processes.

This exhibition showcased five projects by the Designing Out Crime Research Centre that have resulted in real-world solutions that address criminal and social issues. For the past seven years a team of academics, designers and spatial psychologists have been exploring creative approaches to Social Justice. The team at the Designing Out Crime Research Centre (a partnership between the University of Technology Sydney and the NSW Department of Justice) have established a body of work illustrating design’s ability to promote fair, equitable and meaningful experiences in community, court and the justice system.

Data Lace was an ethereal paper lace installation created by textile artist Cecilia Heffer that was suspended in the central stairwell of UTS Library as part of the inaugural Sydney Craft Week (6 -15 October 2017).

Cecilia’s project was a creative response to a selected environment - a workplace. Through a series of daily walking expeditions from an office to a design studio, ephemera in the form of shredded paper documents were collected and transformed into an installation of fragmented information, numbers, and words - a Data Lace.

In her practice, UTS Visual Communications Honours student Megan Wong celebrates the hidden and unnoticed traces that are left when humans interact with books. The three projects that were presented investigated different elements of the traces that accumulate on library books over time. By visualising unseen elements of human interaction, Megan's practice draws attention to the ways objects change through use.

Megan collaborated with UTS Library curatorial staff to cultivate the microorganisms found on UTS Library books using agar gel. Students and staff from across the university were asked to swab books that were being borrowed and returned. The resulting installation was a unique visualisation across the Dewey Decimal cataloguing system utilised globally by libraries. The exhibition builds on Megan's work with public libraries to grow and display the microbial traces found on their collections.