`BREAKING NEWS – INSTORELATION - 03:10’
Nine students on the BTEC Diploma in Foundation Studies in Art & Design at QE took on the challenge of transforming an empty shop in Darlington’s Town Centre. The opportunity for this came from the Town Centre Management Team as part of their Regeneration Programme which is designed to avoid empty shops being unattractive and deterring potential new businesses from moving into empty premises.
In the former hairdresser’s store ‘Changes’ in Horsemarket, the students created an exciting large-scale three-dimensional installation constructed from intricate paper manipulations. Colour and movement were introduced by three digital projections showing fragmented images from current BBC World News.
Student, Chloe Tate explains:
“We intended to reflect not only the local community, but also to suggest the important connection to the global community. People’s knowledge about what is happening in other places is through news programmes, which is why ‘Breaking News’ is fragmented through the installation. This also implies that we often don’t get the whole picture.”
The students had the demanding challenge of designing and building the artwork in just two days so that John Denham, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, could see it when he visited Darlington on 4th March. The Minister met Tim Fisher, the Principal of QE and Rita Smith, Director of Creative Arts and spoke to some of the students who worked on the project. John Denham was particularly interested in the way the news was a factor of the piece.
The students involved were:
Chloe Tate, Charlotte Mason, Judith Wilkinson, Samantha Oliver, Jessica Everitt
Jenny MacCallum, Louise O’Neil, David Fawcett and Justin Ramsden.
The installation will be on display for the whole of March; projected ‘Breaking News’ will be seen at intermittent intervals throughout that time.
March 22, 2010