Liverpool Daily Report

Thu. 06-11-2008: students day

Workshops with graphic design students
Today we meet up with Ian again, as well as with Cil (who was with us in the pub yesterday) at the art academy. With our yellow balls, statement T-shirts and have-your-say-posters we try to grasp the opinons of the students. How does the Cultural Capital atmosphere and events affect their minds, works and lives?

First, we introduce ourselves and show a little bit of our online portfolio. Next, we ask everyone (about 20 students) about their background and ambitions. We also ask them if they prefer to stay or go after they graduate. Actually, most of them would like to stay in Liverpool trying to make a living as a graphic designer. It that wouldn’t turn out OK, the’d consider leaving the city. There’s no ambition to swap Liverpool for London at all (’life there’s too fast and too expensive, we’d prefer a smaller town’).

First workshop: role playing games
Our first workshop is a series of role playing games. We present ten black T-shirts with ten different statements printed on them. Next, we ask two students to pick one out that suits them best and start a little discussion in front of the class. There’ a lot of response from the audience during the plays. Here you can see some examples:

We notice how some students point out that their work opportunities as a graphic designer have not been increased by the buzz of te Capital of Culture, although it was promised to them in some sort of a way. Also, the new art academy building was supposed to be up and running in Januar 2008, but it all got delayed. Untill Christmas, the art academy students will have to follow classes in their old place. That’s why there’s not paid much attention to their creative activities and potential for Liverpool.

Second workshop: yellow typoballs
The second workshop consists of small plastic yellow balls and typography. We ask each student to choose one word that expresses their vision on the European Capital of Cultural best. Next, everyone gets a yellow ball to design that word onto it. Some used markers, while others cut out the glyphs. Some balls were crushed, others got duct-taped.

After a while, everyone gets photographed with his or her ball/comment.

Finally, everyone receives someone else’s ball and is asked to explain what he or she sees in it. In this way, we are talking about the Capital of Culture and visual communication at the same time.

Third workshop: have-your-say-posters
Finally, we handed out the have-your-say-posters to the students, actually as a sort of ‘thank you’-gift. We ask them kindly to spread the posters around (in their neighbourhoods, friends etc.), but instead they start crossing out the words on the spot! All kinds of original comments, both positive and negative, appear on the posters.

After the workshops are finished, we hang a selection of the posters in front of the windows of the art academy, so that bypassers get something to think about…

Today was a really interesting day, in the fist place because of the enthusiasm and sometimes strong opinions of the students. Besides that, we’ve been able to speak with the people who are the spine of Liverpool’s cultural identity for the forthcoming years.

When these people started their study (most of them are in their 3rd year now), they were promised that the Capital of Culture surely would create more jobs in their field of work. But now it looks like it made competion bigger, and therefore it has becomee harder to find a job.
But when we asked each student what they would like to do when they graduate, almost everyone hoped to stay in Liverpool, unless other attractive chances would come up. Hearing this, we sensed a real pride for the city of Liverpool, created or grown by the Capital of Culture.

Legacy is a word we’ve heard a lot in the last days. So what will Liverpool’s testament in 2008 hold for these young creatives? Has Liverpool made a cultural testament at all? Maybe this webpost we found could be a start: Liverpools 5 year masterplan.
Refering to our thoughts of yesterday: Liverpool, the Capital of Regeneration or the Capital of Culture? Liverpool invested a lot in regeneration, but did they take care for a culture climate, which can provide work in the cultural field for all these students? Or do they still have to get the big money in London, like one of the bigger studios such as Mercy Design? Here is a government based website on the statistics: Impacts08.

One suggestion for Utrecht is to invest in young creative talent at the academies and universities. Not just during the year 2018, but also in the years before and after. Young people are full of energy and willing to accomplish beautiful projects. They still have something to prove to the world, and are able to place obvious ideas (open doors) in brand new perspectives.

Like Liverpool, the threat of Utrecht is that the talented people educated in the city, will make a business elsewhere (often Amsterdam). It’s important to bind them, even before the Capital of Cuture year starts, to make them proud of their city. And most important of all: don’t make them promises you can’t keep!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 9:00 am and is filed under 06/11/08. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.