Falmouth Decorative & Fine Arts Society welcomes Terry Peters

Falmouth Decorative and Fine Arts Society (FDFAS) welcomed University College Falmouth's MA 20th Century Art & Design: Histories and Theories student, Terry Peters, to their January lecture meeting at The Falmouth Hotel.

Terry won the annual award given by the Society, that is offered to a current student on the course, for his dissertation proposal on the political murals of Belfast, which are now amongst the most visited sites in Northern Ireland. The £450 prize funded Terry's research trip to Belfast to study the nationalist murals and local archives at first hand.

As well as presenting the Society with a copy of his dissertation, Terry gave a well-received illustrated talk on the murals and their political, historical and cultural significance. Dr Amanda Hobson, Society Chairman, said "Terry's presentation opened our eyes to an interesting and unusual aspect of contemporary art. I am glad that we were able to support him in his research."

Over the last five years the Society has sponsored research into 1950's kitchen design, the serpentine industry in Cornwall, the Dada Movement, the representation of women in Soviet art and the work of American artist, Edward Kienholz. Sadly, this will be the Society's final award.

"We much regret that our association with Fiona Hackney, the Course Leader for MA 20^th Century Art & Design: Histories and Theories, and her students must come to an end," said Amanda Hobson. "It is an excellent course, and we have valued our links with it and with University College Falmouth."

Fiona Hackney concurred, "It has been a great pleasure working with Falmouth DFAS. They are a wonderful group of dedicated people and their enthusiasm and support for research in the arts has been enormously valuable to our students, several of whom have gone on to study at Doctoral level. Although the prize has come to an end, I look forward to liaising with the Society in the future to highlight the quality of fine and decorative arts work in the region."

Falmouth DFAS, which has 200 members, runs a programme of monthly lectures on aspects of the fine and decorative arts, as well as study days and visits. Its Heritage Volunteers carry out skilled conservation work in the Bartlett Library at the National Maritime Museum and on the costume collection at Helston Folk Museum, and its Church Recording team produces detailed records of the contents of local churches, having just completed the record of Mabe Church. It also encourages young artists, recently funding a project enabling AS Level students from Falmouth School to work with a practising artist.

MA 20^th Century Art & Design is an innovative part-time evening course with a reputation for offering a new, exciting approach to its subject and a flexible mode of study. It enables students to develop a critical awareness of contemporary culture as well as studying key movements in art and design.

Critical engagement is supplemented by first hand experience on Study Visits to Paris, Berlin or London, while a week-long Study School at Tate St Ives provides access to art and design in the context of the gallery.

The course welcomes students of all ages and from all backgrounds and is designed to take you, in a structured way, from a broader consideration of the subject field to in-depth study of selected areas of special interest.

For further information about MA 20^th Century Art & Design: Histories & Theories at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/20centuryartdesign, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 214360.

For further information about Falmouth Decorative and Fine Arts Society please contact Amanda Hobson at archobson@btinternet.com or telephone 01326 280154.

Ends

For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792; or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012, that will be unique to the South West.

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union, the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.

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