Double celebration by Design

Art lovers in Cornwall will have double cause for rejoicing at the beginning of May as two imaginative exhibitions open celebrating textile and contemporary crafts design.

From Wednesday 6 May to Saturday 9 May, 36 second-year BA(Hons) Textile Design students from University College Falmouth will be exhibiting a diversity of approaches creating textiles that explore a combination of media and disciplines at The Poly in Falmouth. The exhibition presents fashion and interiors fabric designs, showcasing both digitally and traditionally produced production pieces in print, weave, stitch and fabric manipulation.

"This annual exhibition presents an exciting range of developing work from our aspiring textile designers" said BA(Hons) Textile Design Course Leader, Di Downs. "Preparing for an exhibition is an invaluable experience for our students who must learn to produce and present their work in a professional manner, maintaining their own integrity whilst working as a team to bring the show together."

If you're looking for some quiet inspiration, then visit the National Trust's Trelissick Garden at the head of the Fal estuary from Friday 15 May until Wednesday 10 June, where an astonishing journey of contemporary crafts and plants awaits you. Through site-specific artefacts designed and built to define a sense of space, second-year University College Falmouth students studying BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts have designed a thought-provoking exhibition, produced specifically for Trelissick Garden. The students have been commissioned by the National Trust to augment and compliment a series of carefully chosen locations throughout the garden which encourages and enhances visitors to explore these nationally important and charming grounds.

"Working with the National Trust at Trelissick has provided the students with an exceptional opportunity that most professional practitioners rarely experience," said BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts Course Leader, Jason Cleverly. "It is an excellent platform for innovation and due consideration of an outstanding site and gives the students the opportunity to work under real-world constraints of time and budget whilst learning to work as a team."

The BA(Hons) Textiles and BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts courses at University College Falmouth are leading the field in their specialist areas by encouraging students to be experimental, to explore new ways of using traditional methods and to find their own artistic voice whilst redefining what textiles and craft mean in the 21^st century. Two rising stars from BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts are Remon Jephcott and Jeremy Doar, who have been awarded the Society of Designer Craftsmen TSB Award for Excellence for her ceramics that combine silver and glass and the Warm Glass Newcomers Prize for his amber cross.

Staff and students of BA(Hons) Textiles, BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts and across all disciplines are busy preparing for the annual celebration of graduating students work at University College Falmouth's Summer Shows from 16-20 June held at the Woodlane and Tremough campuses, where all are welcome to enjoy the talent and imagination of these fledgling industry leaders of tomorrow.

For further information about BA(Hons) Textile Design at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/textiledesign , email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 214385

For further information about BA(Hons) Contemporary Crafts at University College Falmouth, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/contemporarycrafts, email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01326 214356

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.

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

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