'Embracing the Spirit of the Avant Garde' postgraduate competition: Winning entry now on display at British Library
12 February 2008
Avant Garde in the 21st century is revealed through a new installation at the British Library by competition winner Rebecca Pohancenik from Kingston University.
The competition was organised by the British Library to accompany its current exhibition, ‘Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde’.
Postgraduate students from across the creative disciplines were invited to submit designs that explored the relevance of Avant Garde philosophy and demonstrate how it has influenced their work. Dr Joanna Newman, Strategic Partnerships Manager at the British Library, said:
"This was a great opportunity for students to gain experience of producing a design according to a challenging brief, and gives us the opportunity to highlight the fantastic resources that the Library has for the creative industries."
Rebecca Pohancenik’s work was judged by a panel including Graphic Designer Peter Saville; Creative Designer Caryl Harris; typography expert Professor Phil Baines, Central St Martins; Madeleine Holt, culture correspondent, BBC Newsnight; leading authority on innovations and creativity, Charles Leadbeater, and Caryl Harris, Creativeinterpartners. The judges felt that “Through the clever use of design and typography inspired by futurist manifestos, Rebecca’s winning entry perfectly captures the subversive spirit of the Avant Garde.”
Working with the British Library’s exhibition team, Rebecca’s project involved stitching together 48 blank 'books' from red, white and black paper. She says:
"These bold colours favoured by artists of the time, have unexpected properties when turned into pages of an open book. White pages hint at words unwritten and unread; black suggests that ink has overrun the page and obscured the text; whilst red evokes the visceral properties of the book, its life independent of the author."
Professor Catherine McDermott, Rebecca’s academic supervisor and Director of Postgraduate Design Studies at Kingston University, said:
"We are very proud that Rebecca has won this innovative competition established by the British Library. Rebecca’s idea responds to the brief by offering a critique on the world of book collection and book content and cleverly re-using the BL’s own strapline 'The World’s Knowledge'."
Donna Loveday, Head of Exhibitions at the Design Museum, and one of the University of Kingston’s partners, praised the competition commenting that:
"Such curatorial questions are central to our projects on the MA Curating Contemporary Design course."
The competition was run in partnership with the University of the Arts London; the University of the Arts London, Central St Martin; University College for the Creative Arts; the London Design Festival; and Create KX.
Rebecca’s work can now be seen on display in British Library shop window, overlooking the Piazza.
For further information or images please contact Jacob Lant on +44[0]20 7412 7110 or send an email to Jacob.lant@bl.uk.
Notes to Editors
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world’s greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library’s collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Further information is available on the British Library’s website at www.bl.uk.
'Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900 – 1937', Often characterised by the exploration of the printed medium, the British Library explores the European Avant Garde by drawing upon its unrivalled collection of literary manuscripts, sound recordings, flyers, posters, manifestos, artists’ books, and photobooks from across Europe, complemented with loans from other European collections.
The exhibition runs until 30th March. For further details please visit www.bl.uk/breakingtherules.
"Embracing the spirit of the Avant Garde", launched in September of last year, with £3000 set aside to build the winning entry.
Terms and conditions of the competition -
- The competition is open to postgraduate student studying in a creative design field and who are resident in the UK.
- Entries can be made in any creative medium from photography, typography, painting, illustration to digital media.
- Entries can be made in any creative medium from photography, typography, painting, illustration to digital media.
- They can also submit a plan for a new piece of design work to be built specially for the space. This may be more suitable for students studying graphic design or exhibition design
- The design needs to fit in a display area which measures 3430mm wide x 1800mm height x 700mm depth
- Entries must be sent in the following format: A2 boards (maximum of 4) to show development, final concept and designs. Models of mock ups can be submitted as photographs or print-outs mounted on an A2 board (this can be in addition to the 4 design boards – 3D work should not be submitted at this stage.
- A short typewritten text (maximum 500 words) expressing ideas from initial research to design including information on materials to be used and full costings. The Library may use this text for the winning entry as part of the final display, as background information to the work.
- The judges' decision is final
- The closing date for entries is Friday 9 November
- Full terms and conditions are available on the British Library website