- Director praises students’ resilience and creativity
- GSA’s Creative Network send messages to class of 2020 on graduation day
- Importance of graduates’ role in addressing major global issues emphasised
In a keynote message to graduating students The Glasgow School of Art Director, Penny Macbeth, today praised their remarkable resilience and creativity.
“This has been an exceptionally challenging time for all of us with everyone deeply affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. It has been challenging for you to stay engaged with your practice, but so many of you have done so by re-framing and adapting. Your resilience is astonishing and your creative spirit shines through.”
“Today is a very special day. It marks your transition from students to alumni and you are now part of a world-wide creative network who are working to improve the quality of people’s lives, creating and designing interventions, places and solutions or making work that inspires people to see the world around them differently.”
“The creative industries are a vital part of our economy and a growing sector. There will be huge challenges as we all work together to restart it, and as highly creative individuals you are part of the solution.
“Innovators, producers, expansive thinkers, makers and collaborators are all needed now. Those who can move between the digital and the physical will be crucial to reframe our futures. You are in a unique position to help shape that future.”
Chair of the Board of Governors, Muriel Gray, added her voice to the vital contribution that GSA graduates as creative professionals will make as we face the challenges ahead.
“The lessons you have learned at the GSA about how to look at the world differently, about how to question why things are done the way they are and whether you can do them better will be a useful tool. Right now the world has never needed creative people more in every walk of life. It is creativity that will help us get through what we have to face in in the next few years and the coming generations.”
Meanwhile, leading alumni and members of The Glasgow School of Art’s Creative Network recorded special messages for the graduating students sending their good wishes and advice as the class of 2020 sets out on their professional careers.
Host of Scotland’s Best Home Anna Campbell-Jones, who graduated in Interior Design in 1991, called on the class of 2020 to innovate, create, disrupt, challenge, enlighten and enhance the world as only GSA graduates can.
“You are forged in adversity. What better preparation for the next phase of your lives. The creative, original thinking you have honed at the GSA will make you supple and adaptable to the opportunities that the post pandemic world offers.”
Multi-award winning founder of Atypical Cosmetics Marwa Ebrahim (Product Design, 2018) reminded the graduates that it is the cumulative effect of many small decisions that has got them to where they are today and will take them forwards.
“As you start this next phase of your life you can make your way towards success with a series of small decisions and good ideas, and as creatives you are better equipped to do this than most. Whether you are an artist, a designer or an architect you are already in the business of creating good ideas. Trust those ideas and the creative instincts you spent years honing.”
Isabel Garriga, who graduated in Architecture from the GSA in 2001 called on the graduating students to never stop having ideas.
“As the creative people we are the ones who have all the ideas so don’t give up easily and don’t underestimate yourself. Ideas are fundamental in any Creative Industry, it’s what makes the world go round. Please don’t stop having them and don’t let any of them go. Your ideas could lead the way in the fight for change through ingenuity, innovation, passion and resolve. Try and see new things, ask questions, be open to change and always lead from the heart.”
Artist Rachel Jones, who graduated in Painting and Printmaking in 2013, impressed on graduates the importance of taking time to find out what is best for them as they built their practice.
“Tenacity, perseverance, commitment and faith – these are things that are the backbone of what it is to survive as an artist, and you have all demonstrated that you have these attributes in abundance. As artists and designers you have the power to question, shape and create new perspectives on who we are as people and how we live – who, and what and how we can be. Be confident in yourself and what you’re interested in.Commit to making things that truly reflect that.”
BAFTA Award-winning Artistic Director, Jamie Lapsley who graduated from Product Design Engineering in 1999, encouraged the graduates to take the risk and reach out of their comfort zone
“If there is anything that an education should teach it is critical thinking, problem solving and creative decision making. My time at the art school, the learning of process has allowed me to take the most absurd ideas seriously. Learn who you really are.”
Looking back 23 years after graduating, Bafta Award-winning director, Louise Lockwood, (Fine Art Photography, 1997) highlighted three takeaways from art school that have been important in her developing career:
“Collaborating – art school is brilliant at teaching how to collaborate; trust your instincts which is easily forgotten; look beyond what is obvious. These will set you in good stead, whatever path you take.”
Winner of the inaugural MJ Long Prize for Excellence in Practice, architect Tracy Meller graduated from the GSA in 1991 and now works with leading practice, Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners. In her message to the students she urged them to embrace the constraints of these strange times:
“We have all be forced to find new ways to communicate and collaborate with colleagues. Over the last 14 weeks we have all adapted and grown. Creativity is resilient and will find new ways to emerge even from Covid-19. I would encourage you to embrace the constraints of these strange times. Your generation is better equipped than any other to address the challenges’
Work by the graduating students can be seen on the Graduate Showcase 2020.
Over the next twelve months they will be adding to their profiles as new work is made giving visitors an insight into their developing professional practice. The GSA will also be supporting physical presentations of the graduates’ work once this becomes possible.
Ends
For further information contact
Lesley Booth
0779 941 4474
@GSofAMedia
Notes for Editors
Anna Campbell-Jones
Interior Design 1991
Anna Campbell-Jones graduated from Interior Design at The Glasgow School of Art in 1991. After graduating Anna worked with leading London design practices Tilney Shane, Imagination and Morey Smith in London before returning to Glasgow to become a lecturer of Interior Design at GSA.
After 9 successful years as Director of Rehab interiors, Anna set up Habitus Design in 2016. Habitus is an interior design consultancy that specialises in residential projects but with a background in commercial interiors. Since 2019 Anna has been a judge and presenter of Scotland’s Home of the Year and is a regular contributor on BBC Radio Scotland.
Marwa Ebrahim
Product Design 2017
International Management and Design Innovation 2018
Marwa Ebrahim is the founder and lead product designer of Atypical Cosmetics Ltd. Having graduated from The Glasgow School of Art with a BDes(Hons) in Product Design in 2017, she pursued a joint MSc in International Management and Design Innovation from The Glasgow School of Art and the University of Glasgow.
In 2019, Marwa founded Atypical Cosmetics, a start-up that capitalises on the lack of AI and data-driven digital skincare services in the UK market by creating personalised skincare products based on each user’s individual needs. Atypical Cosmetics has now won two of the largest start-up competitions in Scotland, Scottish EDGE and Converge, and the company aims to launch during Summer 2020.
Isabel Garriga Serrano
Architecture 2001
Isabel Garriga is a 2001 Mackintosh School of Architecture graduate who has extensive experience practicing in Spain and the UK. Her eight years’ experience as a key design architect at Gordon Murray + Alan Dunlop Architects had her involved in a wide variety of projects ranging from the award-winning Sentinel Office development to the acclaimed Scottish Crime Campus. Since joining Holmes Miller in 2011, Isabel has expanded her portfolio to include works in other sectors such as large scale master planning schemes in China, custodial projects, and sports facilities such as the York Stadium.
In addition, Isabel is an active participant in the architecture scene of Scotland. Since 2007 she has been a Studio Design Tutor at the Mackintosh School of Architecture and has also been a council member for the Glasgow Institute of Architects since 2011. In April 2018, exactly 150 years since the creation of the institute, she was elected by the membership to become GIA President until June 2020.
Rachel Jones
Painting and Printmaking 2013
Rachel Jones (b.1991 in London) completed her BA Fine Art Painting and Printmaking at The Glasgow School of Art in 2013 and an MA Fine Art at Royal Academy of Arts in 2018. Her work has been exhibited in the UK at institutions such as the Royal Scottish Academy. She was artist in residence at The Chinati Foundation (2019) and Masterworks Museum of Bermuda Art (2016). She has upcoming exhibitions with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac and The Sunday Painter.
Jamie Lapsley
Product Design Engineering 1999
Jamie Lapsley is the production designer of Bodyguard (BBC1/Netflix), Tommy’s Honour (Best Film BAFTA Scotland 2016), Kill Command, The Rezort, Shell (Best Film Turin Film Festival 2012), and Skeletons (Best New British Feature, EIFF 2010). Advertising credits include brands such as Lego, Stella Artois, Irn Bru, Bank of Scotland and Sony Bravia Paint. Recently Jamie designed We Hunt Together (Showtime) and Trust Me (BBC1)
Jamie studied Product Design Engineering at GSA, graduating in 1999. She worked as a project manager for University of Glasgow, then freelanced as a graphic designer and motion graphics designer/VJ for gigs, events and club nights. This exposure to live events led to assisting in theatre design, before moving into film and television as an art director, working with the BBC before stepping up as designer in 2004.
Louise Lockwood
Fine Art Photography 1997
Louise Lockwood is a documentary producer and director, and a 1997 graduate of Fine Art Photography at The Glasgow School of Art.
Over the last 20 years Louise’s work has been transmitted on network channels in the UK and the USA, covering topics as diverse as Quantum Physics, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Cancer, Political and Social History and many Film, Theatre, Art and Architecture subjects, including two documentaries about the architecture of The Glasgow School of Art buildings.
Louise was nominated for a BAFTA and won a Grierson, RTS, RTS Scotland & Scottish BAFTA for her acclaimed 2009 documentary, Parallel Worlds, and won multiple awards for her intimate two-part documentary Fair Isle: Living on the Edge. Whilst the themes of her documentaries are diverse, no matter the subject, at the centre of all Louise’s work is her search for humanity in any and every story.
Tracy Meller
Architecture 1995
Tracy Meller graduated with a Batchelor in Architecture from the GSA in 1995 and is now an Architect and Partner at Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners. Since joining the practice in 1999 Tracy has led a number of large schemes on complex urban sites primarily in the residential and education sectors, including Mossbourne Community Academy, Neo Bankside and the latest building for the London School of Economics.
Tracy was recently awarded the Inaugural MJ Long Award for Excellence in Practice 2020 for her work on Centre Building, London School of Economics. The MJ Long Prize is open to all UK based female architects and is judged on an overall body of work with an emphasis on a project completed in the past 18 months.