NCAD Visit: 4th & 5th Class
4th and 5th Classes went to the National College of Art and Design on June 15th, to see the art students’ final projects. The entire college was filled with a variety of art forms on display, ranging from textiles and fashions to upturned cars and gravel-mixers. The tour took several hours just to scan, leaving most of us lost for words afterward. Below are some of the collated comments of 4th Class, recounting their favourite, or indeed least favourite pieces. The most Interesting thing I saw today was: “The tree house because it was really small. It had t.v.s that showed what was on the surveillance camera. It had a telescope, and you could see everyone up high out the little window. .. I also liked the broken car, and seeing the video of how it was turned over, with ten people pushing it over. And the glass was really cool, the way it fell. The back window had a big dent in it. You could see all of the parts at the bottom of the car. .. It all looked very dramatic, the way the window pieces all smashed like they’d been carefully placed like that. But I noticed how much it might hurt if you were in the car like that. The car was a Ford Escort. It was owned by the person who made the spiral light thingy. It reminded me of that part of Jurassic Park where the dinosaur flipped over the car… I also liked the way they didn’t even change anything about the car then. It was an interesting piece… The engine was cool, with all the little knobs and wires tangled up in a kind of mechanical maze… I wonder whose it was?.. I liked the dark bird room. It was freaky but interesting. It looked scary at first, but wasn’t really at all scary. The room was very dark, so the birds actually helped us to see. I also loved the tree-house… I liked the pieces of grey silk with the different people printed on them. I think the artist was trying to give a spooky effect by making it seem as if there were people behind the silk, ready to jump out at you. It was on flimsy material so that when you walked by it, it moved as if the people were alive. A dark tunnel leads into a glow in the dark room. The birds look like ghosts. There are also a couple of dead trees on the walls that look as if they’re blowing, with scary noise in the background. I also remember a great big bubble of water that was very, very tempting to touch. I also remember a spinning thing with beautiful rainbow colours. If you closed your eyes, you could still see amazing patterns… One of the dresses had a link to historical garments. The outfit was by Aoife Conroy, who has put a modern twist on a Victorian or Edwardian influence. There’s a bowler hat which is very like a City gent’s from Edwardian London. The jacket was tight and figure hugging, with broadened shoulders, in a Victorian style… I saw a plastic cup with water in it, but I wasn’t allowed drink from it… And you could make art by cutting plastic bags into little strips and then melt them onto steel with an iron. .. At NCAD it was fun when we saw the gravel plough that kept turning around. .. I found the mats very soft and comfortable to sit on… It was also fun walking to the place and back…”
