Traditional Practice: a Contemporary Challenge?

Our research paper explored the potential for learning styles and design methodologies in relation to employability, and how they are expressed in that context. This was achieved by gaining primary feedback from graduates, including their reflection on current design practice as they now understand it.

The paper tested the value of these reflections within the progression of students into professional practice. It demonstrated that a graduate experiences (within a short period of time: three years following on graduation in some cases) these different design methodologies, hence reinforcing learning styles familiar to them in a very wide range of professional contexts. The major aim was to address the factors that are likely to bring about significant change in art and design education this century.

Our research developed from a previous project paper and publication presented at the Tradition and Modernity conference at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India, which was based on curricula in relation to differing learning styles and design methodologies.

The delegates for this conference in Lisbon were drawn from worldwide institutions of art and design specifically supported by ADM-HEA (Art, Design & Media-Higher Education Academy), The Royal College of Art and CLIP CETL (Creative Learning in Practice, Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning). These institutions represent a very broad research culture on pedagogy in relation to art and design in higher education.

Kathryn Hearn

Research Interests

Development and production of limited edition ceramic decorative vessels, use of moulds in a more fluid state, specifically sand casting, working with Jasper clay in collaboration with Wedgwood

Current Research

During the last 5 years my research work has included the development and production of unique and limited edition ceramic decorative vessels. They fall into three categories: Long term development of working with cast porcelain, using a range of colours in combination to produce pots for exhibition. This work is a celebration of the material, is informed by the techniques and processes and also by the natural and built environment; The use of moulds in a more fluid state, specifically sand casting, which is usually a metal casting process but adapting it into a ceramic context enabled me to produce larger and one off pieces; The collaboration with Wedgwood which has involved working with the Jasper clay body in both small and large scale. The research has also provided me with an opportunity to challenge the notion of Jasper as a decorative medium in a more contemporary idiom. I have completed work for their Prestige range. The use of ceramic bodies, in colours and qualities to explore form and surface in decorative ceramics. Chiefly using porcelain but also other ceramic bodies that have intrinsic individual qualities that are able retain identity when being manipulated. This exploration is often undertaken in collaboration with the production industries in order to challenge convention of expected norms in aesthetic, production and context.