I've been lucky enough to work in a variety of different places, universities, the health
service, in the UK, in the developing world, in war zones and the one thing thatís always
struck me is how learning, how education changes peoples lives.
The profiles that youíre about to see show how Kingston University does that for people,
it changes lives, it develops people, it gives them opportunities that they might never have
had before.
Youíll meet some interesting people whoíve done some fantastic things that we are really
proud of.
Our new strategy is designed to make sure that Kingston stays as a university that does
that but does it even better, that we continue to be a place where people can come to, to
gain the skills, to gain the confidence, to make the friends that means that they change
their lives and continue to change the lives of those about them.
I work as a freelance illustrator; I enjoy having a dig politically.
I work for The Independent, The Spectator, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, I work
three days a week at the university and the, the other seven at home in my studio.
Teachingís great and itís a great foil to my practice as an illustrator, I think Iíd
go spare if I was in my studio alone all the time.
So hereís Boris.
He was such a pleasure to draw because heís such a vile character and thatís when Iím
at my happiest.
I think all my colleagues do this sort of delicate balance between their own practice
as artists and designers and themselves as teachers.
Thatís a really important balance because it means that we have currency as teachers.
I think the students really want to know what weíre doing as professionals in the industry,
they hear us talking about the studentís ideas at the time but they wanna see what
weíre doing.
Theyíre also interested in some of the nitty gritty about how Iím published, how I sell
myself as, as a designer illustrator.
[Jake talks to the students about some technical aspects of his illustration and shows some
other examples of his work ]
Kingstonís got a really famous art and design school, itís thought of as really one of
the better ones.
Within it there are some subjects that stand out and illustration and animation is one
of those.
I have really smart, interesting students and they keep me young.
The group that I was talking to were all illustration students and they are very, very ambitious,
they know that that is what they want to do in life and thatís what theyíve always and
thatís what theyíve always wanted to do actually.
[The student talks through his illustration with Jake]
So we sort of set a brief to create stories that have the potential to be published, they
had to really think about the markets theyíre aiming at and theyíll show us sketchbooks,
notepads brimmed full of usually some great ideas and weíll help them sift through those
and we will submit those to publishers and weíve had lots of success with doing that
in the past.
[Jake gives advice to the student]
Last year we were working with Salman Rushdie, I initiated collaboration with his publisher
and the students started to work with animations and illustrations on his new childrenís book.
It was great, it really focused their learning and they got a foot in the door.
Now that is fantastic for their portfolio and it will make a difference in them getting
work in the future.
The BA honours illustration and animators all get an opportunity to do life classes
at Kingston and it really, really can make a difference with their creative work.
[Jake advices the students on the direction they may wish to take]
I love teaching life drawing, I do very informal classes where Iím trying to bridge the gap
between their observational drawing and their imagination and so we play loud music, we
get the life models to act out scenarios and it can really, really change the studentís
attitudes to their drawing.
Theyíre very, very creative, the results are amazing actually but weíre renowned in
the industry for having great degree shows, all the big art directors and designers want
to go to them.
Theyíre going out into a really fast changing industry at the moment and we expect them
to be at the forefront of those changes, so theyíre working in games, theyíre working
in animation production companies, theyíre working in Hollywood or on great publishing
ideas.
My graduates have gone into every area of the industry, theyíre doing really well.
Stefanie: Presenting at London Fashion Week was amazing for me of course; I got a lot
of good responses from people who were very impressed by us.
Jo: Stefanie created this amazing bodice which attracted so much attention and press.
Vogue has had it, Pixie Lott has borrowed it, sheís actually had offers and orders
for it.
So itís exciting for her.
[Stefanie and her teacher discuss technical aspects of her design]
Stefanie: I think the MA fashion course it really allows me to experiment a lot with
my designs and let me mature more in my style of fashion.
Jo: Stefanie was one of a wide group of students that we have on the MA Fashion and her work
has been particularly exciting.
Stefanie was discovered in Holland, our course director goes and handpicks every student
that she particularly wants and luckily for us Stefanie accepted.
Stefanie: One of the modules that we were doing was for a company called Incrops and
we had to try to make a sustainable collection.
Jo: The brief to the students was ëhow can we make this luxurious, how can we make it
appealing to the consumer?í
Stefanie: For me the challenge was to try to create something sexy.
I thought well maybe it would be amazing to mimic actual snakeskin from such a plain material
as wood so I started playing with the wood and the shapes and the sizing of the scales.
Jo: And she realised that all the pieces had a sort of intricate shape but all different
sizes so by hand she lathe cut all of the pieces and put them together to make these
amazing shapes.
Stefanie: So at the moment Iím working on my end collection, Iíve laser cut wood into
bead shapes so Iím wiring that on fishing wire and play around on my body to see what
kind of shapes I can create and now try and incorporate it with that fabric.
Jo: Stefanie has had exposure to an array of companies right up to Chanel.
Stefanie: Most people want to start their own collection or work for a good fashion
house and they help us fund these connections and opportunities to get into that business.
Jo: The world in a sense is her oyster and the MA at Kingston in fashion is giving her
the opportunity to be able to explore and experiment in all those areas.
Stefanie: Iím almost done with my course and Iím really looking forward to stepping
into this world to see whatís out there for me.
Historic royal palaces including Hampton Court has been working with Kingston University
really closely for ages, thereís such a lot that we have in common, weíre practically
next door for heaven sake and they are interested in history and culture, they even come and
bring their students here and do musical performances and drama performances in the great hall.
The knowledge transfer partnership consists of Kingston University on one side, historic
royal palaces at the other and in the middle we had a research curator for three years
who was responsible for getting the knowledge out of the university and into our visitor
displays.
The particular one that was held at Hampton Court sort of broke records because visitor
numbers which is kind of the crudest measure of itís success it went up like that, really
before and afterwards you could see that there were 100,000 extra visitors coming to Hampton
Court and more importantly than that, even I would say, they were having a really good
time when they got here and they were learning all sorts of things about Tudor history and
Henry the 8th and getting excited about the past.
In our last big project which was the knowledge transfer partnership we were looking particularly
at the Tudor side of Hampton Court and Henry the 8th and the part that people will know
about but weíve got here the baroque palace.
This is Englandís Versailles really and this is the site that now needs our attention so
people get to know that itís here.
Next year, 2013 at Hampton Court weíre having an exhibition called Secrets of the Royal
Bed Chamber and itís going to explore what the King actually did in bed and how his beds
were looked after.
So we had the idea of going to Kingston University and say look we need some help here, we need
some research.
They gave us a PhD student who worked for three years on this very topic.
Her nameís Olivia Fryman, sheís achieved marvels, sheís done some really, really interesting
work.
The exhibitionís going to explore themes such as royal death, royal births, marriages,
ceremonies that all took place in the bed chamber and my research looked at those rituals
and ceremonies and so erm, itís going to provide a lot of interpretation for the exhibition.
So Hampton Court is really unique in that it has erm, two fantastic state bed chambers
and two private bed chambers that survive reasonably well intact today so itís been
a wonderful place to study and a wonderful place to see objects in their original location.
Weíve got inside there the countries best collection of enormous four poster magnificent
state beds and youíre going to be able to come and see them all.
The royal bed chambers here at Hampton Court are really interesting because theyíre not
all designed to be slept in.
The King and Queen actually had between two and three bed chambers and only the most private
of those would have been slept in.
The state bed chamber from the reign of Charles the 2nd onwards becomes a much more public
ceremonial space, Charles had lived at the French court during his exile and during the
interregnum and he bought back French customs to the English court and that transformed
the royal bed chamber into a much more theatrical performative space.
So within that room he would have allowed courtiers to watch him dressing with his bed
chamber servants, but he would also use the room for more formal occasions such as knighting
courtierís and the rituals of births, marriages and deaths were also held in the bed chamber.
Itís been a wonderful four years of research and I feel that Iíve been welcomed both by
Hampton Court and Kingston; theyíve been brilliant providing support between the two
institutions.
This was just a really, really exciting project, something that was new and different and a
real challenge.