We scooted over to the Lethaby Gallery on Wednesday, in the brand spanking new Central St Martin’s building, just behind Kings Cross, for the new NOVA Awards. Set up by Lowe and Partners in conjunction with CSM, NOVA is in its very first year and awards an outstanding graduate across disciplines, a very nice square blue perspex award and a cheque for £6,000. We are not massive fans of corporate-style awards, but an award for £6,000 is not to be sniffed at. And we were pleasantly surprised by the calibre of work on display, as we wandered around the space prior to the mini ceremony. The drinks and canapés that were circulating, were also a welcome addition, with the mini burgers going down a treat.
We moved about the space, schmoozed with friends – we bumped into DJ and overall musical genius Carsten Klemann, who spun the decks at the AWE launch, and who was providing the musical vibe for this evening’s event, fellow creatives and ad men, before getting as close to the front as we could to watch the Chairman of Lowe and Partners Tony Wright, dish out the awards. Sweden-born Isak Akerlund received the main award for his animated film ‘The Art of Darkness’, which if you can’t guess from the title, was inspired by Joseph Conrad’s novella ‘Heart of Darkness’ as well as Henri Rousseau’s 1891 painting ‘Surprised’.
The two runners up; MA Industrial Design graduate Jan Rose and BA Fashion Graduate Ryohei Kawanishi, received a prize of £2,000, (also not too shabby) for their work. Jan Rose’s ‘Urban Pouf’ is part of his graduation project, ‘The Knitting Craftsman’ which is a response to the ongoing trend of amateur craft making and professional rapid prototyping. Ryohei’s collection of finely crafted outsize garments represents international politics, terrorism, the role of media in representing images of war and conflict, as well as the role of the internet in the new age revolution.
Commendations were awarded to Raluca Popa MA Fine Art, Pip Jolley BA Jewellery Design, Shaun Samson MA Fashion Menswear, Natasha Farrar BA Graphic Design and Oleg Mikrofanou BA Fashion Communication and Promotion.
For more information about Nova [click here]
NOVA winners
Image from Isak Akerlund's winning animated film, ‘The Art of Darkness’
Tony Wright, Chairman of Lowe and Partners and NOVA winner Isak Akerlund
Photo of the new CSM building by John Sturrock