B.A. (Hons) Design students from the Visual Communication and Fashion Design departments at LSAD (Limerick School of Art & Design) have launched the photography exhibition ‘Fashionation’. It is the result of a joint project between the two departments and is the first collaboration of its kind for the college.

Regular readers and friends of this column will know I have always had an interest in the goings-on at the Limerick School of Art and Design. My curiosity goes back years to when friends were students of the college and I started going to exhibitions and always to the annual graduate fashion show. What some might not know however, is that I am currently completing my BA in Visual Communication at the college. I returned several years ago as a mature student. My class and I are now entering our final few months of the degree and it has been a long four years in some respects, but in other ways the time has flown. Being surrounded by great poeple helps, and our class are very lucky, we’ve a great crew!

Visual Communication is what most people call graphic design and you don’t hear as much about our graduates as we’re usually the ones working away in the background, unlike our Fashion Design counterparts whose competition work in particular for high profile awards like those for Nokia and Persil are featured regularly in the media. The Visual Communicators are the photographers, the designers, the illustrators, copywriters and creative thinkers. And now, for once, we’ve come out of the woodwork! In the first project of its kind, our class teamed up with the Fashion Design final year class in a fashion photography project collaboration. Each Vis Comm student paired with a Fashion student and using the themes employed by the Fashion students for the creation of their end of year collections last year, our brief was to produce photos exploring the work of the fashion designer (like the examples shown here), as well as exploring their sketchbook work, and the designer themselves for a conceptual portrait.

The themes chosen by the Fashion Design students had a wide range of inspiration. Katarzyna Wypych’s inspiration was the French artist ‘Amose’, Shelley Menton’s ‘Chase The Dragon’ collection explored heroin addiction, and Sabrina McCarthy’s work titled ‘Charisma’ looked at the style and culture surrounding cars. Encouraged by our tutors, the Visual Communication class has organised an exhibition, launching this week, to showcase the resulting work.

‘Fashionation’ will open on Thursday February 25th 2010, at a gallery space on Sarsfield Street in Limerick City. The All Out Design Gallery operates as part of the ‘Creative Limerick’ initiative co-ordinated by the Economic Development Department at Limerick City Council in association with the creative industries, commercial property owners and their agents operating in Limerick City Centre.

‘Fashionation’ will continue for two weeks at the LSAD Clare Street campus. Those interested in photography, fashion and the general public are encouraged to call into the college and visit the exhibition.