Exhibition: from Tuesday 12 July 2011 until Thursday 28 July 2011 at 'The Atrium', Hobart Council Centre, 16 Elizabeth St, Hobart
Stephanie Papastavrou, 2011
2nd Year Visual Communication students from the Tasmanian School of Art have come up with stunning and innovative designs that have the potential to reshape our city.
Lord Mayor of Hobart Alderman Rob Valentine said close collaboration with Council staff and School of Art students has resulted in a highly successful project being launched at the Hobart Customer Centre. “37 students who have already become quite high achievers in their chosen fields were given an opportunity to become part of a real world project while offering the Council and the city a fresh new voice.
“This project comes at a time when the Council is conducting a wide ranging marketing review, particularly the campaign about ‘Hobart, the way life should be.’ The School of Art students were set the task to come up with re-branded imagery around how they think the Council should market Hobart.
“This was very ambitious for 2nd Year students and was a well timed starting point to flesh out ideas, having 37 students with 37 different voices. The result is quite extraordinary and controversial, some are extremely beautiful, a number are poetic and some are very funny.
“The works are simply fantastic. For the Council the timing is almost perfect. It allows us to dip our toes into the water, while giving a whole group of emerging artists an opportunity to tell us what they think of our city,” said Alderman Valentine.
“These 2nd Year students have taken on a role of re-interpreting Hobart and their works are so fresh, vibrant and innovative. This program is very much the result of a partnership with the University of Tasmania through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with major benefits for both parties. The students’ project adds huge value not just for the organisations, but for the city as a whole.”
“Rather than developing their projects from the micro perspective, there was an extensive briefing by various Council staff who gave presentations to give background to the students on nature, culture, community and history.”
Head of the Tasmanian School of Art, Professor Noel Frankham, said the students’ commitment to the project was inspiring.
“Seeing the quality of the designs produced by our students is fantastic- they have put a huge amount of work into these creative concepts and it shows.
“The School of Art is very proud of our students’ creative abilities and we are very pleased they can be utilised this way, through this collaboration with the HCC.”
“This is another great example of our applied learning initiative 'Graphics and Practice', in which we are providing real-life projects to our students to work on.”
Alderman Valentine added “The strength of the project by the students is that all the ideas are really strong, very forward looking and have the potential to work well with Danish Architect and Urban Planner, Professor Jan Gehl’s current plans for Hobart.
“The Council would like to thank the students for such a significant body of work planning for our city’s future and to express its appreciation for a fantastic range of innovative ideas.”
“The city is currently going through an interesting period, perhaps on the cusp of a new era, in that the Council’s marketing review is underway, a new Arts and Cultural Strategy is being worked on and the Council will be considering options later in the year on the Gehl Plan.”
“Now that School of Art students have developed this highly significant body of work about Hobart, it will be displayed in the Council’s Customer Centre for the next two and a half weeks. At night, the Council intends to project a number of the student’s projects onto the windows of the Hobart Customer Centre, so that people in Elizabeth and Davey Streets can view them.”
“I would encourage as many people as possible to visit the Centre and see how these students view the identity of Hobart. Some voices are critical, insightful, while others are truly inspiring,” Alderman Valentine said.