After a Rubik’s Cube re-shuffle that involves following colour-coordinated arrows up and down stairs, I find myself in a room that is much like any other – except that it has a seat in it and I need a rest. Adjacent to the seat is a see-saw that cuts through the dividing wall to another space. Next to me is a 3D-slide viewer and a small video monitor.
This is the work of Nicole Landels at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design’s (DJCAD) 2014 degree show. I pick up the viewer, which holds images of an elderly man eating at a table; the monitor shows a video of the same elderly man approaching the see-saw. The work is engaging and reminds me that it’s not the room or the colourful map in my hand that counts, but the art itself.
In contrast, Robbie Hamilton‘s work is unabashedly aware of the room it sits within. Timber sculptures sit alongside amplified video documentation of skateboarders using them as ramps – a social act that alters preconceived uses of a studio space. The artist completes the work by leaving marks and holes indented on the wall as a document of the event.
Hamilton is one of a number of DJCAD students who have been picked for the Royal Scottish Academy’s New Contemporaries 2015 (RSA:NC) exhibition. “The RSA see the degree show before we open to the public,” he explains. “I feel my practice is honest with how it is constructed and I have chosen to display it just so.”
Next to Hamilton’s work, Katy Howkins fills the room with oversized and undersized bagels made from a variety of materials. “The work is about a conversation with my partner about how many bagels he could fit on his…” She trails off and points to an explicit sketch on the wall to complete the introduction.
Howkins is relaxed about her idiosyncratic art being placed next to work that is aesthetically very different. It is, she says, indicative of the structure of DJCAD’s Fine Art and Media department. “There are three pathways [fine art, art philosophy contemporary practices, and time based art and digital film] but the focus is interdisciplinary. The degree show does place varied work next to each other but, because we worked together throughout the course, the result is balanced.”
Taking risks with art
Another student selected for RSA:NC is Emma Jolly, with her expansive, shamanistic photography and video. “I spent three years being reserved, but for the degree show I decided, what the hell!”
This new-found exuberance has paid off as the work steps bravely into an interdisciplinary world of costume, collaboration and otherworldly content. “I am happy to be selected [for RSA:NC] but didn’t make work just for the prospect of being chosen,” continues Jolly. “I needed to take risks whilst getting more out of the facilities here.”
Viewers would do well to not be steered by the RSA curatorial stamp of approval, even if spotting a selector’s label feels like finding a golden ticket. Dundee’s degree show is about varied approaches to art practice coming together to support one another, and this mutual appreciation is apparent when viewing the students’ work.
The DJCAD degree show runs until 25 May. www.dundee.ac.uk/djcad/degreeshow
To view more of the work online see the @an_artstudents Storify from Richard Taylor’s visit on Saturday 17 May
For more information on degree shows opening across the UK, see a-n’s Degree Shows Guide 2014
