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Sustainable Textile Designer Benefits from Smart Citizens Programme

Fab Lab Plymouth supports award-winning designer Jess Strain

South West-based textile designer Jess Strain has combined sustainable fashion with digital design and fabrication skills in her new startup, Ovrbloom, with the support of Plymouth College of Art’s Smart Citizens Programme. Since taking part in the programme, Jess has received a Bronze Creative Conscience Textiles Award and the Young Innovators Grant from Innovate UK and The Prince’s Trust, supporting the development of her business.

Jess, who was born in Ivybridge, Devon, set her sights on the world of fashion from a young age. Her passion grew as she attended Plymouth College of Art’s Saturday Arts Club between the ages of 12 and 15, before Jess pursued an art foundation course and graduated with a First Class Honours in Textiles: Innovation and Design from Loughborough University. The seed for Ovrbloom was first planted in Jess’ final year of university, when she began researching the impact of fabric and textiles on people and the planet.

Jess Strain founder of Ovrbloom Image Credit Jess Strain 1

Jess Strain, founder of Ovrbloom (Image Credit - Jess Strain)


Jess said: “I knew as soon as I’d graduated that I wanted to create a business that made a real impact on the world of fashion. Becoming ever more aware of the climate crisis has only heightened the industry’s awareness of the need for disruptive textile design. This is where the idea for my business, Ovrbloom, spawned.”

Ovrbloom is a sustainable accessory brand creating textile accessories and soft furnishings which are naturally dyed and created using waste material. Ovrbloom looks to disrupt the fashion industry with transparent reporting about the manufacturing process for every single product.

Ovrbloom facemasks Image Credit Jess Strain

Ovrbloom facemasks (Image Credit - Jess Strain)


Looking to develop skills in 3D design and fabrication, Jess first discovered the Smart Citizens Programme at Plymouth College of Art whilst working as an artist-in-residence at Totnes Art and Design Foundation Course. Jess signed up to the Smart Citizens’ free ‘Design and Make’ training, hosted by Fab Lab Plymouth, where she learned how to produce 3D models using the CAD software, Autodesk Fusion 360, and gained hands-on experience with 3D printers and laser cutters. Using these new skills, Jess designed and 3D-printed a paper press to imprint Ovrbloom’s logo onto product labels, and laser cut her own logo cards.

Ovrblooms laser cut labels Image Credit Smart Citizens Programme 1

Ovrbloom’s laser cut labels (Image Credit - Smart Citizens Programme)


The Smart Citizens Programme is designed to support local people to develop their skills in digital design and fabrication, and grow their careers and businesses. Their latest free training includes the Autodesk Fusion 360 Certified User Training, supporting participants to develop key CAD skills and gain an industry-recognised accreditation in digital design to progress their careers. They are also hosting a free Tech & Business Bootcamp. Through five days of workshops and mentoring delivered by industry experts, participants will learn key technology, prototyping, and enterprise skills to kickstart their business ideas and make their ideas a reality. Learn more about the Smart Citizens Programme and register for their free training through the Fab Lab Plymouth website.

Jess Strain with 3 D printed paper press Image Credit Smart Citizens Programme

Jess Strain with 3D printed paper press (Image Credit - Smart Citizens Programme)


Jess said: “I absolutely would recommend the Smart Citizens Programme to everyone; I think it’s a great programme for anyone from hobbyists to freelancers and entrepreneurs. The level of tuition is absolutely incredible and I had such a great time learning new skills that will enhance my branding and business.”

Since joining the Smart Citizens Programme, Jess has gone on to win numerous awards. In summer 2021 she was awarded a Bronze Creative Conscience Textiles Award in recognition of her alternative super-fast fashion kimono, which was made from crepe paper. She has also been awarded the Young Innovators Grant from Innovate UK and The Prince’s Trust for Ovrbloom.

Crepe Kimono for which Jess was awarded the Bronze Creative Conscience Textiles Award Image Credit Jess Strain

Crepe Kimono for which Jess was awarded the Bronze Creative Conscience Textiles Award (Image Credit - Jess Strain)


Excited by the development of her business, Jess said: “The Young Innovators Award has allowed me to take up a studio space in the Bristol Textile Quarter, whilst receiving 1-1 business mentoring which is holding me accountable and allowing me to work quickly towards my business goals of getting my products into manufacture.

“With Ovrbloom, I will create report cards detailing the product supply chain; the aim is to open up a conversation around transparency in the fashion industry and equip my customers with the tools to ask who made their clothes and where in the world they came from. The overarching aim is that consumers will begin to demand more of the high street giants and there will be more honesty and ethics around fashion manufacture.

“I am in the process of my first product iteration and I’m aiming to launch my product along with a supply chain transparency report card before summer.”

You can keep up to date with Jess’ journey on Instagram @ovrbloom or through the Ovrbloom website: https://www.ovrbloom.co.uk/.

The Smart Citizens Programme has been supported by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who fund the Cultural Development Fund, which is administered by Arts Council England.

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Revealing Plymouth’s shipwrecked histories with 3D scanning

Archaeological artefacts recovered from shipwrecks in Plymouth Sound reveal Plymouth’s links to empire, slavery and indenture

Archaeological artefacts recovered from shipwrecks in Plymouth Sound that reveal Plymouth’s links to empire, slavery and indenture have been brought to life through 3D scanning at Fab Lab Plymouth, in a collaboration between Plymouth College of Art’s Smart Citizens Programme, local archaeological team the SHIPS Project and internationally-renowned artist and photographer, Dr Mohini Chandra.

Using 3D scanning technology in Fab Lab Plymouth, important maritime objects discovered by the SHIPS team were digitally recorded in intricate detail and reproduced through 3D printing. The objects scanned include a copper manilla - an early trade token for the West Africa trade - recovered from a likely slave wreck in Plymouth Sound (c. 1580-1680) and a copper rag bolt recovered from a Royal Navy ship, HMS Amethyst (1811).

3 D printed manilla and rag bolt left and middle with original rag bolt right Photo credit Mia Hollywood

3D printed manilla and rag bolt (left and middle) with original rag bolt (right) (Photo credit - Mia Hollywood)


Through the innovative use of digital fabrication processes, the archaeological finds were recorded for future research and had their stories brought to life, creating accurate 3D printed replicas that can be handled without causing damage to the original artefacts. The SHIPS Project, an independent archaeology research group and community interest company, can now use the 3D prints as an educational tool, allowing the public to physically connect with elements of Plymouth’s maritime histories that were previously hidden on the seabed of Plymouth Sound.

Mallory Haas Director of the SHIPS Project handles the 3 D printed rag bolt Photo credit Mia Hollywood

Mallory Haas, Director of the SHIPS Project, handles the 3D printed rag bolt (Photo credit - Mia Hollywood)

Stray Finds

As part of the collaboration between the Smart Citizens Programme, the SHIPS Project and Dr Mohini Chandra, local people were invited to join the Stray Finds event at Plymouth College of Art to view Dr Mohini Chandra’ exhibition Paradise Lost at MIRROR, examine shipwreck artefacts and ‘treasure’ and visit the Fab Lab. Local divers and collectors from the South West were also invited to bring favourite finds along to show and to discuss them with archaeology experts from the SHIPS Project team.

Local people share their archaeological finds Photo credit Mia Hollywood

Local people share their archaeological finds (Photo credit - Mia Hollywood)

Mallory Haas, Director of the SHIPS Project, said: “We started the Stray Finds Project so we could see what the diving community has recovered over the last 50 years. The diving community is very active in Plymouth and in the South West, and because the sports divers hold a great deal of knowledge on the shipwrecks and finds recovered from the coast, it's important to record this information before we lose the chance. Many of these finds are common things, like Victorian bottles and bass material recovered from metal wrecks. However, in many divers’ collections is a rare item that may be misidentified, as we have seen many times before. This is how we discovered the only Roman-Greeco lead ancho core to be found in the UK, or several Bronze age stone anchors, and the most amazing roman pottery and amphoras.

“The information these artefacts hold tells the story of the earliest trade with Britain, these artefacts are of great significance and are vital to telling the story of Plymouth as a maritime landscape. By holding events like the Stray Finds day at Plymouth College of Art, we are building a relationship with the diving community and locals who have an interest in history. By holding the event at the College we are expanding the reach events like this can have beyond the diving and maritime community, and involving students and academics that usually may not know this type of culture exists.”

Greco Roman lead ancho core Photo credit SHIPS Project

Greco-Roman lead ancho core (Photo credit - SHIPS Project)

Examining prehistoric pottery Photo credit Mia Hollywood

Examining prehistoric pottery (Photo credit - Mia Hollywood)

Paradise Lost explored the history of shipwrecks in the historic naval port city of Plymouth and reflected on the complex movement of people and objects within the colonised world, with a focus on Mohini’s own ancestors’ journeys aboard indenture ships. Alongside a new film work featuring a specially commissioned song, ‘Ei Dubonto Shomoy’, written and performed by Kolkata based archivist and composer Moushumi Bhowmik, as a lament for ‘lost souls’, Mohini also worked with the SHIPS Project to unearth and photograph artefacts from shipwrecks in Plymouth. This work forms part of the SHIPS’ latest Stray Finds Project, which aims to locate and record objects recovered from the sea and make these records accessible through the SHIPS Project website.

Mohini Chandra Paradise Lost 2021 The Manilla can be seen in the centre of the display Photo credit Dom Moore

Mohini Chandra, Paradise Lost (2021). The Manilla can be seen in the centre of the display (Photo credit - Dom Moore)


Dr Mohini Chandra, said, “The SHIPS Project's outreach activities include working with the local diving community to study, catalogue and understand artefacts brought up from the numerous shipwrecks in Plymouth Sound and the South West region. The Stray Finds events are an important part of this process, allowing divers to bring in material and have it assessed. The SHIPS Project is then able to glean and record further important first hand information about artefacts and the underwater sites at which they were found. At this event, hosted at Plymouth College of Art, members of the general public and divers were also able to see the exhibition, view and handle previously collected items from the local marine area and talk to the archaeology team. They also visited the Fab Lab to look at the processes involved in mapping and 3D printing from original artefacts such as the 'slave manilla' found in Plymouth Sound, which also featured in the exhibition.”

“This was an important event, bringing arts practice, archaeology and new audiences such as the diving community together at Plymouth College of Art for the first time to explore the different ways that artefacts can be interpreted; both through arts practice and archaeology as well as contemporary technology such as 3D printing, which can make artefacts more accessible to the public. Importantly the SHIPS Project team found a number of unusual and unique items in the material brought forward which they recorded and catalogued on the day.”

Divers find of a small toy bronze cannon recovered from the old Plymouth Pier site Photo credit Mallory Haas

Divers find of a small toy bronze cannon recovered from the old Plymouth Pier site (Photo credit - Mallory Haas)


Participants were also invited to a special tour of Fab Lab Plymouth, to discover the process of 3D scanning and 3D printing and how these modern digital fabrication technologies can be combined with archaeology research to record, protect and reproduce important historical artefacts.

Participants on a tour of the Fab Lab exploring 3 D scanning Photo credit Mia Hollywood

Participants on a tour of the Fab Lab, exploring 3D scanning (Photo credit - Mia Hollywood)


This activity has been supported by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who fund the Cultural Development Fund, which is administered by Arts Council England.

Mohini Chandra’s exhibition ‘Paradise Lost’ was supported by Arts Council England, Plymouth College of Art and MIRROR.


News

Plymouth College of Art at Illuminate 2021

Responding to COP26 and the international climate crisis, Illuminate 2021 includes projection mapping, illuminated murals and interactive installations by the Smart Citizens Programme and local and national artists.

Illuminate is a spectacular immersive light festival, including a wide range of bookable events held from 15 to 28 November 2021 at Plymouth’s Royal William Yard and Market Hall. Coordinated by Real Ideas for 2021, this year’s Illuminate programme responds to COP26 and the international climate crisis with a thoughtful collection of beautiful work from local and national artists, including projection mapping, bioluminescent artwork, illuminated murals and interactive installations.

For this year’s iteration of the annual festival, Tom Milnes, a BA (Hons) Fine Art Lecturer and key academic launching the new BA (Hons) Creative Technologies at Plymouth College of Art, has been commissioned by the StudioLab for Embodied Media, as part of the iMayflower project, to create a new version of his ‘Invisible Cities’ project for visitors to interact with in Market Hall. Additionally, five new art projects have been created for the festival by current students in Animation and Games, Craft and Material Practices. Young Arts students from the college are also responding to the climate crisis with a stained glass-style installation made from scrap plastic. Live environmental data captured by Smart Citizen sensors around Plymouth will be creatively visualised in an immersive installation developed by Plymouth College of Art’s Smart Citizens Programme and local electronics expert, Lee Nutbean.

PCA student work

Plymouth College of Art student work at Illuminate 2019


Stephanie Owens, Head of Plymouth College of Art’s School of Arts + Media, said: “Plymouth College of Art has long been a champion of city-wide cultural events that galvanise our student's creative skills in new ways and offer opportunities to give something back to communities around the city. We have a firm commitment to continuing to work collaboratively with cultural partners across Plymouth on the Illuminate festival, which consistently offers excellent opportunities for emerging and established artists. We are proud of the innovative, challenging and beautiful responses to climate change made by our students, staff and resident artists for this year's festival.”

Bookable event tickets are needed to visit Illuminate installations at Market Hall, while the Illuminate installations across Ocean Studios in Royal William Yard are covered by a general attendance ticket.


'Invisible Cities'


Tom Milnes’s ‘Invisible Cities’ is a morphing and decaying virtual world where visitors to Market Hall from 15 to 28 November can wander the canals of Venice, strewn with e-waste, watching videos of media ecological wastelands, and exploring a changing world that confronts the viewer with the fragile biological impacts of climate change. Tom was commissioned as an Artist Fellow for Illuminate by Plymouth College of Art’s StudioLab for Embodied Media, a recently launched multidisciplinary team of artists, technologists and researchers who are collectively motivated to think about how society can approach the integration of biological and computational systems in a more sustainable and ethical way for the future.

Invisible Cities 11 11 2021 13 39 59

Still from Tom Milnes’ ‘Invisible Cities’


Innovative creations from Plymouth College of Art students

Students from across Plymouth College of Art’s undergraduate and postgraduate courses were selected from open submissions as part of a competitive process to exhibit in Illuminate 2021, including a range of collaborative projection-mapping animations from the School of Arts + Media.

MA Ceramics student Owen Rees is creating ‘The Glowing Outdoors’, a new ceramic installation. Second-year BA (Hons) Animation & Games students Leah Smale and Helena Bone are working together on a new projection-mapping project, ‘The Cycle of Destruction’; Alex Straw, Katie Bird and Tiffany Anderson are working together on ‘Whale, We’re Screwed’; Maximillian Rueth and Jack Polley are working together on ‘Mother Earth’; and Taylor-Paige Timmins is working on ‘Stop the Change with our Climate’.

A large number of the undergraduate students selected to contribute to Illuminate this year previously studied Plymouth College of Art’s A-level equivalent Pre-Degree courses or the college’s Foundation Diploma in Art & Design, showing the benefits of the extra years of specialist creative education.

2019

Illuminate 2019


'Colours of the future'

Young Arts students aged 9 to 16 from Plymouth College will shine a light on the environmental crisis ‘Colours of the Future’, set inside the windows of Market Hall. The students, from across the South West, have worked together to create their own version of stained glass from scrap plastics, highlighting their feelings and response to the climate crisis and the environmental problems that will be inherited by the next generation. Young Arts Clubs meet weekly on a Saturday morning and during holidays at Plymouth College of Art.


Live environmental data visualisation

Live environmental data captured by Smart Citizen sensors around Plymouth will be creatively visualised in an immersive installation at Market Hall from 6pm on Friday 26th November, as part of a bookable discussion session asking ‘What new approaches can we take to manage the impact of changing weather patterns?’, also featuring guest speaker from Plymouth College of Art’s Smart Citizens Programme, Elizabeth Zahoui.

Developed by Plymouth College of Art’s Smart Citizens Programme and local electronics expert, Lee Nutbean, the custom-coded installation visualises the local environment (such as sun, clouds, rain and hills) by collating data collected by environmental sensors such as humidity, pollution levels, air temperature and barometric pressure from Plymouth and other cities around the world.

The environmental data used to inform the installation is captured by sensors, known as Smart Citizen kits, installed across Plymouth and the globe. Plymouth-based Smart Citizen kits were assembled and coded by local people during six-week training sessions led by the Smart Citizens Programme at Fab Lab Plymouth. Book tickets to view the immersive installation at Mark Hall here. This activity is part of the iMayflower project and has been supported by The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who fund the Cultural Development Fund, which is administered by Arts Council England.

Smart Citizens Installation at Market Hall Image credit Lee Nutbean

Smart Citizens and Lee Nutbean's immersive installation at the Market Hall

2018

Illuminate 2018


Illuminating Plymouth

The Illuminate Festival stems from a longstanding collaboration between Plymouth College of Art, Real Ideas, University of Plymouth and Plymouth Culture

Students from Plymouth College of Art regularly attend a range of international events to broaden their horizons, network with industry professionals and develop new cutting-edge skills. From 2015 to 2018, as part of the Euranim project*, designed to boost the skills of early-career animators with projection-mapping skills, BA (Hons) Animation & Games students from Plymouth College of Art attended Fete de l’Anim, France, in 2017 and 2018, participating in intensive 2D and 3D animation and immersive video-mapping workshops.

Illuminate courtesy of Real Ideas Org

Outcomes from the Euranim project included significant support to the transformation of Plymouth’s Illuminate festival, which in 2016 comprised a light parade through the city and in 2017 developed as part of Euranim into an international light festival at Plymouth’s historic Royal William Yard.

Since then, fifty BA (Hons) Animation & Games students from Plymouth College of Art put their projection-mapping skills to use on the side of Royal William Yard’s Melville Building in 2018, working with guidance from Plymouth College of Art graduate Jamie Knight. The next year students from across Plymouth College of Art’s School of Arts + Media transformed the façade of Royal William Yard’s impressive Mill’s Bakery through projection-mapping at Illuminate 2019, alongside headline artist Xavi Bové.