A Day in the Life: Safe Agua Chile

AshokaTech is following 12 Art Center students who travelled to Chile for the Safe Agua Chile collaboration with Un Techo Para Chile. Last week, we learned that storing water in multiple containers increases the possibility of water contamination, since containers are not always stored properly and often pick up dirt and germs. The conditions in the campamentos make it difficult to preserve water quality. Art Center students Erica and Elizabeth are working towards eliminating these contamination risks by designing easy and responsible solutions.

“Families in campamentos have tap water delivered but they store it for a long time in containers that are not kept clean. They do use chlorine for cleaning and purifying water, but the main problem is that they are not measuring safe chlorination. Thus, Erica and Elizabeth’s solution proposal is to enhance strong chlorine measuring education and to encourage the use of a low-cost water filter.”

Read more about Erica and Elizabeth’s study, and view their presentation, at AshokaTech.

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The History of Art, Through the Lens of Los Angeles

An interesting post today at The Huffington Post’s new L.A. section by Michael Govan, director of the LACMA, about the distinct style of art that has come out of Los Angeles.

Govan writes: “Art history can be broken into distinctions of time, but also of place. One can discern differences of style and influence, for instance, between 17th Century French painting and that of Italy. So too have distinctions in American art become apparent in the twentieth century when looking at the artists of New York and those of California.”

The article also mentions Art Center alumnus and sculptor Jorge Pardo and his recent pre-Columbian art installation at LACMA.

Read more: The History of Art, Through the Lens of Los Angeles

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Alumna Introduces Chinese to Fine Arts Curriculum

This spring the Kansas City Art Institute will introduce a Chinese language and culture course into its curriculum. The course will provide an introduction to Chinese characters, and students will focus on daily conversational skills, including speaking, listening, reading and writing standard Mandarin Chinese. The course also incorporates relevant topics related to Chinese arts and culture from the past to the present.

Art Center Illustration alumna Valda Hsu, born and raised in Taiwan, will teach the course. Hsu came to the U.S. in 1983 to attend Art Center. Prior to her journey, she received advanced training in traditional Chinese brush painting with landscape master Yu Wei.She teaches Chinese brush painting for adults at KCAI, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Confucius Institute at the University of Kansas, where she is also special programs instructor for Chinese language and culture. 

Hsu said her frequent visits to China and Taiwan have inspired her to teach Chinese to visual artists “in order to promote the understanding of its culture and its timeless, authentic art form through the language.”

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Students Create New Identity for Organization of American States

Eight Art Center students participating in a transdisciplinary class through Designmatters were recently commissioned by the Organization of American States (OAS) to create a new identity for its upcoming 100th anniversary. Students were asked to promote greater awareness and reinvigorate enthusiasm for the OAS to the millennium generation. After much deliberation and research, a new identity and core message, “On Common Ground,” was created. This identity espouses the organization’s goals of democracy, human rights, security and development, while engaging a younger audience. 

Tomorrow, Dec. 3, the students will present to OAS leadership the campaign, which includes a Public Service Announcement for television, a new visual identity for the OAS Centennial events, a new website to help connect young people from across the hemisphere, and advertisements targeting the millennium generation. The event will take place at the South Campus Main Gallery at 10 am. Stop by and check it out!

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A Student’s Account of the International Design Summit

On the Desigmatters blog, Graduate Industrial Design student Radhika Bhalla shares her experience at the International Development Design Summit in Ghana last July. The summit brought together people from around the globe to build appropriate technologies and develop the creative capacity of communities in the developing world. More than 90 attendees and organizers representing 21 countries from around the world participated.

Bhalla part of a group assigned to design and build child-friendly latrines.

She writes: “When all of us first got together, we had absolutely no idea how this was going to work. We had not one participant from the year before, and we started on a blank page. Little did we know that the IDDS vision of ‘prototypes, not papers’ would not be our biggest challenge, but how to get the prototype on a pick-up truck would be the hardest thing to do!”

Read the rest of her inspiring story on the Desigmatters blog.

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Haring Tribute Tonight

Don’t miss tonight’s Keith Haring tribute reception at 6 pm at Art Center’s James Lemont Fogg Memorial Library at Hillside Campus.

In 1989, prolific artist and social activist Keith Haring visited Art Center to paint an interior mural which still hangs at Hillside Campus. Painted over the course of two days, the mural was intended to be a “permanent memorial to members of the art community who have died of AIDS, and also serve as a symbol of hope and compassion.” Haring passed away two months later from AIDS-related complications.

In recognition of Haring’s lasting contribution to the College, and in celebration of World AIDS Day, faculty member Ramone Muñoz asked students to take visual themes from the mural and use them in creating educational about safe sex and the tragic loss of life due to this disease. The posters will be exhibited on campus beginning the week of Nov. 30 with a reception honoring Haring and celebrating World AIDS Day.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, read the press release or call 626.396.2338.

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Ad Legend Visits Campus

Last week Art Center welcomed advertising superstar Lee Clow, chairman and global director of TBWA\Worldwide, to speak about his work and ideology. Student Chris Gilbert was there and provides this first-person account:

“Whereas old-school advertising had the tendency to err towards the condescension of ‘talking down to’ or ‘talking at’ their consumers, Lee spoke of the need to instead engage and stimulate the minds of the consumers, and the need for ads to be clever and he emphatically reiterated the fact that ‘creativity [in advertising] is now an imperative.’”

Read more and check out Chris’ great blog at chrisgilbertdeisgn.com.

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Fisker Karma Wins Accolades

The Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid electric car has received the 2009 Spark Design and Architecture Award, a competition promoting great design and designers and encouraging creativity.

The Karma is the first luxury plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, and the first vehicle released by Fisker Automotive. The company’s CEO and design director is alumnus Henrik Fisker, acclaimed designer of iconic cars such as the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9 and Aston Martin V8 Vantage.

Congrats to Henrik and his team! Read more at autoevolution:  Fisker Karma Wins 2009 Spark Design and Architecture Award and Fisker Automotive: The Karma

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A Day in the Life: Safe Agua Chile

AshokaTech is following 12 Art Center students who travelled to Chile for the Safe Agua Chile collaboration with Un Techo Para Chile. The latest installment has our students learning what it is like for the local people from campamentos, with no running, potable water.

“The students are starting to understand the issues affecting the lives of these families. They are now wondering: What if students could design a new system through which water is delivered? What if these families could actually have a running water system? What if there was a way to minimize the number of steps to their daily tasks? What if there was a way to bathe indoors? The students will have to work on these questions and find out how possible it is to make it a reality.”

Follow along with us at AshokaTech!

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