Joshua Y'Barbo

 Written Interview with Chen Shiyun (10 Mar 2022, 00:31 London, UK) Welcome to the New World Shop  (2021) by  Shiyun Chen Digital video https://www.instagram.com/chenswim/ JY: Tell me about your practice: w hat do  you make your work about, how do you go about making your work, what do you think about when making your work, and do you still make work ?  CS: The new world shop film relates to the website, including some promotional material for this fictional shop. It is a concept promotional video, so there is no physical shop yet. The idea for the work started with my dissertation topic but changed differently because of the quarantine period. My dissertation research has inspired my practice. Meanwhile, my practice has been affected by the quarantine period, which caused some interesting changes between them. The project documents the changing state of my life, a person who is away from home from their lives, inner activities, emotions, and spirits. I felt a b...

Jiaoyang Zhang (13 Dec 2021, 00:08 London / 14 Dec 2021, 08:08 China) 404 Not Found  (2021) by  Jiaoyang Zhang   Over the month leading up to the end of 2021, I had the pleasure of corresponding with China-based designer, Jiaoyang Zhang, about their artwork, 404 Not Found (2021). Zhang talked about a dilemma they faced as a Chelsea College of Art student forced to study and research remotely in China, where firewalls in mainland China prevented them from joining an online class or restricted access to YouTube videos or design websites used by tutors and easily accessible outside of China. Zhang seemed to experience inconsistent connectivity issues associated with 'zoom-fatigue' ( Amponsah, van Wyk, & Kolugu, 2022).  Zhang's work 404 Not Found  is a response to these digital challenges in their academic experience.  Zhang's work  404 Not Found  is a response to these digital challenges in their academic experience.  Zhang also shared the i...

Interview with Pippy Stepheson Conducted 14 February 2022 Tom to David (2021) by Pippy Stephenson  Digital Print, Scan, Handwritten Text JY: Tell me about your practice: what do you make work about, how do you go about making your work, what do you think about when making your work? Do you still make work? PH: Doing a Fine Art degree taught me that I’d rather be a writer than an artist. So I haven’t been making art since I graduated but I have been writing a lot. And all the things I was interested in with my art I’m still writing about so I suppose not a great deal has changed. I make work about connections. I’m interested in how we’re connected to history and how objects, people, places and anything really can be situated in a greater whole and can be understood in relation to each other. JY: How was studying and finishing your degree during the pandemic? What impact did it have on your studies and the work you make? PH: The pandemic definitely had a pretty significant impact ...

Interview conducted  with BYOUNG UK JEON  on Dec 10, 2021 at 10:00 AM London / 7:00 PM Seoul I had the pleasure of interviewing Byoung Uk Jeon, a recent graduate from Chelsea College, who is living and working in Seoul, South Korea. He finished a degree in Fine Art over the summer of 2021. Jeon was in the second year of his course when the pandemic started. His end-of-year exhibition was all online, which was launched after he completed his course. Jeon returned to Korea to finish his degree due to difficulties caused by the pandemic when his landlord asked him to leave his flat. I talked to him about his experiences studying at Chelsea College of Art to gain an understanding of what it was like for him and his peers at UAL.   JY : Would you mind telling me about your experience’s studying fine art and Chelsea college, considering the pandemic disrupted your learning?  BJ : I had to finish my work in Seoul. When I was in London during the pandemic, I felt incred...

Interview with Sarah Tibbles (Dec 10, 2021, at 12:02 PM London) Graduate from Chelsea College of Art in 2021 with a BA in Textile Design. Halfway through her second year at Chelsea, the pandemic shut down the university and moved everything online. So, the two halves of Sarah’s experience of Chelsea are markedly different.  JY: Tell me about your practice and the work we’re showing in particular? ST: I specialise in weave, and I started to develop a growing interest in slow design as a sustainable design strategy to tackle the negative impacts the textile industry has. Slow design centres around localism, craft, the longevity of use, and consuming consciences. I see it as a counterbalance to more technocentric solutions. It started collaborating with Khadi London (?), a social enterprise organisation, that works with various textiles suppliers in India to celebrate their artisan skills and sustainable production methods. They came to college and gave a few talks and launched the Kh...

Interview with Katerina Mimikou (Dec, 23, 2021 at 09.35.56am) The Greek-London based artist, Katerina Mimikou, sat down with me to talk about her creative practice of collecting images and videos and piecing them together through initiative and subjective aesthetic inclinations. Mimikou talked to me about the positive and negative effects of the pandemic on her work, while offering some insight into her creative problem-solving through artistic practice.  JY: You’re back in Greece, you’ve just finished your degree, you spent half of second year, and all of your third year during the first lockdown?  KM: yes!  JY: how was the first half of your studies compared to the second half?  KM: Very different! Each year was different from one another. COVID made studying very difficult for me.  That’s when I came back to Greece and I had no space, I was trying to study with other people who were also working online/remotely. For the third year, the final one, I returned t...

Virtual Letters from the artist, Will Griffin Will Griffin challenges the typical art student stereotype, and the accessibility of creativity, which offers inspiration to those who think they’re not posh enough to be ‘arty’ to take a leap. In late August 2020, I began speaking to Will Griffin about the work he made over the previous academic year as a Graduate Diploma in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art. I had seen Will's work while I shuffled through the Graduate online showcase online profiles looking for artists and designers to exhibit for the Team LEWIS Foundation annual exhibition. This year's exhibition would be different than previous ones I curated for the foundation. In late July 2020, just prior to receiving a virtual letter from Will about himself and his work, local lockdowns came into force and more lockdown restrictions eased across England. As local government gained authority over social distancing enforcement, we saw pubs, restaurants and hair salons reop...

A Conversation with Interior Designer, Katrīna Kucane, on Graduating during Lockdown and Maintaining Her Practice How Interior Design Graduate coped with completing her course and progressing her professional practice after graduation during national and international lockdowns, forced bubbling, and self-isolation. With the UK swinging back to a new normality, I’ve asked some of the artists we work with through the LEWIS Foundation about graduating and maintain a studio art or design practice during the multiple lockdowns. I had one such conversation with Katrīna Kucane, who is a graduate of the BA (Hons) Interior Spatial Design at Chelsea College of Art, whom I included in the 2020-2021 annual Team LEWIS Foundation exhibition at Millbank Tower. The following is our virtual conversation about her motivations, practical knowledge in photography, and examples of her recent film work. I included By sharing this exchange between myself and Katrina, I  hope to increase conversation...