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Craft student enters Design Museum competition

Peter Heywood, a part-time second year BA (Hons) Contemporary Crafts student has entered a competition run by the Design Museum, his approach looks at challenging the attitudes of young people on voting in the run up to this years general election.
<p><a href="http://www.peter-heywood.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Peter Heywood</a>, a part-time second year BA (Hons) Contemporary Crafts student has entered a competition run by the <a href="https://designmuseum.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Design Museum</a> entitled Status: Consumption for self-identification.</p> <p>It calls on students to create an “intervention” aimed at affecting the way people see themselves and the role they fulfill.</p> <p>We spoke to Peter about his design and the idea behind the project,</p>
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<p><strong>So tell us a bit more about your approach to the competition,</strong><br />The competition will be judged in the run-up to the general election so I decided to target people that are disenchanted with the political system and aren’t planning on voting, either because they think it’s pointless or to express their frustration.</p> <p>I want to change this attitude by creating a graphic that struck a rebellious tone, but included a hidden message pointing out that their vote could tip the balance. I wanted to make them feel that voting was far from pointless – they were potential kingmakers!</p> <p><strong>What do you hope people will take from your work?</strong><br />I’m hoping the letter swap and graffiti style encourages people to look harder at the graphic, hopefully noticing the sardonic twist in UKIP’s title, the absence of its logo and the use of the other political parties colours.</p> <p>Looking harder, they might also see the reference to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/swingometer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">BBC’s “Swingometer”</a> in the strap-line, hinting at the likelihood of a hung parliament and how their vote might help tip the balance.<br /></p>
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<p><strong>And your first test of the graffiti is in our create cafe,</strong><br />Yes, the college agreed to host my graffiti on the premises. I picked the back wall of the create cafe for the graffiti as it would be seen by large numbers of students and staff where it might be studied and discussed.</p> <p><strong>What was the design process?</strong><br />I made a number of changes during the design process and toyed with using the graphic on mugs, T-shirts, websites and so on before settling on graffiti as the best communication medium.</p> <p>I laser cut the stencil on A1 card and used “liquid chalk” aerosol paint to create the graffiti, so that it could be removed easily at a later date.</p> <p>I’ve asked Plymouth City Council for permission to create further copies of my graffiti on its hoardings, possibly making them much larger.</p> <p>Peter is requesting feedback from people that have seen his graffiti. You can send your comments to pheywood1@pca.ac.uk.</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/ba-hons-craft-material-practices" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Find out more about our BA (Hons) Contemporary Crafts programme</a><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/international-ceramicist-sandy-brown-holds-talk-and-demo-for-craft-students" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><br /></a></li><li><a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/posts/international-ceramicist-sandy-brown-holds-talk-and-demo-for-craft-students" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Read about international ceramicist Sandy Brown’s visit and demo to our students</a></li></ul>