<p dir="ltr">Every year, during the Summer Shows, Chair of the Board Dr Sue Brownlow presents the Board of Governors award to highlight and celebrate the outstanding achievement of students who, in the opinion of the Board, have produced outstanding work while also overcoming obstacles to educational achievement.</p> <p dir="ltr">The winner of this year’s MA Board of Governors award was <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-jewellery">MA Jewellery</a> graduate <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sara.sharafi.jewelry/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sara Sharafi</a>. Sara’s work uses the juxtaposition of delicate and protective with her barbed Paisley designs. Sara takes inspiration from Persian culture to reimagine the patterns of paisley’s links to womanhood, and the stereotypes associated with that in order to puncture those myths.<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr">Dr Sue Brownlow said, “The Board found Sara’s work to be compelling and intriguing visually. The themes spoke from Sara’s life in Iran, directly to the universal experience of women throughout the world. This is accomplished, exquisite work, worthy of celebration.”<br /></p>

<p dir="ltr">The Dean’s Award, presented by <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/people/stephanie-owens">Associate Professor Stephanie Owens</a>, Dean of Arts, Design and Media at Arts University Plymouth, recognises outstanding creative and academic achievement, alongside a sustained contribution to the university community. This would be where the student has produced quality work, made significant progress and made a positive contribution to the programme through excellent studentship.<br /></p> <p dir="ltr">This year’s winner of the Dean’s Award was <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-illustration">MA Illustration</a> graduate <a href="https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/juliahillillustrator" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Julia Hill</a>.</p>

<p>Associate Professor Stephanie Owens said, “Julia’s work operates on multiple registers of perception and understanding, and to encounter it stirs feelings of stumbling upon an archeological site in the near future, which she has conjured through a clever, discordant harmony between site, objects, drawing and sculpture. I was enormously impressed by the exquisite attention Julia gives to the sensory qualities and material integrity of her work, particularly after learning that the carefully recreated salvaged objects were all fabricated in biodegradable, recycled and renewable materials. While many are currently questioning the purpose and role of art and design in the context of our climate crisis, Julia’s reflections in multi-material form have created a particularly resonant aesthetic space, where she offers us a means to hold both despair and the possibility of renewal simultaneously. I want to congratulate Julia on her expansive exploration of Illustration during her MA study and to celebrate her outstanding achievement in this exhibition.”</p>

<p>The Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation Awards recognise outstanding creative and academic achievement, alongside a sustained contribution to the university community, where the student has produced high-quality work, made significant progress, and made a positive contribution to their programme through excellent studentship. Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive Professor Paul Fieldsend-Danks found the standard of work so high that this year, he chose two postgraduate winners, a runner-up and an overall winner.</p>

<p>The runner-up of the Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation Award was <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/ma-ceramics">MA Ceramics</a> graduate <a href="https://www.elspethhart.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Elspeth Hart</a>. Elspeth collected unusual local materials to use within her ceramic practices, exploring Dartmoor and Ashburton for particular clay bodies. Elspeth’s knowledge of alchemy and clay has enabled some highly progressive and innovative material combinations whilst retaining a visually beautiful aesthetic. The physical and written work being produced at a very high standard.</p>

<p dir="ltr">The Vice-Chancellor’s Commendation Award winner this year was MA Creative Education graduate Tressa Thomas.<br /></p> <p>Professor Paul Fieldsend-Danks noted, “Tressa has worked very hard across the two years of her part-time study. She has been a very active participant in the Masters cohort, providing free yoga sessions, joining the RAME residency coordinating team, attending all sessions and being an active part of Green Minds and various other projects and calls. Her practice embodies ceramics with art education: through a studio-based ceramics practice, she tries to understand the principles of transformative embodied learning from a Deweyan perspective, which informs a variety of community-based practice. She has set up and participated in various live projects across the city, and she is extremely determined and generous."</p> <p>"Her practice is a perfect example of a creative education process in which art doesn’t just become part of the learning, but where the entire learning process is perceived as a creative practice. Her thinking around pedagogies is very advanced, and her ability to test and develop theory through her practice leads to extremely insightful and innovative findings around learning and art, which she has aimed to translate into a contribution to the exhibition that is dynamic and processual, challenging ideas around objects and artefacts of art.”<br /></p>

<p>The dynamic, cross-disciplinary postgraduate community at Arts University Plymouth offers a rich environment that provides critical and technical expertise in a range of disciplines. The community of postgraduate students develop exposure within their field and refine their practice in a space that fosters experimentation and reflective engagement with issues that are shaping the world we hold in common. For anybody considering MA study, academics will be on site on Saturday 23 September for an <a href="https://www.aup.ac.uk/events/open-day-undergraduate-and-postgraduate-sept23">Undergraduate and Postgraduate Open Day</a> from 10am to 2pm, with opportunities to discuss research and experience of the MA programmes.</p>