Fabricate: a Technicians’ Showcase

8 May – 8 June 2024 | East Gallery | Free admission

A fabulous mix of digital and physical, traditional, and cutting-edge artworks made by the technicians at Norwich University of the Arts.

Covering Animation, Architecture, Film, Fine Art and Textiles at the University, our talented technicians nurture students with their wealth of subject knowledge and industry experience. In this exhibition, we get a glimpse into their own personal art practices.

This exhibition presents a range of artworks by individuals employed in the technical team here at Norwich University.

Technicians hold a unique position within the University; they work in parallel with the academic staff, supporting the students to realise their creative ambitions, and providing vital, dynamic, knowledge of the world-leading workshop resources. They are empowering creative thinkers, making ideas tangible through experimentation, and emboldening students to embrace failure and celebrate success. Fabricate goes beyond the significant professional proficiencies of the team and reveals some examples of the personal creative practice of these remarkable makers and creators.

Fabricate Events

A performance using a unique self-made instrument fashioned from a deer skull and cello strings. Phil will play pieces he has written for the instrument, drawing influences from both modern and ancient musics.

• Free to attend
• No booking required, just drop-in
• All welcome
• This performance will be repeated Saturday 25 May, 1pm

Come along to this informal talk to guide you around all of the pieces in the exhibition, ask questions, and get a little more understanding about what the technicians role involves and what we offer.

• Free to attend
• No booking required, just drop-in
• All welcome

Workshop held in the Munnings Drawing Room, St Georges Building, Norwich University of the Arts.

Come and gain an art school experience in this classic life drawing session let by artist Sam Cox. Explore a range of drawing techniques working from a nude model in a fun, relaxed and challenging session.

• 10 spaces available
• Booking essential
• Free to attend with all materials included
• No experience necessary
• Over 18s only

ARPS is an interactive installation in which visitors slide and twist physical objects across a tabletop and watch their virtual counterparts do astonishing things on screen. It is designed to encourage subtle, contemplative, interaction. For this edition Will Hurt and Fran Wall have collaborated to focus in on the specific interactions that ARPS offers, drawing on references as diverse as the work of Peter Eisenman, CAD software, Victorian Geometry Workbooks and Children’s Building Blocks. 

Join to play with ARPS and listen to them discuss their collaboration.

• Free to attend
• No booking required, just drop-in
• All welcome

Workshop to be held in Cavendish House Boardroom, Norwich University of the Arts.

Make a Tension Tray

After a brief introduction to the different types of willow used in basketry participants will make a round tension tray from willow rods that they can take home.

• 8 spaces per workshop
• Free to attend with all materials included
• Booking via Ticket Tailor essential
• Please note the workshop is for adults only as it will involve cutting with secateurs
• This workshop will be repeated at 2.30-4pm

Workshop to be held in Cavendish House Boardroom, Norwich University of the Arts.

Make a Tension Tray

After a brief introduction to the different types of willow used in basketry participants will make a round tension tray from willow rods that they can take home.

• 8 spaces per workshop.
• Free to attend with all materials included.
• Booking via Ticket Tailor essential.
• Please note the workshop is for adults only as it will involve cutting with secateurs.

A performance using a unique self-made instrument fashioned from a deer skull and cello strings. Phil will play pieces he has written for the instrument, drawing influences from both modern and ancient musics.

• Free to attend
• No booking required, just drop-in
• All welcome

Strategy

• Creative education is made up of a range of interrelated learning experiences, which bring together ideation, conceptualisation, exploration, analysis, critique, making and re-making, acquisition of different knowledges, and the development of technical proficiencies. These learning experiences do not happen in any particular order, and they are not the sole preserve of one particular learning experience, they happen across studio practice, lectures, seminars, tutorials, assessments, and technical workshops.
• At Norwich University of the Arts, our technical staff are significant catalysts for creation. They encourage curiosity and support predictive and non-predictive making through digital, traditional, and emerging technologies. They are partners in creative discovery, who empower students, support creative development, and build confidence in addition to technical ability.
• Our workshops are spaces where students may overcome feelings of vulnerability often associated with academic study and assessment. They are safe places where budding artists can feel free to express themselves through exchanges with materials, technologies, staff and each other, without judgement as they discover the type of practitioner they want to become.

Excerpts from the Norwich University Technical Strategy 2022-27