Magnifying Glasses and the Golden Cow

by Sarah Grant, 4 Aug 2008

Lately I have been keeping up-to-date with the Victorian Market Commission and the forthcoming Ramada Jarvis Hotel Commission.

I was fortunate to meet one of the groups from the Ramada shortlist in the form of Taiwanese duo Hsiao-Chi Tsai and Kimiya Yoshikawa; both graduates from the London Royal College of Art. They had arrived in the city a few days prior and were spending their time getting inspiration from the city in order to devise proposals for the project.

I joined the duo along with project director Susan Christie for lunch at a ‘Rendezvous’ café on Church Street The duo showed me pictures of their previous work which included sculptures made out of magnifying glasses in Taiwan and a recent commission where they instilled bright designs into the windows of Harvey Nicols exclusive department store in Knightsbridge, London. All of their previous projects seemed to focus very much on bold colours with a strong aesthetic design. They had an impressive range of projects already on their curriculum vitae having only graduated in 2006.

The duo was on their second ever visit to the city and I asked them what had captured their interest when they were walking around the city. They both had spent a lot of time looking at the older buildings in the city and the detailed architecture each possessed. I was intrigued to find out how they planned their work and how they used their visits to the city as a means to visualize a proposal design. They explained that they took many photographs on their visit here, and then would begin to draw numerous sketches and designs based on these snapshots. These drawings would galvanise a design abstracted from the initial photographs which would eventually lead to the final proposal.

Later in the week I attended a public opening within the cities Victorian Market showcasing the three final proposals for the Victorian Market Commission. I met artist Gordon Robin Brown who was on-hand to meet and greet the attendees and talk about his proposal in conjunction with Sam Barlow, their proposal a mystical design not too dissimilar from the Hans Christian Anderson Fairytales. On display were the proposals from the other two groups; a colour proposal from the trio Nicola Atkinson, Karen Vaughan and Hanna Tuulilu whom I had met a few weeks prior and a strong design proposal from artist Ekkhard Altenburger featuring a Golden Cow to feature on the market entrance. All three proposals were entirely contrasting of one another and each design I feel would not be incongruous to the Victorian Market.

I look forward to seeing which out of the three designs becomes the chosen one.