News - Creative Falmouth Website
University College Falmouth press release
Creative Falmouth, a website celebrating Falmouth's extraordinary range of creative enterprise, has added a whole new set of profiles focusing on some of the town's hottest talents, from visual artists and writers to ceramicists and automata makers.
Joanna Stevens, a student on University College Falmouth's MA Professional Writing course who has been helping co-ordinate the site at CreativeFalmouth.org, said "We've found a wealth of people doing innovative work across all sorts of media, and it's been fascinating to talk to them about why they're here and what Falmouth means to them."
Falmouth's uniquely fertile creative atmosphere is something that emerges vividly from many of the interviews on the site. The internationally renowned automata maker and artist Carlos Zapata describes how "I used to have a studio in London, but nobody spoke to one another there. Here everybody speaks."
Freelance writer Clare Howdle also values the fact that Falmouth combines a huge pool of creativity with a special kind of intimacy that simply can't be found in a big-city environment. "If someone's doing something interesting, in such a small community you're really likely to meet them and get involved," she said.
Amongst the profiles in the design section of the site is Tessa Gendall, managing director of the leading creative agency Gendall Design. Tessa describes how the best part of her day is "walking down the hill to work every morning to our new studio that overlooks the harbour, knowing I'm going to be embracing a challenging, dynamic, creative day with my team."
The profile on conceptual artist and VJ (video jockey) Brendan Byrne describes how he uses visual images to control the parameters of sound. Brendan has recently been touring Europe with the collaborative group VJ Theory to put on gigs at festivals in Paris and Geneva, as well as a performance at Tate Britain in London.
Also in the visual arts section is Susan Boafo, who last year outclassed competition from 833 other entries to land a top prize in the Visions of Science & Technology Photography Awards, backed by The Daily Telegraph. Susan's stunning image, entitled 'Speaking with the Sun', combines art and science to 'spell out' the scientific formula for photosynthesis, with letters formed by thousands of microscopic algae.
As well as offering insights into what makes Falmouth one of the most vibrant creative communities in the UK and details of upcoming arts-related events in the area, the site is a visually rich experience, with each profile illustrated by a portrait taken by a University College Falmouth's student photographer studying BA (Hons) Photography.
For further information about MA Professional Writing at University College Falmouth, visit http://www.falmouth.ac.uk/professional writing; email admissions@falmouth.ac.uk or telephone 01326 214374.
In April 2008, University College Falmouth merged with Dartington College of Arts to create a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing.
The merger will pave the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall in 2012, creating a Higher Education institution unique to the South West.
University College Falmouth is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall County Council.