Postgraduate degree show opens

The annual Edinburgh College of Art Postgraduate Degree Show showcases the work of more than 50 graduating artists working in a range of disciplines including contemporary art, architecture, jewellery, interior design, costume, animation and illustration.

Previous degree shows have launched the careers of Turner Prize and Bafta winners.

Grass skateboards and tandem rockers

Design students have created an anti-consumerist board game, a bespoke prosthesis for amputees, and a bedtime toy that uses light, touch, sound and scents to help insomnia sufferers.

Other highlights include Barry Liston’s environmentally friendly Grasshopper skateboard. Ninety-five per cent of skateboards made in the US made from maple wood, which in 2008 overtook furniture as the main contributor to deforestation of maple trees, but Liston’s board is made from renewable materials such as bamboo and hemp, both classified as types of grass.

His decks are also five per cent stronger, 10 per cent lighter and 9 per cent more flexible than standard maple decks, bringing significant performance benefits.

Designer Gieun Loon has created a rocking chair for two people, designed to encourage older couples to be physically closer. The idea is that the playful act of rocking on the lounger will take the user back to their youth, promoting fun and intimacy.

Belle and Sebastian and titanium

In the Masters of Contemporary Art programme, Charlotte Kiernan’s sound installation manipulates space, transforming a small room into a cavernous amphitheatre.

Art theorist Elena Dolcini has curated a series of works inspired by the Belle and Sebastian album, If You’re Feeling Sinister. The student has asked several visual artists, musicians and writers to interpret different songs from the album in their own medium. The results range from a country version of the indie favourite Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying to lines from The Boy Done Wrong Again illustrated via a Google image montage.

Jeweller Heather Woof’s creations of heat coloured Titanium and other precious and non-precious metals have already been selected for four major exhibitions around the UK, including The Barbican and Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Edinburgh College of Art Postgraduate Degree Show

18 - 26 August 2012, 10am - 5pm Evolution House and ECA Main Building