One side of Mary Hall looked like a high-tech lab, and the other side like an art gallery.
For this year’s annual showcase of student work, the Selkirk College Digital Arts program teamed up, for the first time, with the college’s Trail-based Digital Fabrication and Design program.
Each program set themselves up in half of Mary Hall on the Tenth Street campus this past weekend and welcomed throngs of guests.
For digital fabrication instructors Bruce Fitz-Earle — an industrial designer — and Kailey Allan — a mechanical engineer — their showcase represents the melding of their two disciplines.
“This is a remarkable display of how engineering and art can come together and form this amazing unison,” said Allan.
She said that behind the artistic appearance of many of the student displays is a robust technical skillset they have learned in the program.
“A lot these students came to us a year or two ago and said they were not creative, and this is an example of what happens when you are able to tap into your creativity and ingenuity.”
Allan said different students given the same design challenge will take it in radically different directions and produce something unique.
“Everything they do is new, everything they do we have not seen before in the world,” says Fitz-Earle. “We don’t teach in a way that is rote. You don’t follow a bunch of rules and get a single outcome. You get a foundation and it is really limitless.”
On the other side of Mary Hall, at the showcase of Digital Arts program, the displays were less industrial and more hand-made.
The students worked with a range of disciplines and media including fine art, graphic design, animation, motion graphics, photography, web design, printmaking, laser cutting, video, and 2D and 3D image making.
“What is exciting about these students in that they are taking risks, trying new things,” said instructor Nichola Lytle.
“And they are responding to so many different issues that are coming up in the world, and there is lots of opportunity for them to comment or respond or tell their side of the story. That is the exciting part.”