English for Academic Purposes for Creative Disciplines

On the right: Cat is showing what an archive is; on the left: an embroidered pattern, an example object from  the GSA Archives What does an archive mean?  As Cat Doyle , who works at the GSA Archives , told us it can be the documents or the objects which can be recorded from everyday activities. They can come in a variety of formats, including text, audio and video. The objects are protected by copyright and can be stored by category. Usually, archives are kept long term if they are useful. On the way to the GSA Archives The journey to the GSA Archives On 20 June 2019, we took a short walk to arrive at the GSA Archives - it took us almost 20 minutes by foot from Blythswood house. The weather was too cold at first and Chaeeun didn't bring her jacket, so she felt quite cold at that moment, but few minutes later, the sun came out and the weather became warmer than before, and she said that it was the true Glasgow. Maybe some students felt it was quite far away t...

The “BANANARAMA” session was a brilliant teaching experience about the investigation from the primary and the secondary research, to help students who study in the Glasgow School of Art better understand the connection between human, things, and thinking. The primary research about banana by John Nicol In the first week of the pre-sessional course, we attended a quite interactive workshop: “BANANARAMA”. With the introduction and demonstration teaching of research by John Nicol and Kaitlyn DeBiasse, the studio tutors, we obtained two important steps of the study object: the primary and secondary research. The former requires us to focus on the things or item itself, colors or materials and we can use smell, touch, etc. to do so, and the latter is about investigating the information around it, related products, developments or brands etc. The strong connection between students and teachers is the thinking with and through things and asking questions. The secondary rese...

Today we attended a lecture on material culture delivered by Dr Frances Robertson from the GSA. The talk was very interactive and at some point the lecturer asked us to play a dress detective. This entailed swapping jackets with people around the room in order to examine them - for example the fabric, style, how it fits the body shape, etc - and then think about the history, potential influences and inspirations. The students examine their jackets, talking about the fit, design, fabric and discussing what the different features can say about the people who wear them The students being jacket detectives - some fabrics make rustling noises We got down to work and soon the room was full of buzz, people feeling the jackets, turning them inside out to, and even smelling them. We discovered that some made sounds, crunchy or rustling; some were very soft to touch, some very loose while others were quite tight-fitting. Once we were done with the analysis, Frances examined some of...