Art & Design students from Wiltshire College & University Centre have been responding to their predecessors as part of a ‘Time Capsule’ project at the start of the new academic year.
The College’s Salisbury campus has undergone extensive redevelopment work in recent years, which included the demolition of the old Bourne building on Southampton Road this summer.
During the demolition work, a time capsule was unearthed beneath the site which was first buried by College students in 1990. No one knew what the capsule contained until it was opened this summer.
In response to the discovery, Art & Design students across Level 1, 2, 3 and Foundation at the College’s Salisbury campus were asked to create a series of creative artworks as part of their induction to the new term.
Each student’s work visually communicates a snapshot of what living in 2021 is like. Students explored their experience of lockdown and living through a global pandemic and also created messages for the future, symbolised a current issue or debate or made a representation of something personal to them.
The capsule itself measures 26cm in diameter, so students produced circular works of the same size. Students were encouraged to be experimental with their ideas and the media they worked in, with art pieces ranging from paint, graphite, digital media, photography, embroidery and even 3D pieces.
An exhibition of the project will take place during the first term showcasing all of the work created. The work will then be recorded using a QR code which will be placed inside the time capsule before it is reburied for future generations to discover.
Tom Green, Lecturer in Art & Design at the College’s Salisbury campus, said: “This was an exciting project for our students to be involved with at the start of the new term. I know all the students enjoyed the challenge of creating an essence of life in 2021 in artform.
“The College has a great association with art – particularly in Salisbury – and it is wonderful to be able to reconnect with a part of that history and create a link to the future as well. Hopefully the next generation of students to discover the time capsule will be as inspired by the work created this term as our current students were by their predecessors.”
For more information on Art & Design courses available at the College, click here.
