V&A Dundee to embark on national tour

11 December 2014

V&A Museum of Design Dundee will begin 2015 with their first touring exhibition visiting more than 70 places the length and breadth of Scotland. The tour takes in rural locations such as Harris, Campbeltown, Elgin and Galashiels alongside Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen.

Part of the new museum’s national pre-opening programme, the Design in Motion exhibition will be housed in the Travelling Gallery, a custom-built, mobile, contemporary gallery inside a bus.

The tour will launch in Dundee on February 13 before embarking on a 17-week journey visiting 78 venues including secondary schools and art colleges, museums, community centres and libraries with a final stop planned at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in June.

A collaboration with the Travelling Gallery, Design in Motion is the second V&A Dundee project to benefit from funding from players of People’s Postcode Lottery. The tour will take exhibits, designers and the V&A Dundee team across the country, connecting communities with Scotland’s design heritage and raising awareness of the talent in Scotland’s present-day design industries, inspiring creativity along the way.

The exhibition concept, brought to life by designer Gabrielle Underwood, will showcase seven leading designers currently working with digital technology to push the boundaries of their discipline within games, product, jewellery, fashion, textiles and built heritage.

Featuring designers Geoffrey Mann, Sophia George, Anarkik3D, Sara Robertson and Sarah Taylor, Lynne MacLachlan, the Digital Design Studio and leading fashion designer Holly Fulton, the exhibition was curated in a typically inventive fashion, with an expert advisory group contributing their suggestions for content through a series of dedicated Pinterest boards.

Alongside the exhibition, V&A Dundee is working with Dundee-based developers eeGeo to develop an innovative new mobile app. The Design Scotland app, free to download for iOS and Android from 13 February 2015, uses bespoke 3D mapping technology to virtually track the tour and importantly, highlight stories of Scotland’s extraordinary design heritage across the last 300 years. Alongside this, users will be encouraged to pin their favourite Scottish designers, design icons and objects to the map, sharing their own thoughts, ideas and stories of Scottish creativity.

Sarah Saunders, Head of Learning & Engagement for V&A Dundee said: “We are delighted to be able to announce details of Design in Motion today. It’s an incredibly ambitious project, but one that we feel underlines the scope and scale of the new museum, and really allows us to set out our stall as a new national institution.

“The designers in this exhibition have used digital technologies as a means of reconstructing our heritage, visualising the unseen, and creating new forms. To them, digital is a tool that enables them to experiment, play and create. There are also some shining examples of how today’s designers are using the innovations of the past to inspire the designs of the future.

“We look forward to seeing what our audiences pin to the map and are excited to think of the potential of this information in enabling audiences to inform our future programme.

“We are immensely grateful for the support from players of People’s Postcode Lottery and The Mathew Trust in making this exhibition happen.”

The Travelling Gallery has over 30 years experience of bringing exhibitions to locations throughout Scotland. Based at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, the Travelling Gallery is owned and managed by the City of Edinburgh Council and funded through Creative Scotland.

Councillor Richard Lewis, Convener for Culture and Sport for the City of Edinburgh, Council, said: “The Travelling Gallery allows people to see and experience art and design outside traditional surroundings, making it truly accessible. We are delighted to be partnering with V&A Dundee on what is a really exciting project. I hope everyone takes the opportunity to take a tour through the exhibition when the bus comes to town.”

Alongside the exhibition and app there will be an exciting programme of events and activities to inspire people of all ages and abilities to get involved in and have fun with design creativity.

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Notes to Editors

Design in Motion Locations – 13 February – 21 June 2015

13 – 27 February Dundee
2 – 13 March Edinburgh
16 – 20 March Scottish Borders / Midlothian
23 – 28 March Falkirk / Stirling
30 March – 3 April Fife / Perth
6 – 10 April Angus / Aberdeen / Elgin
20 - 24 April Highlands
27 April – 1 May Lewis / Harris / Skye
5 - 9 May Fort William / Oban
11 - 15 May West Dunbartonshire
18 - 22 May Glasgow
25 – 29 May Paisley / Renfrewshire
1 – 5 June North and East Ayrshire
8 - 12 June Dumfries & Galloway
20 - 21 June London

Design in Motion exhibitors

Anarkik3D
Edinburgh-based Anarkik3D specialise in developing revolutionary 3D virtual touch applications delivering a high quality, immersive 3D experience to users.

Founders Ann Marie Shillito and Xiaoqing Cao look for gaps in the market and develop software to meet these, with the aim of making it easier and more affordable for makers to embrace 3D modelling tools.

Digital Design Studio
The Digital Design Studio (DDS) is a postgraduate research and commercial centre of Glasgow School of Art. The DDS works with business and industry centred on their expertise in real-time 3D capture, 3D sound, modelling, motion capture and animation. Through their ground breaking work viewers can experience architecture and heritage that no longer exists physically. Their work is also vital in recording, conserving and restoring heritage for the future, such as their recent involvement on the scanning of Glasgow School of Art.

Holly Fulton
Holly Fulton is a womenswear designer based in East London. Born in Scotland, Fulton studied in Edinburgh before going on to the Royal College of Art. She established her own label in 2009 after gaining industry experience in London and Paris. Fulton’s collections are a fusion of traditional and digital processes, using couture techniques and less traditional materials to produce high quality, unique garments with a bold, contemporary aesthetic.

Sophia George
Chair of Swallowtail Games, Sophia George was the first ever V&A Game Designer in Residence. In her early twenties, George is already an accomplished game designer, winning the 2012 BAFTA Ones to Watch Award for the prototype of Tick Tock Toys, a family-friendly puzzle game for iPhone and iPad.

Lynne MacLachlan
Originally trained in aerospace engineering, Maclachlan later studied jewellery and metalwork design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design followed by the Royal College of Art. MacLachlan uses computer software as a craft tool that helps shape her design ideas. Using digital tools she has developed a way of generating forms and patterns that create flickering optical effects. Lynne plays with scale, colour and pattern, to design vibrant, contemporary fashion pieces.

Geoffrey Mann
Geoffrey Mann is an artist and designer whose work challenges the divisions between art, craft and design. From his Edinburgh studio, Mann uses cinematic techniques to film and digitally render live motion into three dimensional forms, which are then materialized through 3D printing technology.

Sara Robertson and Sarah Taylor
Sara Robertson, lecturer in Craft Innovation and Smart Materials at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and designer-maker and researcher in smart textiles Sarah Taylor bring together traditional craft and design techniques with new technologies to explore the future of textiles.

Gabrielle Underwood
Since establishing her own practice in 2011, Gaby and her team have delivered high profile exhibitions for institutions including the Design Museum, The Science Museum, The Imperial War Museum, National Museum of Scotland and London Transport Museum.

Gaby was most recently behind the design of the annual Wildlife Photography of the Year exhibition at London’s Natural History Museum, in collaboration with A Plus B. Graduating from Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design in 2004, Gaby completed a Master of Design at Eindhoven’s Design Academy before working within leading consultancy Casson Mann and the V&A’s in-house museum team.
www.gabrielleunderwood.com

eeGeo Limited
eeGeo is a Dundee-based software technology company who provide a cloud?based, 3D mobile mapping platform for smartphone and tablet applications. Their unique way of recreating the real world as interactive, intuitive 3D maps is built on technology originally used in the gaming industry and allows their customers to deliver compelling consumer experiences for the discovery and consumption of content, information and services. The company was founded in 2010 by gaming pioneer and entrepreneur Ian Hetherington.

eeGeo work with a range of major commercial clients globally including providing the technology behind a 3D map application for subscribers of the largest mobile network operator in Japan - NTT DoCoMo, and delivering Brazilian city guides to accompany the 2014 World Cup for mobile phone manufacturer Samsung.
eegeo.com/