Virtual postcard exhibition launches in collaboration with Joshibi University

For five years, Loughborough University has welcomed Joshibi University of Art and Design undergraduate students onto the East Midlands campus to experience a month-long cultural exchange programme.

Students are invited to participate and engage in a number of arts, cultural and linguistic activities across campus.

For 2021, the School of Design and Creative Arts welcome a new development in the continuing international relationship between Loughborough University and Joshibi University of Art and Design, our School’s institutional partner in Tokyo, Japan.

An online exhibition has been built in defiant response to the global COVID-19 pandemic as a way of celebrating continuing cultural connections between the two institutions.

Students are asked to produce a postcard design in response to a key theme and for this year the theme is ‘Connections’. Generating diverse perspectives and broad interpretations of the theme students have followed their personal curiosity and interests using related words to explore and extend their thinking. From physical connections such as Joining, Linking, Constructing, Fitting, Weaving, Twisting to connections through Associations, Relationships, Influences, Networks, Contacts, Collections, Memory, Attachment, Heirlooms, Ancestry, Places, Sentiment, and Time periods.

Speaking of the chosen theme, Julie Wallace, Programme Director, Art & Design Foundation Studies said that:

“When we selected our theme for the year ahead, we could not have predicted the significance of our chosen word and the relevance and resonance it would hold for us all this year. In this challenging time, it has very much been about valuing and celebrating the connections between us. I am delighted to be able to present the range and quality of work produced by our students. Thank you all for your contributions to this year’s exhibition.”

The responses are exhibited in a virtual gallery and are the conclusions of the Loughborough and Joshibi student’s investigation and exploration of the postcard theme. They also continue to support their chosen charity Rainbows and hope that in the absence of physical postcard sales would welcome donations to their chosen charity.

Andrew Selby, Senior Lecturer in Illustration and Animation explains that:

“We are proud to showcase student responses to the project theme in a virtual gallery that has been curated as closely as possible to the physical experience of hosting our exhibition. We have works, translations and interpretations – in fact, the only thing missing are the warm smiles of the Joshibi students and staff themselves. We know that they will return in the coming years when life takes on a new normality.”

View the virtual postcard exhibition

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