Design seen through the eyes of students

Czech seed beads used on the designs made by students from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (known as UMPRUM).

During the closing days of January, you had the opportunity to visit the now regular Artsemestr exhibition. UMPRUM students presented the projects which they had been working on for the last six months to the public. The results of their examination and semester work filled the Academy's entire building.

The examination and semester projects are not merely a school exercise for the students. They often respond to social themes and endeavour to resolve an assigned problem which in many cases has been set in cooperation with various companies. A lot of the work was inspired by this year's 100^th anniversary of the establishment of Czechoslovakia and a number of projects were created for specific companies (for example, Skoda Auto and VW, Bata, Preciosa, Nimco, Tescoma...). In many cases, the assignment was tailor-made with regard to the planned exhibition projects.

For example, the students at the Clothing and Footwear Design Studio are working on a year-long project entitled "The Power of Identity - Memory Fashion Message" which takes a thematic look at Czech national culture, history and tradition which has been assigned on the occasion of the 100^th anniversary of Czechoslovakia. PRECIOSA has also cooperated on the project. The designs were presented in Tokyo at the prestigious BFGU Fashion Week at the time when the Artsemestr exhibition was being held.

The Textile Production Studio also cooperated with PRECIOSA on its exhibition project celebrating the 100th anniversary of Czechoslovakia entitled "Aš po Už/horod". Seed beads from the PRECIOSA Traditional Czech Beads™ brand were used in some of the work. The materialisation of the dialogues with First Republic family companies has been reshaped in a unique textile design which connects the areas of production of the given company (for example, Preciosa Ornela, Petrof, Binkova koželužna Krucemburk...).

Anais Herve, Sound textiles	Anais Herve, Sound textiles	Anais Herve, Sound textiles
Eva Chudomelová, Seed beads in architecture	Eva Chudomelová, Seed beads in architecture	Eva Chudomelová, Seed beads in architecture
Amálie Koppová, "devoré" screens	Wei Tsun Liao

More information is available at www.umprum.cz