‘No space’ for product design students in need of new venue

Final year product design students at the University of Sussex no longer have a campus venue to house their end of year show in June. The final show, used to display the students’ concluding degree projects, accounts for 50 per cent of the final degree mark, and is essential for making industry contacts and eventual employment. The usual exhibition space on campus, InQbate, cannot be used this year due to health and safety restrictions sparking a mass of fundraising and a frantic hunt for an alternative venue in Brighton, which comes at a great cost.

A product design student told The Badger that “midway through last term we realised we couldn’t use the InQbate space, so we have been fundraising to try and raise money for a space elsewhere, as it emerged that fire regulations limit the amount of people inside the space to 60.” As the number of students taking the course has increased from previous years to 34, this has created a problem as visiting friends, parents and those from the industry would easily exceed the safety limit. The space, InQbate, is a joint initiative between Brighton and Sussex universities and is located in Pevensy III. At first the design students looked for an alternative venue on campus but have found that other spaces on campus are also unavailable as the show coincides with the exam period, which makes Mandela Hall off limits. They have been told that the Meeting House is a spiritual space and consequently cannot be used, and Bramber House which is a commercial space is too expensive to rent at the time it is needed. Product design students comment that “it would be great to get industry contacts here on campus to show off the University but at the moment we cannot do that” and “having the final show on campus would have been very beneficial, not only for us, as it would make things easier to set up, but also for the University, as a showcase of the course and what Sussex, rather than Brighton design students can do and to promote the course that many people are unaware of.”

With the help of the department and lecturers the students are now searching for a venue in town, which the department will now pay for. But venues in Brighton all come at a high cost. The cheapest averages on around £400 per day, and one student comments that “one of spaces we are looking at is an estimated £1,200 per day, and to put things in perspective a space like the Corn Exchange is £4,200 plus vat a day.”

Another detrimental impact of having a venue in Brighton rather than campus is that the students also need to consider transport costs, particularly the transporting of their final projects. To keep costs to a minimum students plan to get their work marked in the InQbate centre for two days and then move the show midweek to another venue to host the show for two further days, plus another day to set up. In spite of these problems the students are remaining optimistic. They comment: “as it is now clear that we have no space on campus, we feel even more determined to make the show really good and hopefully the space that we find will allow us to have just as much scope for imaginative and creative set ups as we could have had in the InQbate space.” They further comment that “we will make it a much more formal event to celebrate our degrees and really show off our work.”

Product design students have organised many fundraising events to help towards the costs of advertising and the promotion of the event, including brochures and flyers, which is on top of students own personal funding towards individual projects, as although each product design student is given £200 towards their projects, it is estimated that the prototypes alone on average cost around £500. On the 12 February, a raffle at the Walkabout pub raised £800, and the pub crawl last Monday raised £300. Later on in the year, design students will hold a 16 mile fancy dress walk, which the entire course will go on plus family and friends. They have also made a Society within the union called Sussexproductdesign, which will allow all the money raised to be doubled.

They comment that doing all the fundraising is not just beneficial for their year but also for years below. A student comments that ‘we want to leave a structure for the year behind who most probably will be in the same situation as we are in now, we didn’t know about fundraising and we think we would have sufficiently benefitted from knowing the year above. Now we really want to bridge the gap between years and encourage first and second years to come to fundraisers such as our pub crawl, so that they have an awareness of what lies ahead and can consequently be prepared of what might be needed from them when they reach their final year.’

‘Most people are unaware of the product design course, or that engineering has a branch in design, most people question that we go to Sussex and not Brighton’. ‘We want to promote ourselves and promote the university degree at Sussex, and Brighton is our direct competition, and they already have a very established and through reputation for the arts and design, and have many purpose build exhibition spaces. We want to extend this view to Sussex and really show what we can do here.’ They comment that they want to extend the reputation to Sussex and ‘really show off the design department here.’ The final Exhibition is on 19th and 20th June, venue to be confirmed.