Rebel Rebel

Here’s another great example of collaboration between two Creative Way partners:

London Metropolitan University has joined forces with a group of students from South Essex College of Further & Higher Education to highlight the negative aspects of urban street culture for a new exhibition Rebel, Rebel.

20 students on the BTEC National Diploma Fashion & Clothing – Fashion Promotion course were asked to look at street fashion through the decades and the links between fashion, gang culture and negative trends. The challenging brief was co-written with Marianne Forrest, Senior Lecturer for BA (Hons) Design at London Met’s Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media and Design (The Cass). (taken from the London Met website click here for the rest of the article...)

This is part of a Creative Way funded project being run by Jo Stringer at South Essex College (formally SEEC). Jo is developing a new L3 qualification in Fashion promotion. What’s particularly interesting is that she’s building it in consultation with HE institutions across the Thames Gateway. And not just with fashion course leaders. She’s also busy building links with other disciplines such as photography, design, and graphics to ensure students have choices when they’re ready to move into HE. Jo has even managed to create links with Canterbury Christ Church University’s BA Photography course. This is taught at CCCU’s Broadstairs campus and, without a boat, it’s about as far from Southend as you can get in the Gateway. Four L3 students have applied to progress as a result of partnership workshops.

Collaborations like this are knitting together education and skills providers across the Thames Gateway. While critics of the wider Thames Gateway regeneration project question its purpose and impact, the Creative Way partnership of colleges, universities and private training providers are quietly building an architecture of real educational opportunity, improving the skills and qualifications profile of the region and devising innovative and collaborative ways to deliver creative education.