Collaborative projects are a great way to network with other courses, have some fun and do something different to your project work.
So far in my first term at AUB I have had two experiences of collaborative projects. My first project was working individually to a brief before submitting our work digitally where it was collated together into a book with everyone from across the different courses (BA (Hons) Textiles Design and Fashion). My second project was at the end of term – a four-day in-person collaboration between Textiles Design and BA (Hons) Architecture, which culminated in a day of presentations.
The first project was a set brief where we had to select our own stimulus and then form a design based on it, in any media. We were given a briefing and shown some artists who worked in a similar style to the way our tutors wanted the outcome to be achieved, and we spoke about how the project was beneficial to us. We were then given a two-week deadline for the small task, which ran alongside our main term work. We submitted it online and some were chosen to be displayed in TheGallery, whilst all of them were collated in a book. It was interesting to see how differently the students from each course had taken it. It was noticeable how we all approached a stimulus in a way that aligned with our course, and it was interesting how obscure yet effective some of the chosen stimuli were.
The second project was a lot more hands-on and communication-focused. This was a Christmas-themed project where we had to work in small, mixed course groups to build a Christmas table display with different focus points. We had three days to build the design as a team and on the final, fourth, day we presented our work as a group to everyone else. This was great for focusing on transferable skills like communication, reflecting on different work styles and taking new approaches to materials.
From completing these projects, my biggest piece of advice is not to huddle in your course groups! It can be really easy to steer off from your assigned group and go back to chatting with your course mates but that defeats the point. Of course, I am not saying to blank everyone outside your group for days straight, but embrace the opportunity to talk to new people on a different course. You may not have crossed paths with them if you weren’t doing this project and that’s so exciting! Talking to new people now may pay massive dividends in the future when you or they need help with a project.
Also, everyone has different work styles, and you need to be flexible. In my experience, the collaborative project went towards a graded unit for my course, but for the other course we were working with, it wasn’t a graded piece. This meant people on my course were, in some cases, taking it a lot more seriously than they were. Another difference was that Architecture normally started later than we did, so we had to be flexible on when we would all be coming and going and working. It was really great to face these problems head on. Learning to communicate and establish a plan everyone was happy with was critical because we all pulled our own weight differently.
Overall, my advice would be to embrace collaborative projects as much as you can. They are super fun and lighthearted; a nice break from my project work (which we all know can get stressful at times) and a good way to meet new people. It gives you more opportunities to work with different materials that you may not work with on your course, and this can help your future projects too, as you can bring in a more diverse range of skills and textures.
You never know what you may get out of a collaborative project – for me, it has certainly been positive. It has taught me to keep an open mindset, being confident in my design ability but willing to listen to the input of others.
