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Graphic Design

Niamh Thompson

I am co-founder of Print Out (with Anya Landolt) A Society for Printed Matter and Parties.

I am a collaborator in Conversational Practice a knowledge exchange project between staff and students on the Visual Communication programme at the Royal College of Art and PhD researchers at the School of Cardiovascular Medicine & Sciences at Kings College London.

I am the designer of promo-material for White Noise Fundraiser for Ukraine event.


Show Location: Battersea campus: Studio Building, Ground floor

Niamh Thompson-statement

I like things that amuse and horrify at the same time. A Morris Dance troupe re-enacting a ceremonial beheading; a horse skull engaging in a rap battle of insults; a parade of yellow wheelbarrows and hi-vis vests winding their way through the streets of South Cambridgeshire. I am a Visual Explorer, playing with methods of finding patterns and routes through sprawls of sourced material, structured around voices other than my own, and organised with a healthy amount of jumble. I work with publishing-based outcomes, from digital platforms structured on hypertext, to carefully crafted, lattice stitched books. Research plays an important role in my practice, utilising interviews alongside archives, with the themes of my work including, Relationships, Politics, Typography and Maypole Dancing. The village fete is cancelled this year, my deepest tombolances.

Our Fete, media item 1
Introduction chapter
Our Fete, media item 3
Our Fete, media item 4
Spring chapter
Our Fete, media item 6
Our Fete, media item 7
Winter chapter

When village structures slip into sexism, pride gives way to regional division and patriotism confuses itself with nationalism. How do the rites and rituals established within the English village fete reflect historical change? I have made a critical investigation into the masks of the quaint fete. My publication is structured through the seasons, beginning with a post-industrial Spring and ending in a second Spring, the post-digital. This is compiled entirely of archival footage from village fetes from across the UK.

Online hypertext platform
Screenshots of three Zoom calls, showing some of the women I interviewed.
Gif of pages from book
Pages from an accompanying printed publication
A mind map showing the connections between the women interviewed for this project.
The connections between the women interviewed for this project.

A vicar in red lipstick, two young girls tied to a Guy Fawkes doll and a group of young homeless people from Wolverhampton speaking in Westminster.

The Progress Report is a hypertext-structured platform that records a series of interviews I conducted with young women on the left of formal politics. These interviews follow the connections of these young women to those that have influenced their journey, including MPs, a vicar, lawyers, family, and meme-icons. The only navigation supplied through these bodies of text is via themes alternative to that of politics.

The final platform is pending release for early September 2022. This project will be carried forward in collaboration with Amber Brookes.

X Sonnets (29), media item 1
A gif displaying a series of spreads from a small A5 publication.
X Sonnets (29), media item 1
X Sonnets (29), media item 2

A little, a lot, of next day confusion;

The tumult, the art, the stimulation

Of a wet gleaming Wardour street,

Friday evening, the senses' bursting feat.

A publication created in collaboration with designer Daniela Perez and poet Shwan Ziad. This small book of poems looks to sensitively explore Shwan Ziad's understanding of his own Middle Eastern culture through a playful testing, extrapolation and abandonment of the format of the traditional English sonnet. Imagery of water meeting electricity is pitted against hints of political examination that explore a meshing of two cultures. Whilst a Middle Eastern typeface is subjected to a wealth of classical ligatures, and exposed film is passed through the rivers where the poems were written.

Size:

A5
A Society for Printed Matter and Parties, media item 1
A Society for Printed Matter and Parties, media item 2
Jazz on a barge

The symbiotic relationship between parties and print.

  • All promo must be printed
  • All events cost below £10 to attend

Events hosted and posters created include a Print-out Night-out in Peckham, Jazz on a Barge and Techno in the Aviary.

We are looking for someone to take over this society so if you are joining RCA next year and are interested please get in touch.