Tour de France

Wow! What a few weeks it has been for British cycling.  The usual ups and downs of the Tour de France, with mountains, sprints, crashes and amazing speed, all topped off with a stage victory and an historic British winner.  Congratulations to Bradeley Wiggins and all of Team Sky.

Plastics have fulfilled some very important roles within the race from the bikes and their components, through to the clothes, sunglasses and helmets worn by the riders.  I suspect that cycling is one of very few sports which relies so heavily on this family of materials. What other sports use plastics so heavily? Please leave us a comment below with you thoughts.

This Pinarello from the MoDiP collection has a carbon fibre frame and forks.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Cuartor)

A tough guess today

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or find out more about the object by looking at the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Olympic Torch

Tomorrow the Olympic torch will be coming within a stones throw of the Museum.  In celebration we thought we would share with you this sweet tube topper. He is holding up a torch from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

If sweet tube toppers do not light your fire we have a few torches in the collection which, although not taking part in the relay, may be of interest.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

What could this be?

MoDiP has the kind of collection that you may think you are very familiar with. We have objects which we all use every day, and some pieces which are more unusual.

By looking at this distorted image are you able to guess what the object is? What do you think it could be used for?

Post your answer in the comments below or find out more about the object by looking at the MoDiP catalogue.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)

Teaching & Learning

The MoDiP website is developing all the time.  I have been recently concentrating on adding case studies to our Teaching & Learning pages.  For these projects we have worked with students at all stages of their AUCB life, from their very first assessed work to their Final Major Projects.


We have worked with Fine Art students in On Collecting, Defining Practices both projects offered an opportunity for them to respond to the collection or the notion of museums.

On Collectinig

Defining Practices

Fashion Design and Technology students used our collection to look come up with ideas for obscure objects in our Branding case study.

Branding

Our case study Visual explanation looks at the work of Illustration students describing how to use on object by using only images and symbols.

Visual Explanation

Interior Architecture students were given an object and a display case in which to display it in Objective Objects.

Objective Objects

Fantastic Plastic and Critical Review has seen the National Diploma Students in Art and Design work with us on a number of occasions.   

Fantastic Plastic

MoDiP has acted as client to Visual Communication students by providing a brief to design logos in Creating Identity.

Creating Identity

Textile design students have been Inspired by MoDiP and have created some wonderful patterns from shapes they have seen in our objects.

Inspired by MoDiP

Groupings of objects have enabled Graphic Design students to create assessed work in Typographic studies.

Typographic studies

And finally, for now, objects in the collection have offered Model Making students Direct Inspiration.

Direct Inspiration

We really enjoy seeing how the collection can help AUB students with their studies.  We also enjoy sharing it with AUB teaching staff and beyond in the hope that we can be a part of lots more exciting projects with both internal and external teaching staff.

Louise Dennis (Assistant Curator)