Future Continuous

Each year the Royal College of Art launches the world’s most talented artists, designers and innovators. The 2020 graduates have not only risen to the incredible challenge of the pandemic, but their work is a testament to their courage, creativity and resilience.

This virtual show is a landmark for the RCA and an extraordinary launchpad for them. I have selected just 20 works from across the schools of design, arts and humanities; painters, product and service designers, as well as printmakers and design engineers.

They are drawn from many backgrounds and disciplines and it is this that makes the RCA so unique, combining cultures defined not by geography alone but by discipline too; creating an environment to not only perceive the future, but to shape it.

And so the theme of this collection us one of the 12 tenses, the future continuous, because at the RCA the future begins here.

Dr Nick de Leon

Tianyue Zhong's Flash Back

Royal Commission for Exhibition of 1851, Industrial Design - Claudia Maw

Claudia Maw's ObjectivEyes

Seamless Weaving | Weaving Modification — // Can we weave a garment straight from the machine? // How can we present an unprecedented solution (i.e. ultimate zero-waste garment making system) in the very early stage?

Loy Chan's Seamless Weaving

03 Household Health App — Application provided for tenants to organise Health Dialogues and access everyday support

Alessandro Paone's Household Health (Household Health App)

Soes Christine Hejselbaek's Specie // Abstract Machines

Emilia D’Orazio and Saumya Singhal's (Joint Project)AcrosSilos

User view - Step count — To use Urban Moments, users would sign in using their existing account with their transport provider. This would enable the transport provider to get a better insight into citizens’ travel behaviours. As the user starts walking during peak hours, the step count is automatically activated. The app then tracks and converts their steps into Urban Points all in real-time. This data is stored and processed by the transport provider. The user gets and an indication of how much time is left until the peak time ends. They also have the option to pause or stop their step count in case they don’t want to be tracked on a certain part of their commute. At the end of the peak time, the step count is automatically deactivated. By clicking on “insights” the user can see their contribution towards a reduction in Co2 emissions, congestion and other factors.

Sujeban Susilakanthan's Urban Moments

The ripples of shade/1800mm*800mm — ‘Beauty is not in the thing itself, but in the ripples of the shadows produced by the objects.’ [Junichiro Tanizaki]

Jiaxin Tang's The ripples of shade

Exclusion Zone - Film Still / Performer: Natsuki Uemura

Virag Kiss's Exclusion Zone

Where am I — The stretcher covered with grey-green fabric is the painting itself that in front of the viewer, the artist tries to realise the contradictory concept of ‘presenting a hidden painting’. He tries to indicate that the text itself in the painting is also the questioner who asks ‘where am I’ in the title. The answer may be the fabric in the painting (i.e. the printing or embroidery existing on the fabric), or the canvas itself of the whole painting (i.e. the text in the painting could also be a piece of pigment attached to the canvas as a material attribute). Then the content ‘I'm here’ becomes the answer to the question in the title. The word ‘here’ not only implies the two possibilities mentioned above, but could also be endowed with more likelihoods such as a particular context (studio, exhibition hall, online virtual space, etc) that the painting stays. Here the image provides its own metalanguage. The form of ‘Q & A’ arouses the viewer's thoughts about the instability and rationality of the context where the painting object is located.

Lingrui Zhang's Where am I

Multi-color 3D Printed TPU, playful and flexible spring structure

Yunfei Ma's SHIFT +

Tom Pais's Geia

Platform and Interface for Wayfinding in Wildfires

Siobhan Anderson's Anemoi

Oil pastels on giclée (2) — 148 x 112.5 cm

Mandy Franca's ‘It’s six minutes to five somewhere’ - Part 2 (Oil pastels on giclée (2))

Project 'Next' focuses on the topic of studying abroad and is committed to building a connection between overseas students and applicants to reduce the problem of the information gap

Chao Dai and Huitong Li's (Joint Project) NEXT

Kevin Chiam's Airtomo

Roc H. Biel's Fenics

Helene Benz's Myda

Dr Nick de Lion

Dr Nick de Leon has had a diverse career that has spanned the disciplines of design, technology and business. In 2012 he created the Service Design department at the Royal College of Art which he led until 2019. The department is recognised as the leading post graduate and research programme in Service Design in Europe with over 150 experienced designers undertaking Master’s and PhD programmes. He now leads the knowledge exchange and executive programmes for the School of Design, building partnerships with industry, government and academia.

Between 2007 and 2012 he was the Director of Design London, a joint venture between RCA and Imperial College to pioneer new models of interdisciplinary innovation and created in response to the UK Treasury’s Cox Review –Creativity in Business. Prior to this he worked for over 30 years at IBM where he was Director of Business Development in Europe. During the his career he held the positions of Director of Marketing for IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa. He joined IBM on graduation from the RCA as an Industrial Designer and his work includes IBM’s first personal computer, the IBM PC, and he subsequently led IBM product development teams for hardware, software and services.

He has a BSc (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College, a Masters from the Royal College of Art and a PhD in Digital Infrastructure for Smart Cities from Imperial College Business School. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Art, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Visiting Fellow of Imperial College Business School, a committee member of the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, and a member of the committee for the Misha Black Awards.

Future Continuous

Curator Biography