“We seek to show the life within the walls of UP College of Fine Arts (CFA), and the life that we wish to breathe into Filipino society as designers.”
This was the idea behind PULSO, the undergraduate thesis exhibit of this year’s CFA graduating class.
Held from 29 May to 1 June 2016 at Pineapple Lab in Makati City, PULSO showcased the works of the students from the visual communication and industrial design programs.
It was attended by CFA faculty members as well as by friends and families of the students. Industry professionals also came, including Melvin Mangada, managing partner and chief creative officer of advertising firm TBWA/Santiago Mangada Puno, who delivered some words of inspiration to the graduating batch.
Musical performances were given by Oh, Flamingo!, the UP Concert Chorus and students of the college.
The exhibit opened in the evening of May 29 (Photo credit: Mariannel Crisostomo and Jao Elamparo)
Guests view the projects of the young designers (Photo credit: Mariannel Crisostomo and Jao Elamparo)
A student and his work Tinig Bata (Photo credit: Mariannel Crisostomo and Jao Elamparo)
According to the exhibitors: “We aim to tackle issues that are not only dear to us individually, but also are local and relevant. If blood is the sign of life, then our fields of visual communication and industrial design are the blood of a growing, changing community.”
The young designers, who see themselves as “a new generation of artists with the power to trigger paradigm shifts in the veins of the Philippines” said that “it is in images, technology, and media where one can influence how a society thinks and moves.”
They added: “We have a common goal and so despite our diverse array of ideas and solutions, we beat as one.”
The visual communication theses featured publications, advertising campaigns, hypermedia, graphic designs and moving images. But apart from the visual component, the students also dealt with words, sounds and stories to turn their works into tools that serve the Filipino people, whether in communicating an advocacy or in helping users in everyday activities such as wayfinding or teaching.
Similarly, students in the industrial design program, which in a broad sense is about creating products and systems, incorporated social relevance into their outputs, and thus focused on medical, psycho-social, and community and resource development designs.
The event was sponsored by Orange Segment and Eloquente.
More photos are available on Facebook.
(Based on an article by Nina Martinez and Daniel Chen Ratilla)
