The RCA takes British Airways BA 2119: Flight of the Future exhibition to Shanghai

The exhibition ‘BA 2119: Flight of the Future’ features design proposals from students across the Schools of Design and Architecture that imagine flight in 100 years time. It will be showcased at FutureLab alongside a showreel of projects from the School of Communication, an exhibit from the School of Architecture’s Laboratory for Design and Machine Learning, and an exhibit The Urgency of the Arts from the School of Arts & Humanities.

Over 30 of the world’s leading art and design schools are taking part in FutureLab, which has been organised by the West Bund Art and Design Fair team to showcase international cutting-edge trends in teaching and creation in art and design. The event will reveal the multidimensional and open-ended relationship between teaching and learning, fostering dialogue on the future of art and design education. 

Alongside the RCA, more than 30 leading art schools have been invited to present the latest achievements of their faculties and students, including Berlin University of the Arts, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, MIT Media Lab, New York University Shanghai, China Academy of Art and the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Each school will present innovative and diverse art and design teaching methods and practices through exhibitions, workshops and forums. 

Dr Laura Ferrarello, Acting Head MRes Programme, Royal College of Art commented: 'We are very pleased to take BA2119 Flight of the Future to Shanghai and showcase our students’ inspiring projects to a new audience. The collaboration with British Airways gave us the opportunity to think how design research can tackle and inform the next 100 years of flying but also think about how technological advancements and innovation can be deployed to construct sustainable relationships between ourself and our planet.'

At FutureLab, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Provost Professor Naren Barfield will take part in a forum discussing ways to face the challenges art and design education is facing in a rapidly changing era. There will also be workshops with various RCA faculty, that will provide audiences with the opportunity to gain some hands on experience of the RCA’s teaching and approaches to art and design.

RCA staff leading workshops include: 

• Senior Tutor, Graduate Diploma Art & Design Gary Clough will present ‘Creative schools of thought: An action learning based research project focusing on earlier year learning’
• Acting Head of MRes RCA, MRes Design Pathway Leader and Senior Tutor Research Dr Laura Ferrarello, will present ‘Design Narratives that Design Future Innovation’
• Senior Tutor Research in the School of Arts & Humanities Dr Chantal Faust is running a workshop ‘Writing Images’
• Reader in Digital Media and Acting Head of Digital Direction Dr Eleanor Dare is leading a workshop ‘Participatory Modelling Workshop & VR Version of Model Art Fair’