Meet alumnus Iddo Gruengard (Drama Centre London (CSM), MA Performance Design & Practice (2014)), Iddo is keen to meet fellow UAL graduates living in Israel. He wants to hear your ideas about building a local UAL community to share, collaborate and socialise! Please join the Israel Alumni Group on Facebook to get involved.
What made you want to come to study performance design and practice at Central Saint Martins?
I wanted to experience an international setting in a capital city. I also wanted to take a breather from the Israeli experience and market. I chose Performance Design and Practice because it helped me join my skills and experience at architecture and performance to formulate new experimental performances. This course in Central Saint Martins is on the verge between the art world and the performing arts. Having a background as an initiator and producer of a social fashion show, I knew of the college’s excellence.
What was the greatest thing UAL has taught you?
I have learned to collaborate with different disciplines and nationalities and to achieve a final complex project. It taught me to work with questions and uncertainties and interact with others in a way that builds meaning. Not being too strict with my art and my primary intentions. As a practice based MA, I’ve learned to link the academic research with my practical work and therefore being always intrigued.
Save the building
What was the best thing about living in London?
Having long weekends to see the diverse cultural events in the city. Seeing the 2012 Paralympics and the utopia of people with disability in the streets and the media. And lastly, the funding around art, how art is immersed in everyday life and is considered a beneficial and important field to work in.
What do you do now?
I am currently working on a media mix performance “Neufert”, which examines our prefered architectural lifestyles and how it is expressed in our actions and ideology on a daily basis. I am also performing as part of the Miklat 209 Ensemble in a piece about the central bus station in TelAviv. I give lectures about performance as a rehabilitation process and posthuman performance. And I work with adolescents’ helping them express themselves.
Unstable with Mapped Productions
What made you want to start a UAL alumni group in Israel?
I believe that a UAL alumni group will create great interdisciplinary links between former students with a joint background. If you take into account, that each of these students has links and acquaintances abroad from his own course, this could open many opportunities for interaction. I think that an alumni who just returned to Israel will be happy to connect to a base group that connects to their experiences from UAL and London and they do not feel lost at rehabilitating back to the Israeli art market.
What do you hope the group will achieve?
I hope to recruit most of the Israeli alumni and begin debates and lectures about their experience in their individual field (in Israel and abroad), debates about interdisciplinary approached and coalitions, gathering tips how to maintain our practice. Having a bulletin board to form new projects, presenting and offering them both in Israel and the UK. Maintaining a strong link with UAL and the British Council to further develop projects in Israel and links with the industry.
Find out more about UAL’s international alumni groups
Metamorphosing (Final project in CSM)