Exploring the Re-Use Exchange at Camberwell College of Arts, Wilson Road

Carla Fallen is the Technical Coordinator / Studio Workshop Manager for the Foundation Programme at Camberwell College of Arts, Wilson Road. She also runs an extremely successful ‘Re-Use Exchange’, in which unwanted or excess materials are donated to be used by students on the programme, completely for free.

We caught up with Carla to hear about why she does this, how she sources her materials and what kind of impact the exchange has on students. We also caught up with a student who has created their entire final major project using materials collected from the exchange!

Can you talk a bit about your role here at UAL? What are your responsibilities and how long have you worked here?

CCW Foundation moved from Wimbledon to Camberwell in 2011, so I’ve been based here at Wilson Road since then. I became Technical Coordinator/Studio Workshop Manager in 2013. I absolutely love my job and the students I get to work with. I split my week with 2 days a week as a Print Technician and then 3 days a week in my managerial position. I enjoy the combination of roles, dividing my time between helping students with printing and then focusing on managerial duties and making sure my team are happy and feel able to develop professionally. Being able to still spend time on practical work is something I really enjoy about my current role.

Working at UAL has really encouraged me to keep developing and learning as a creative. I grew up thinking I hated learning, I’m someone who failed their A levels twice and assumed it wasn’t for me. But really, it just wasn’t the right environment for me and now I find myself in a role where I learn so much every day and I absolutely love it. There’s so much going on at UAL and so many opportunities to try different things. All jobs have challenges of course but for me, I love my job and I wouldn’t swap it for anything else.

What did you do before coming to UAL?

Looking back, I’ve always had the ‘re-use’ bug. When I was 18 or 19, I used to sell vintage clothes. I’d pick them up at jumble sales, get them washed and then sell them at fairs. I eventually went to work in a little theatre as I wanted to pursue a career in costume. Some of my colleagues had studied at Wimbledon and recommended I give it a go. So, I moved down to London to study Costume at Wimbledon and it was the best thing I ever did. I made lifelong friends and moved into working in costume within film and TV production for 15 years. After having my kids, I found the hours didn’t work for me. I came across a job at Wimbledon for Fashion, Textiles, Performance Technician and immediately knew it was perfect for me as it combined fashion and theatre. This was in 2007. I was so nervous as I’d never had an interview like that before, as I'd spent a lot of time freelance. The interview was so scary for me, but the 2 people who interviewed me were so lovely and really took a chance on me. I had no teaching experience and growing up, I was that nightmare student who messed about and disrupted. But as it turns out I really took to teaching and helping students, so I feel so lucky to have been given that opportunity.

How did this initiative come about?

Claire McCormack came up with the idea back in 2013 as she had always been very interested in material re-use. She sourced some funding, and the Re-Use Exchange was born, albeit on a smaller scale than it is today. At first it would be student donations and odd bits donated by colleagues. Over the following years I gradually began to manage the space and donations from both students and industry. I am now at the point where I am coordinating and managing the project with the support of 2 more technicians, Manda Helal and Jason Allcorn. As I started taking on more responsibility, we eventually started getting calls from Jocelyn Foye, who is Office Manager in the Development team. She has been absolutely amazing as she will often receive calls from externals wanting to donate materials. She started to pass these on to me and now we have a really solid pipeline as a result.

How do you source materials for the Exchange?

Many different ways to be honest. We’ll have calls come in from all sorts of people and organisations, who have materials they don’t want to go to waste and who know art students will make good use of them. So oftentimes they’ll reach out to Jocelyn who will pass them on to me. We also have a lot of regular donators; we have a tiemaker who donates beautiful silks and it’s really a win-win situation. People don’t want to waste, and they feel good having given it to students. Myself and Jason went to the National Theatre a few weeks back as they were giving away excess materials and we picked some lovely stuff up there, from textiles to old props. Sometimes I get worried we’re running low on materials and then we’ll get a call and someone has 100 rolls of materials to give away. Other times I’ll have to turn things down purely because we don’t currently have the space to store it all, which is a real shame.

Are there any notable productions that have donated excess materials to you?

Well, we had a huge donation of materials from the upcoming 'Barbie' movie which has been fun and proven very popular. As you can imagine, lots of hot pinks! Personally, it’s not my taste but it’s absolutely brilliant to be able to give it out to our students. Jenny Bevan, who is a 3-time Oscar winning costume designer, was the first costume designer I’d ever worked with and she gave me my break in TV. She donated a lot of materials from Disney’s ‘The Beauty and the Beast’ film, which was really popular with students. I’d invited her to speak to some students just before her Oscar win for ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ and she decided to drop off materials while she was at it. We’ve also had bits donated from The X Factor, and big organisations such as John Lewis and the NHS. So it’s a real variety but we get lots of good stuff.

What satisfaction do you get from running the Exchange?

I hate throwing things away and I absolutely love being able to give students something for nothing. They don’t all have access to cash, and many are working full-time as well as studying. So to be able to help level the playing field gives me a great deal of satisfaction. The quality of materials makes such a difference to the final product, so I really think students need to be able to access high quality materials. I’ve met so many interesting and amazing people by operating the exchange. I love chatting with the students and the people who donate materials. I remember spending an entire afternoon with a couple of students from Hawaii and it was just so fascinating to get to sit down and chat to them about their culture and how they were finding the UK. Working so closely with students and seeing the incredible things they create is so inspiring and is something I really love about my role. Another satisfying thing about running the exchange is that it inspires me to try new things and to keep making. I’ve recently started making clothes again because I’m surrounded by such amazing materials and talented students, I find it hard not to be inspired. It’s been really nice finding time to make things again.

Do you have anything you’d like to achieve with the Exchange that you haven’t yet?

I’d love to be able to expand and grow the offering. Right now I simply don’t have the space to store any more but if we could look into moving into a larger space, I think there’s so much potential here.

Why do you think it’s important that UAL prioritises re-using materials?

As well as providing students with access to materials and trying to level the playing field, it’s also obviously a very good thing to reduce our waste and be more considerate about how we dispose of things. I’ve found that often people really don’t want to throw things away, but they simply don’t know what else to do. Providing options to prevent this is so important and if we really want to be a social purpose University, I think this needs to be a priority

It’s amazing to see and hear about the fantastic work Carla is doing to provide students to high-quality, free materials for their studies. But we wanted to go further and hear from someone who has directly benefitted from this exchange. We spoke to Millie Baltzer, who created her entire final major project using materials sourced from the Re-Use Exchange.

Hi Millie! What are you studying at UAL?

I’m studying Design for Theatre Screen and Performance Foundation and am just wrapping up my studies now.

How did you find out about Carla’s Reuse Exchange?

It was mentioned to us when we first started, and we were encouraged as costume students to go along and explore the exchange. I head over there every so often just to see what’s available as there’s new materials all the times. It’s just the most amazing resource to have.

How important is the shop for you and your studies?

It is just so important to me and my studies. Fabrics are so expensive! Using my final project as an example, it would have cost over £200 at least if I were to purchase materials for myself. Whereas having the exchange enabled me to be ambitious and not feel held back by financial constraints when working on my final piece. My final project would not exist without the exchange, or at the very least would be nowhere near as good as I want it to be.

What have you picked up in the past and what did you create?

I’ve used the exchange for all sorts of projects. Even small projects that I work on for a week, I’ll head to the exchange to see what I can use. I remember making a Victorian costume, where I needed to make a large skirt with wadding. I wouldn’t even know where to start to find wadding, but Carla’s expertise helped me. She helped me get wadding to use and also taught me about the materials I’m using. So not only am I getting to use these amazing materials, but I’m also getting to speak to staff with so much knowledge and experience of using the materials.

Find out more about sustainability at UAL.