Lara Torres
Pathway Leader for MA Fashion Artefact (Low Residency)
Artist and researcher Lara Torres holds a Doctorate from the University of Arts London, at the London College of Fashion with the thesis ‘Towards a practice of unmaking: the essay film as critical discourse for fashion in the expanded field’. Her research sits at the intersection of fashion design, fine arts, and film practices and theory, exploring notions of an expanded field of fashion, critical fashion and fashion film practices in the Twenty-First Century. She is looking at fashion as a belief but also in an intrinsic relation to systems, that understand fashion as a theoretical and methodological framework for understanding the complex dynamic relationship between the body, dress, and culture. She describes her practice as being rooted in fashion but no longer subdued by its disciplinary boundaries. Torres has published articles in academic journals and books exploring practice-as-research and the notion of an expanded fashion practice. Her work has been exhibited internationally by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the City Museum of Rimini, the Kalmar Konstmuseum, the Museums Quartier in Vienna, the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Buenos Aires, among others.
Dai Rees Dai Rees is an artist, designer, curator and academic from South Wales originally trained in ceramics and glass at Central St. Martins and the Royal College of Art. In 2004 the University of the Arts awarded him the title of Professor, for his contribution to the field of fashion. He launched his eponymous fashion label in the Nineties, showing collections at London Fashion Week and selling to some of the most famous boutiques in the world. His work is held in major public and private collections including at the V&A in London and the MET in New York. He is currently the Program Director for CRAFT in the School of Design and Technology. He was the Course Director for the Master of Arts in Fashion Artefact between 2008 and 2022.
Naomi Filmer Naomi Filmer is course leader for MA Fashion Artefact (in person) and a contemporary jewellery designer / artist. She makes objects about the body rather than to adorn, treating the body itself as a site for continuing aesthetic inquiry. Her early works gained attention on catwalk created for designers Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen and Anne Valerie Hash and others. Subsequent works have featured in design exhibitions and recognised for her sculptural forms and varied use of materials. Naomi continues to explore recurrent themes of fragmentation and isolation of the body through objects that explore the tension between art and design, using craft and combined media to push the boundaries between art and accessories. Her work is collected and exhibited internationally in the Crafts Council London, Victoria and Albert Museum London, Boijmans von Beuningen Rotterdam, MUDAC Lausanne, MoMu Antwerp, Trienale Design Museum Milan and elsewhere.
Associate Lecturers
Kate Langrish Smith Kate Langrish Smith is a British artist whose practice sits at the intersection of art and design, exploring the fusion, balance, and harmony of textured, poised, haptic and chromatic compositions, images, and sculptural assemblages; what she likes to refer to as ‘tactile tensions.’ After completing a BA in Art and Visual Culture in 2006, she developed and internationally exhibiting her headwear label collections. In 2012 she received a scholarship to study a Master in Fashion Artefact at London College of Fashion. In 2014 she furthered her material interests in ceramics with a Diploma of Advanced Studies in Ceramics and Polymers at the Haute École d'Art et Design in Geneva, Switzerland, at the Centre for Experimentation and Realisation in Contemporary Ceramics. Clay continues to be a dominant material in her making practice. Smith is currently based in Sheffield at Yorkshire Artspace Studios, she is an Associate Lecturer on the MA Design course at Sheffield Hallam University, and a part-time PhD candidate in Creative Practice at Leeds School of Art, Leeds Beckett University. As a sculptor she is captivated by the transformative properties of the materials she works with, the liquid to solid states and the magic of chemical transformation through heat, time, atmosphere and the force, energy, and presence of the maker.
Liz Ciokajlo Liz Ciokajlo is a designer, researcher, and educator with over 20 years' experience working across the product, furniture, and fashion accessories sectors. With a BSC in Industrial Design from the University of Cincinatti and having graduated from London College of Fashion with a Distinction in Masters of Fashion Footwear in 2013. Her work is at the conceptual, imaginative end to bring fresh ideas to real world issues. Ciokajlo focuses on bio-fabricated and natural materials, 3DPrint technologies, the body and how these will alter footwear constructions. She works as a freelance design consultant (Clarks), on research teams (Kings College London), collaboratively with artists like Rhian Solomon, designers such as Manolis Papastavrou and science-based specialists on funded, creative research/ innovation projects supported by Innovate Uk and the Arts Council England. She has worked for international commissions for MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, New York for the exhibition ‘Items: Is Fashion Modern?’ and Design Museum London project ‘Caskia: Growing a Mars Boot,’ a collaborative project with Maurizio Montalti, shortlisted for Beazley Design of the Year.
Jo Cope Jo Cope is an artist with a career spanning two decades. Her educational background includes a Masters in Fashion Artefact from the London College of Fashion in 2016. She is a guest speaker and part-time lecturer at universities across the country and is an Associate Artist at Nottingham Contemporary Gallery. Her work explores the idea that shoes and feet carry deeper meanings and wisdom. With a background in fashion, performance and leathercraft, Jo has reimagined an alternative life for shoes. Jo is dyslexic and is the Neurodiversity ambassador for Design Nation UK. She has exhibited at many prestigious exhibitions and venues internationally including; The History of Shoes at The Decorative Arts Museum Paris 2019 and Live Performances at the Venice Design Biennial 2021. Jo explores fashion’s wider role in art and society, including that of a tool for social activism. In 2021, she worked with the Graduate Fashion Foundation and Shelter Charity to set up the first ‘Fashion for Social Change’ Award. Her collaborations with the Shelter charity include curating the project ‘Shoes Have Names’, a co-design project where 10 shoe designers worked with 10 previously homeless individuals to tell their stories of positive steps forward.
International Special Lecturer: Ana Racjevic Ana Rajcevic is a Serbian artist based in Berlin. She studied a Diploma in Interior Architecture at the University of the Arts Belgrade in 2010, followed by a Masters in Fashion Artefact at the London College of Fashion in 2012, and she is currently completing her PhD in Artistic Research at University of Applied Arts in Vienna. She is an artist working at the intersection of sculpture, fine arts, and performance, focusing on diverse ways of altering the body through complex pieces of adornment. With a multi-disciplinary inquiry that combines experimental art and design with research in biomedicine, history, materials science, and psychology, she creates unique ‘wearable sculptures’ using most notably natural and synthetic polymers: wax, resin, silicon, and rubber, as well as other novel materials and techniques. Exhibiting internationally in such museums and galleries as the Louvre, Smithsonian Design Museum, Boijmans Museum and the Venice Biennale, her work has been published in The Independent, The Guardian, Wired, CNN, Vogue and Dazed & Confused, among others. Rajcevic continually works and collaborates within the performing arts field, and her performance collaboration were shown in international venues.
International Special Lecturer: Daniel Ramos Obrégon Daniel Ramos Obregón is a Colombian designer, artist, drag performer and professor. Daniel graduated from the BA Design at Universidad de los Andes in 2011, where he’s also worked for over 8 years as a Professor and the MA Fashion Artefact at London College of Fashion in 2014. With a strong interest in the body and craft, his work is focused on object design and wearable art, working mostly with jewellery, ceramics and leather. He was a finalist in the accessory category at International Talent Support (2014) and the concept category “Premio Lápiz de Acero” (2015). Daniel’s work focuses on the notions of the ‘self’ and explores the relationship between fashion, sculpture and performance arts. For his project, “Outrospection; The Body and Mind“, which was also the final project for the MA Fashion Artefact he explored the concept of “Outrospection”, initially introduced by philosopher Roman Kznaric, relating it to out-of-body experiences, seeking to represent, metaphorically, the mind being projected out of the body as a way of self-expression and representation. His work has been displayed and published at a wide international level.
International Special Lecturer: Leyi Chen Leyi Chen is a designer and maker and with a Jewellery design background, with a Masters in Fashion Artefact, and she is currently working at the Chaoyang Kaiwen Academy, in Beijing, China. Her work explores unusual materials for Jewellery-making such as rice, through research and development, she makes a connection between food, perception and memory. The exploration of identity through objects is at the core of her practice.
International Special Lecturer: Junnan Songxu Junnan Songxu aka Vane, is a designer/maker with a jewellery design background with an MA in Fashion Artefact and a freelance illustrator. Equipped with crafting skills, he is proficient in making jewellery and objects across various materials, he also has experience in mould-making and working with leather, his works have been exhibited across Europe and China. His work tackles aspects of gender identity, masculinity stereotypes and homophobia.