PRESS RELEASE

27 September 2011

Student designers' exhibition a triumph over adversity

Next month's graduate exhibition by interior design students at the Design and Arts College of New Zealand (D&A) in Christchurch will represent exceptional resilience in the face of adversity.

At the end of a year which has posed challenge after challenge for all living in Canterbury, the Diploma of Interior Design students will showcase their work at the 10-12 October exhibition aptly titled 'Emerging Design'.

Michele Atkins, D&A Sales and Marketing Manager, says the students have shown total determination to keep up with their work, and to stage the exhibition.

"The D&A building is in the Red Zone, so the students had to be relocated to temporary facilities after February's disaster. On top of this disruption, everybody's lives were affected in some way by the earthquake - nothing has been normal for them this year."

The students were at Hagley Park setting up to showcase their designs for the Ellerslie International Flower Show when the February earthquake hit, causing its cancellation and rendering months of hard work redundant. This work forms part of the new exhibition.

"If these other obstacles weren't enough, the students were ready to hold this exhibition in August when the snow storm hit the city, and we had to postpone it" Michele Atkins says.

"So the graduate exhibition of such fresh ideas is a testament to the steely determination and optimism of our students. They chose to remain creative and focused in the face of adversity and have finished their course to an amazingly high standard," Michele says.

For the exhibition, the students have chosen to exhibit a combination of individual projects and group assignments, which include a restaurant, retail and ergonomics brief. They will also exhibit work they had prepared for the Ellerslie International Flower and the Dulux Colour Awards of which all the students were finalists.

"We want to show a variety of our individual skills but also our skills working in a team environment " says graduating Interior Design Student Danilyn Green

"It certainly has been an incredibly challenging year but completing our assignments and having deadlines was a chance to have something to focus on. It puts into perspective what is important in our lives and makes us push ourselves even harder to achieve our goals" Danilyn Green Says

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