Facebook fascination leads to scholarship win

5 June 2012

Facebook fascination leads to scholarship win

A former Nayland College student with a fascination for social media and the online identities people create has won the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology Toss Woollaston Art Scholarship for 2012.

NMIT Bachelor of Arts and Media student Kirsten Fitzsimons was selected as this year’s winner for her personal qualities, artistic ability and impressive portfolio, which included research and artwork on how people present themselves in social media.

“Of the applications we received this year, Kirsten’s stood out because it focused on contemporary issues we’re engaged with today,” NMIT Creative Industries programme area leader David James says. “Kirsten is a very current, highly motivated, organised and professional student who produces consistently high quality work. She has a strong future in the arts and this scholarship is a way of acknowledging and supporting where she’s going, not only as a student, but as an artist in her professional career.”

Ms Fitzsimons is in her third year of a Bachelor of Arts and Media degree majoring in Visual Arts and Design. She comes from a painting background but says the programme has enabled her to explore different ways of making and creating art.

“I’m really drawn to images. I’ve been using material that I found in social media like from Facebook’s public profiles, and I’m using those images in a range of ways - collages, painting the images and painting over them, all mixed media.”

She is particularly interested in exploring the identity side of social media and how people present themselves to the world through that medium. As part of her studies she collected hundreds of images from public profiles on Facebook, organised them into categories and presented them for class critique.

“There are things that I’m aware of that I’m playing with in the work. I’m not trying to say one bold statement but I’m interested in how social media thrives on our fascination with looking and the desire to be looked at. I wanted people to consider how they’d feel if they saw their information, their image presented in a completely different way than they intended. It’s all about questioning identity and what it means.”

Ms Fitzsimons considers social media a form of fantasy and escapism, “I think people use it as an escape from their day to day life, and to perform.” Despite gathering hundreds of on line profile photos, she has been surprised by how similar the images are.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for, but once I have all the images in front of me I start to notice there’s a trend that’s occurring, I keep finding the same things,” she says. “A lot of on line imagery is quite ubiquitous. Essentially, they are the same photos - it’s not original it’s just how we want to be identified, like we’re playing characters.”

She says she initially considered other career options but is certain about her future now.

“It’s has just been the best decision – it’s fun, it’s challenging, it’s something I just feel completely absorbed in, and I find it really rewarding. I feel really lucky to have found something I feel that way about when I’m still young. I know what I want to do, and this is definitely where I want to be.”

Winning the scholarship, which includes $1000 towards her tuition fees, has helped motivate her further.

“I was extremely excited and really, really happy and thrilled when I found out I’d won the award,” she says. “Toss Woollaston is an artist I respect so it’s a great honour to receive this award in his name, I’m so appreciative.”

The Toss Woollaston Arts Scholarship was created in 2000 following the gifting to NMIT of one of the artist’s watercolour paintings by his family. The painting became part of the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology art collection and is leased to the community along with other works, with revenue used to fund the scholarship.

ENDS

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