Projects update on NIAP educational and Nepali arts & cultural heritage activity and work in the UK from spring to December 2015
Bournemouth & Poole College NIAP Project
BPC NIAP Project — feedback from students teachers and head of department.
This document, created through the invaluable support of BPC Art & Design teacher/lecturer Ellie Douglas, records the exceptional learning outcomes of the project, which literally changed lives through the opening of global citizenship awareness of all of the students who participated.
The BBC South Today news link below, also provides a snapshot view of the work produced, displayed at the Bournemouth & Poole College Digital Design Centre on the occasion of the project’s private viewing event of 25th Fenruary, which was attended by dignatries such as the Mayor of Poole, senior officers of the local council and of Bournemouth University, and by both the most renowned UK based Nepali painter (Govinda Sah) and the chief guest of honour, His Excellency, Mr Tej Bahadur Chhetri (Acting Ambassador of Nepal to the UK).
Subsequently the work produced by the students of the college began a tour locally (and which will feature from the autumn at a national level) and has and is increasingly being provided to support Nepal earthquake recovery support fundraising initiatives. The Bournemouth Echo provided an article on this at the start of the touring programme.
News links about the project:
Nepali TV News Article (‘Chahalpahal’ with Sangita Marahatta 4th March 2015)
2. Wenepali.com
4. Ekantipur
Background:
The first dedicated NIAP project in the UK involved the design of the NIAP logo and website visual display by a group of HND graphic design students of Bournemouth & Poole College, durng the autumn of 2014. This in turn led to the NIAP’s first major global citizenship, at the same college, which is one of the largest in south-west England, with an increasingly nationally renowned Art & Design Department.
Project implementation & outcomes:
Between January – February 2015, 250 students and more than 10 teachers/lecturers at the college, working across all disciplines of the college’s art & design department created works in honour of the UK – Nepal Bicentenary. In the late summer of 2014 Alan Mercel-Sanca — NIAP lead and Chair of the UK Nepal Friendship Society — with the support of NIAP international officer and the programme’s fashion section lead, Deepak Tamrakar (image above) — provided a presentation about the envisaged project to the section leads and teachers/lecturers of the Art & Design Department: as a result of this presentation, the project was planned for in earnest.
When the project — which was for the college unprecedented in its scale, involving all sections of the Department that had never before worked together on a single multi-faceted very high profile project for an external client — began in early January 2015, it swiftly became for all involved a phenomenon that generated unprecedented enthusiasm and resulting technical excellence and dedication. At a practical level the exceptional outcomes subsequently demonstrated, resulted from a combination of using the information resources of the NIAP website (www.creativenepal.co.uk), in conjunction with supportive talks and individual guidance by Alan and the local Nepali community — in particular Mrs Srijana Thapa.
The result being the creation of beautiful and technically excellent high quality original works of art, ranging from paintings to fabrics and textiles and photography: the quality of which was only possible thanks to a combination of the Art & design Department’s teachers and head (Nick Day) dedicated and highly professional support, and the inspiration the students received from the NIAP information about Nepal, its arts and its creative community.