Episode 1: Jo Fairfax
Behind the Design
English - July 22, 2019 08:00 - 33 minutes - 23 MBDesign Arts Business design manufacturing creative industries arts theatre ceremonies makers technology workshops projects Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Like the playful, participatory work he produces, Jo Fairfax defies categorisation. In fact, he isn’t keen on categorisation at all: ‘’I feel unsettled by the classifications of whatever, whether it is sculpture or architecture or art or design’’ he told Blueprint magazine back in 2011.
That said, we hope he doesn’t mind if we say his work encompasses a fascinating mix of public art installations, holograms, sculpture, architectural and sculptural lighting, automata and interactive objects. Fascinated by nature and technology in equal measure, his work gently nudges us to respond, turning us from observers to participants by presenting us with the unexpected.
Initially trained in sculpture, Jo has also studied holography at the Royal College of Art, undertaken an international residency at the Holocentre in New York and been awarded a NESTA Dream Time Award to develop his ideas into virtual reality. Committed to collaboration and excited by the potential of working with a range of different experts, he likes to work in ‘flexible clusters’, rolling teams of different skill sets and expertise.
We were lucky enough to work with Jo on ‘Intersection’, a location and time-specific light sculpture in Leeds. We wondered if he might be up for a chat and luckily for us, he was.
Episode 1 Links:
Lighting of the London 2012 Olympic Cauldron