Illustration Students Link With Local Residents To Celebrate Ballyfermot’s 70th Birthday
2nd year Illustration students recently met with a local group of Ballyfermot residents, Communiversity, which offers adults the chance to do a free university course through their local library. The theme is centred around the celebration of Ballyfermot as a community for 70 years.
The BCFE Illustration students were tasked with utilising their skills for drawing by developing portraits of the Communiversity students throughout the day. Both groups met for the first time at 10am on the morning of the event.
The highlight of the day was the connection and exchange of conversation between both sets of students. The volume was wonderfully loud and a lot of stories and memories were recalled. One interesting part to the day, was when everyone sat and listened while each Ballyfermot resident told one story from their life, which is connected to living in the area.
Following this, each illustrator paired up with a Communiversity student and did a portrait as research for an eventual final piece.
The result of this collaboration will be a final, framed portrait and an illustrated book of memories for each Ballyfermot resident based on the wonderful stories heard throughout the day. The work will be exhibited in the Ballyfermot Library in May.
Based on feedback from the event, it seems that the Communiversity students got to know a little bit more about the college and what happens there and in return, the BCFE students got to know a lot more about the Ballyfermot area, where they have chosen to study, as well as a personal and fun insight into it’s history. This combined with a mutual and passionate need for learning really topped off the day.
