Paper rats, international showcases and collaborations: James Condon's MA Animation experience

Our annual MA Show showcased an exciting variety of work by emerging and established artists and designers, who have undertaken postgraduate study with us. 

To celebrate the show, we’ll be focusing on some of our favourite pieces from this year’s exhibition, as well as the opinions and experiences of the students that have created them.

In our latest piece, James Condon shares his experience of postgraduate study with us, and the skills and opportunities he gained with us. 

‘Before enrolling on the MA Animation course…

…I was working as a freelance practitioner and teaching and lending support to students in the subject area of animation.’

‘My choice to undertake my postgraduate degree at Manchester School of Art was based on my desire to understand how animation can be used in other aspects of design, but also unite and appeal to other creatives in unrelated areas. I felt that the MA course here could help me to achieve this.’ 

‘Taking up modules that looked into the future of digital design also gave me opportunities to have hands on experience with technologies that can be used to produce moving images.

These included motion-capture systems and software that would break down animated sequences into HTML code. This helped me to realize how I could evolve the methods I was using to enhance my work further.

Throughout my time researching and producing work the support of the academic staff and also time spent with pathway leaders pushed me to challenge and question my practice as to its origin, what its potential could be and how I would use it as a visual communicator to secure a future of creating work. This ultimately made me think of how I would solve problems creatively, create an audience and communicate more clearly.’

‘Throughout my postgraduate journey I constantly made collaborative links between myself and other practitioners.   

This included being involved in international exhibitions, which saw my MA work published and gain exposure in Japan. By also forging good working relationships with musical composers, writers and actors I am now able to show my animation ‘Rats’ to its full potential at The School of Art now that I am at the end of my postgraduate.

Apart from giving my practice a rigorous interrogation and being given the time to create work which I can now take away to exhibit further, I will walk away from this experience with a newly found confidence, not only in the work I create but also in myself. Now I feel I can now approach other artists to initiate projects and create artwork in new and innovative ways.’

‘Studying on a postgraduate gives you a great opportunity to truly think about the core nature of your practice…

…and also create new and original work that you may not have had the chance to create without the support of not only The School of Art staff but also newly found peers. With a wider breadth and outlook on your area of practice you can contribute to pushing the boundaries of innovation.

Working to create an animation out paper has been both fun and challenging, making me appreciate the spirit of animation and I’m sure it will appear in other pieces of my work in the future.’

To find out more information about this year’s show and to see the work of the students who exhibitied in it visit: www.art.mmu.ac.uk/mashow/

Want to hear from more exhibiting designers and artists? You can find previous pieces from our MA Show featured artists and designers series on our news page.

You can also learn more about James and his work on his website.