Sarabande Foundation To Host Series Of Talks Helping Post-Graduate Students
What Now? exists to serve art and fashion graduates with the building blocks via a series of talks, helping ex-students carve out the next phase of their career post-university.
What Now? exists to serve art and fashion graduates with the building blocks via a series of talks, helping ex-students carve out the next phase of their career post-university.
Like Sarabande Foundation, SHOWstudio has a long history of lending its platform to help students and the burgeoning artists, designers and makers forming tomorrow's generation. Responding to the cancellation of Graduate Fashion Week during the pandemic, we worked on an online showcase that ran for two consecutive years featuring both the Class of 2020 and the Class of 2021, with each featuring over 300 graduating fashion students and their portfolios.
Graduation has always been daunting for students, with many hailing the concept of further education as a 'safe space' that holds off the real world for just that bit longer. When you throw in a cost of living crisis, a global pandemic and the changing landscape in this country due to Brexit, the term 'daunting' seems rather polite and wholly insincere altogether.
Indeed, a problem shared is a problem halved, which is why the Sarabande Foundation are continuing their series of talks and workstations What Now? this summer, to help recent and soon-to-be arts and fashion graduates tackle what the foundation nonchalantly calls a 'post-university panic'.
Building on the success of the annually curated programme of events, creative business mentor Jeii Hong will be in conversation with Shin Aduwa and Sheena Jones, among others, on the evening of 14 June to debunk the myths of entering the creative industries, sharing the many possible answers to 'Where do I go from here?'. The second day will see one-to-one hot-seat mentoring sessions with industry professionals, including mentors from the UK's top fashion houses, followed by a masterclass on portfolio development where secret insider do's and don'ts will be revealed so students are better equipped to find ways of piquing headhunters and recruiters' interest.
What Now? 2023 event information below:
14 June, 19:30: Talk with creative business mentor Jeii Hong, accompanied by Shin Aduwa, Sheena Jones and others.
15 June, 11:00 - 16:30: Drop-in workstations with representatives from Alexander McQueen, Craig Green, The Dots, 1 Granary, Moin Roberts Islam, Stephanie Finnan and more.
15 June, 19:30 - 20:45: Portfolio masterclass.
