Gorilla is College's Easter bunny
While most young people have been thinking of Easter eggs and Easter bunnies, students at the Centre for the Creative Industries at Exeter College have been welcoming their special Easter gift – that of a life-sized Gorilla sculpture.
The Easter arrival is Exeter College’s support for Paignton Zoo’s celebration of 90 years of conservation, aimed at engaging communities with a mass exhibition of public art to raise awareness and funds to help the Cross River Gorillas of Nigeria –t he world’s most threatened species of gorilla and in danger of extinction, and marks the culmination of a focused art project in the college.
“It was great to see the gorilla sculpture arrive at the college since it really brought our art project to life,” said Helen Burak, deputy head of art and design. “ Our level 1 and level 2 art and design students have been working hard on their designs for the gorilla which will take pride of place later in the year as Exeter welcomes the Gorilla trail. It’s very exciting to be part of this public art project. Many of the other artists have been showing off their designs and paintings in the Guildhall Shopping Centre but we were delighted to be able to host our Gorilla in our Centre for Creative Industries. We’re looking forward to a very tense judging competition after Easter and then the pressure will be on the students to translate their winning design onto the Gorilla.”
As well as researching designs and the background to the conservation project in Nigeria the students also got the chance to visit Paignton Zoo and see the live gorillas in action as well as welcoming Paignton Zoo’s education officer to the college to give a background to the project.
“The students listened to the talk from Paignton Zoo and used research to gather as much information as possible – we’ve challenged them to think creatively and imaginatively, their design ideas do not need to link to conservation if they feel another design will help engage the public. I can already tell that it is going to be a very hard decision to judge the winner and we are going to be asking all the students and staff at the college to help us with an online competition after Easter and to choose a name for him!”
Whilst the competition after Easter will pick only one design to adorn the large sculpture each student will get the chance to translate their designs onto a mini-gorilla 2D version as part of the artwork project with plans to display these designs in the college as a way of celebrating their collaborative work.
The college’s Gorilla will join others from the Exeter area on a planned Great Gorilla Flotilla in July with the various gorillas being located around the streets, parks and open spaces of the city during the summer before being auctioned in November to raise further funds for conservation projects.
For further information on The Great Gorillas Project click here.
For more information about Exeter College click here.
