Ravi Bains
Senior Technician
I have obtained a BA(Hons) in Fine Art from the Falmouth College of Arts (2001), allowing me to continue and develop my artistic practice, broadly within the disciplines of drawing and object making.My employment background has grown from performing the role of care worker. For approximately 8 years I have helped provide support for individuals and groups considered to have special needs, challenging behaviour, ADHDH, Autistic spectrum disorders, physical disabilities, acquired brain injuries, (this list is not exhaustive) within residential and educational settings.
A consequence of this role was my exposure to some principles of teaching and learning, and I began to pursue a formal role within education that related specifically to art and design. This decision led me to work as a member of technical staff for a number of educational providers including the DT departments of Camborne Science and Community College and Helston School. I also provided technical support at the level of BA(Hons)/ MA to the Fine Art Department of Falmouth College of Arts, and more broadly Thames Valley University. My ethos, as a person now providing technical support at Falmouth University, is to ensure that student's have a meaningful experience through supporting a host of making processes, broadly spanning fabrication, reductive and additional processes. Needless to say, maintaining my practice is imperative to providing meaningful and quality support.
The mainstay of my interaction of with students involves helping them articulate and discuss the key ideas underpinning their work. This process often has a flavour of something between instruction and consultancy in order that the student has a meaningful educational experience. Factors such as testing, material experimentation and marquette building often describe the first stage of consultation.
In the second phase discussions concerning materials, cost, time scale, process(es) and required knowledge will follow. At this juncture a student will be supported in the making process(es) through encouragement, instruction and guidance with the aim that they become as self-sufficient as appropriate. For example, student’s will learn the safe and creative use of chopsaws, bandsaws, linishers, disc sanders, portable and bench mounted drills, as applied to various making processes.
In addition to this I deliver a series of one and a half day workshop based around surface preparation. This is aimed at painting students who will generate a variety of surfaces/ substrates, on which they can begin to make images. For example, canvas, plaster panels, floating frames simple plywood panels, aluminium substrates and textured surfaces. In addition, I will talk to students about the initial how’s, what’s and why’s of priming various surfaces.
To sum up a student’s learning outcomes, they will understand how to mark and measure timber in order that a joint can be accurately cut, how to set up machines in order to cut timber to length/ cut joints, the assemblage of timber using glues, pins and clamps, stretching and priming of canvas . In addition to this, a colleague and I run a week long 3D construction workshop. This contains variable content and material, through which we introduce students to some key principles that underpin construction. For example, students will begin to increase their ambition of scale through building large assemblages, collaborative work, pieces that are cut and reassembled, objects that do not have a reference to a “base” or “top”, which in turn will introduce challenges to the construction process itself. Because the workshop encourages problem solving, students develop a physical understanding of the materials in use, and will be able to witness what I refer to as “the transformation of materials”. Retrospectively, the work is discussed between students, technical staff and academics, helping to build confidence in one’s ability to talk about work.
img_1948.jpg
20141230_130905.jpg
20141230_131158.jpg
001_garage_site1.jpg
img_2014.jpg
Qualifications
Qualifications
| Year | Qualification | Awarding body |
|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Diploma Foundation in Art and Design | University of the West of England |
| 1998 | BA(Hons) Fine Art | Falmouth College of Arts |
| 2012 | First aid at work | |
| 2012 | Practical manual handling | |
| 2014 | Equality and diversity training | |
| 2014 | Introduction to wood turning | |
| 2013 | Abrasive wheels | |
| 2014 | Ladder training |
Professional Engagement
Independent professional practice
My practice attempts to reinterpret notions such as entropy, fluxus, consistency and perspective. The work is often a response to observations of these qualities, and an attempt to reconfigure them in a meaningful or tangible manner.Working broadly within the disciplines of image and object making, I tend to make the work within the frameworks offered by repetition, layering and modular building. I use these techniques as a form of "visual vocabulary", through which it is possible to reinterpret forms and structures that embody the afore mentioned notions.
Architecture, the associated construction industry, and the speed and scale at which it can operate often provide me with starting points for ideas. It has become a theme for the work to make reference to structures that are at a tipping point in their process of construction/ deconstruction, and frequently I will attempt to confuse or camoflage these processes by making something that embodies these seemingly opposite qualities.
