Laura Applegate wins the first Flyposting Commission with her imagined sketch of a future London.
Laura Applegate is a second year Fine Art student at The Cass. A new piece of her work is currently sitting in heavy wooden frames on outside walls across East London. The frames hold her hand drawn sketch of a monotonous glass metropolis mirroring the buildings they sit amongst.
Laura is the winner of the Flyposting Commission, a competition launched by The Cass supported by out-of-home agency Jack Arts.
The competition called for entries of any style or design to be fly-posted across London in poster and billboard sites owned by Jack Arts. The competition was inspired by artist Mustafa Hulusi who recently exhibited his own flyposting works in The Cass Bank Gallery.
“I thought it sounded fun,” said Laura, when asked why she entered the competition, “I was already in the process of sketching this and I’d paused so I picked it up again.”
Originally from Yorkshire, Laura has been living in East London for the past 10 years. “I started the piece as a reflection of my environment, my studio looks out over building sites.”
Laura studies on the second floor of Central House over-looking developments and a skyline of cranes. “I’ve seen everything getting higher and higher around me, and they all look the same but different. This is a flash forward to what I imagine the area will look like in years to come.”
For Laura, sketching is usually part of her process, a stage she comes to in the research phase of her work but not the final product.
“I work in all mediums, I’m currently working in performance art, but this competition has opened up the possibilities of sketching as a final piece.
“I like this one,” she says. “It’s come out quite naive really.” Laura said she was surprised to win, but the process has provided a completely different way of making and displaying work.
“I came here for the facilities” Laura says of The Cass, “but since I’ve been here I’ve been impressed with how comprehensive things are, the opportunities and teaching style, the emphasis on making and the range of teachers.
“And I feel very at home here” she says.
