Wall art for the EU's Joint Research Centre

Kleve/Kamp-Lintfort, January 28, 2015: Ten students of the Information and Communication Design, B.A. programme of the Faculty of Communication and Environment have designed a number of creative wall art illustrations as part of a semester project. An expert jury from the European Commission will select their favourite design for prominent display on the wall of a new facility of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy.

The idea behind the collaborative competition is, on the one hand, to give students a chance to further develop their artistic and creative abilities, and on the other hand to develop a design which immediately conveys the research purpose of the new facility – an e-mobility laboratory – to visitors. Among other things, the laboratory was built to test electric vehicles, batteries and charging stations in order to develop new EU standards and criteria for clean energy, energy efficiency and cost-benefit analysis. The ten Rhine-Waal students developed a wide range of creative concepts to convey “green energy” – forests with wall plugs for roots, a light bulb/tree hybrid and an illustrated representation of the benefits of solar power for home and society, just to name a few.

“For students, it’s very important to learn exactly how a design is implemented on a larger-than-average canvas like a building wall, for example. By taking a design from paper to a large surface, students experience first-hand how the real presence of a piece of art emerges”, explains Professor Jörg Petri, Professor of Media Production at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences. To help the students realise and practice implementing their designs, an illustration workshop led by artists Meike Staats (of Hamburg) and Rumi Banecke (of Düsseldorf) was held, which gave students the chance to paint their ideas on the wall of an empty building in Kamp-Lintfort. Students and the university will officially unveil this piece on February 4, 2015.

Of the wall designs in Kamp-Lintfort, one official winner will be selected by an expert jury of the European Commission, consisting of Darren McGarry, Public Relations and Communications Manager of the JRC, Dr. Alois Krasenbrink, head of the Sustainable Transport Unit of the European Commission, and Dipl. Des. Christian Stindl. The winning student will then have the opportunity to implement their design on a prominent outer wall of the new JRC laboratory in Ispra.

The JRC is the in-house research institute of the European Commission, and is comprised of seven individual research institutes from Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Germany. Its stated goal is “to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle.”

Photo caption:

Rhine-Waal students implementing their designs for the JRC’s new research facility during the illustration workshop in Kamp-Lintfort

Photo credits: Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences