Invited by Prof. Cheng Kemei, Isabel Herguera held a three-week animation art workshop at the Digital Media Studio in the School of Design, CAFA, from October 15th, 2012, directing 17 postgraduate students to complete an eight-minute animated short film “Around CAFA”. In the process of the three-week lectures and exchanges, Isabel shared some works by other artists and her own with the students, as well as some works jointly completed in workshops she held around the world. Using the places surrounding CAFA as the theme, postgraduates were divided into groups to create animations, and the task of the first week was the completing of a storyboard and storyboard samples, the second week was the completing of original painting and production, the third week was the completing of the post-production and the arrangement of the exhibition.

Isabella treats animation as a form of art, and her serious and persistent attitude to animation benefited the postgraduate students a lot. She thinks animation is a visual art, and students from art colleges have the advantage of visual performance, so they should try their best to maximize their strengths in it. Isabel’s creative ideas and methods broaden the postgraduates’ scope of mind in creation, although half of the 17 students had no experience in producing animation, all of them jointly completed an eight-minute animated short film under Isabel’s guidance. Isabel encourages students to break through their advantage and research directions, and challenge any completely new artistic tendency, therefore each group has a totally different style and technology of production from each other.

“Around CAFA” screening was held at the Digital Media Studio in the basement level of the School of Design, CAFA, from November 6th through to 9th, 2012, which was showcasing both the production site and process of this animation. A related lecture “The Overview of Independent Animation: Animation Screenings of Different Styles and Periods in History” was held at 6:30pm on the same day by the digital media studio. The lecture attempted to show narratives and the creation experience of animation as a form of art, along with screenings of Isabel’s animation works, and some excellent animation that inspired and influenced her, which content covering different styles and historical periods, ranging from Disney classic animation to contemporary visual experimental animation.

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About the artist

Isabel Herguera, a Spanish artist, was born in San Sebastian, Spain, and got a bachelor degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country (Bilbao) UPV / EHU. She was taught at the Dusseldorf Academy of Art by Nam June Paik and also graduated with a Master’s in Fine Arts from CalArts in Los Angeles in 1993. She worked for a while in studios around LA from 1990 to 2003, before starting her own, Loko Pictures, with Satinder Singh, to create TV commercials for Proctor & Gamble, Fox and HBO. She has taught and conducted workshops in animation EICTV International School of Film and Television of San Antonio de los Ba?os (Cuba), the California Institute of the Arts (United States), and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (India) from 2005 as a Visiting Professor, and works as a coordinator for Spain's San Sebastian the LIM film laboratory in 2007. She directed the Catalan festival Animac from 2002 to 2011, and her own films La Gallina Ciega and ámár have received awards at many other festivals. She has been nominated for best animated short in the Goya Awards in 2006 for La gallina ciega (2005).

Filmographies

ámár(2010), La gallina ciega (2005), Muertitos (1994), Baquine (1991), El sue?o de I?igo (1990),? Cante de ida y vuelta (1989), Safari (1988)

Text by Song Siqi, graduate student of Digital Studio in 2010

Edited by CAFA ART INFO