#show18

Welsh Tom James has redesigned the RCA as the Royal College of Fungi. The RCF is an education model based on the principal functions of the mycorrhizal network. The aim is to create an alternative strategy to higher education by using the neighbour-sensing model for generating new interactions within social infrastructures. The RCF aims to create a new kind of interaction with students and to change the relationship between students and institution. Further info here.

Old North, Isle Rocks by @RCAIED #movingimagedesign student Olivia Sullivan is a retrospective narrative based on psychogeographic connections to Cumbria, Northern England. She aims to shift the way graphic narratives are presented, to challenge sequence and traditional forms of comics and animation. Further info here. 

The Plastic Revolution by Kate Amery is a series of new species arising as a result of public apathy and slow governmental action toward our use of plastic. As a possible remedy, she designed The Plant Top, a bottle cap made from bioplastic, with seeds embedded into the material at the production stage. Once the material has biodegraded, the seed is released and will germinate and grow. All plastic in this project was recycled from her own use. Further info here. 

The NHS London Gender Identity Clinic has moved away from mental health services towards a purely medical approach, providing sex affirmation surgery and hormone treatment based on self-identification. In the wrong hands, gender clinics, often with fragile frameworks and little research but in a position of power, can leave room for unconscious and dystopian enactments. In Trans-Actions by Silke Steidinger, interviews with psychotherapists, a surgeon, trans individuals and campaigners explore how gender dysphoria is or should be treated within and without the National Health Service. Further info here. 

Fresh drinking water is treated as a commodity—we sell it and ship it across the world, but we also get it from the tap in our homes. While the bottled water industry shows stable growth year on year, our drinking habits have put us on the edge of ecological catastrophe. Where once bottled water appeared as an alternative to tap water, now we need an alternative to bottled water. Studies have shown that London tap water is as safe as any bottled water brand, and in blind tests many people prefer tap water over bottled. In the 13th Century, travellers deemed London springs the sweetest and freshest in the land; it is time to reclaim this honour. Acqua di London by Valeriya Zaytseva is a tribute to the beautiful complexity of drinking water, focusing on the London water supply. By deconstructing drinking water into its constituent minerals, she can re-create any bottled water brand, and shows how London tap water compares favourably. Further info here. 

In a democratic society the existence of large centers of private power is dangerous to the continuing vitality of a free people. —Louis Brandeis