3D Printing: The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful

3D Printing: the good, the bad and he beautiful was a group exhibition held in the Main Gallery of the National Centre for Craft and Design, Sleaford, UK. The exhibition curated by Anne Chick and the University of Lincoln and ran from 27/01/17 – 23/04/17. The exhibition was described as follows:- “The exhibition offers an insight into the complex social, political and environmental issues surrounding 3D printing, including the role of the designer with a technology that is openly available to anyone.” Dr Lionel T Dean was invited to submit four existing works and commissioned to create a fifth. The new work Bella was a multi-platform artwork comprising a video animation clip and a real work 3D printed artefact derived from that performance.

The Bella commission was a multi-platform artwork comprising video animation and a physical piece derived from that performance. It takes the form of an art deco lamp and features Bella, a ‘lamp girl’ lifting the illuminated globe. Bella is not a static character however, she morphs through a video animation and appears in four guises in the physical lamp. “Bella is an art nouveau lamp girl at once frustrated by her gender role and empowered by her femininity; does she play the role or the role play her? No longer frozen in time by the limitations on analogue fabrication, Bella exists as a map of experiences and projected gender politics”