The Ashmolean Museum launched a new design award in Hilary Term 2013, where they invited Ruskin students to submit fine art proposals for the museum’s shop.  Inspired entirely by the Ashmolean’s collection, one original design is intended for reproduction on a range of products.

Emily’s work, titled Crossing Circles, was inspired by the O in the Ashmolean logo and how it relates to the idea of exploration and understanding so many exciting objects in the collections.  Emily adds, “I was inspired by the form of the circle echoing the way the museum brings all of these different artefacts, from so many different eras and places around the world, to a central place and point in time, to allow visitors to openly ‘cross cultures’ and explore them side by side when walking around the Ashmolean.”

Crossing Circles draws together images from a variety of objects including porcelain and textiles.  Emily combined each pattern into interlocking circles that could stand alone, as a single design, or be combined together in one piece; the design allowing the cultures literally to cross, overlap and intersect.