On the evening of 27th November, Smart Talk welcomed two distinguished guest speakers – Professor Helen Storey MBE, an artist and designer, and Professor Anthony Ryan, a chemist to share stories on the collaborative creation through their ten years partnership together. The Smart Talk was held in the auditorium of SBC and attracted nearly 400 audience members from within and outside of SBC.
Professor Storey, who graduated in Fashion from Kingston Polytechnic in 1981, lives and works in London. Having worked with Valentino and Lancetti in Rome, she moved back to London to work with Bellville Sassoon before launching her own label in 1983, working with Caroline Coates’ Company Amalgamated Talent. Professor Ryan, meanwhile, is now the Pro-Vice Chancellor at the Faculty of Science in the University of Sheffield. He has been the Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University since 1997. Though their very different backgrounds would seem to preclude partnership, Prof Storey and Prof Ryan have nonetheless worked together on a number of joint projects which have drawn widespread attention, such as “The living Map” which records how people in the world responded to technology in future, and “Catalytic Clothing“ their most recent project, exploring the potential usage of existing material and technology.
Smart Talk is organized by the British Council for the purpose of giving young people in China opportunities to communicate with leading experts from different fields and help them find out some of the excellent attributes of British learning institutions. Audiences can discover some of various top current projects in UK, and the work involved, through a series of master classes, lectures and workshops.
This was the third Smart Talk hosted by the SBC. Our first, widely successful event was a talk given by Fran Jones, Head of International Development at the London Football Club, Tottenham Hotspur, in October 2010. And the second event in November, 2011 was a talk given by Mark Beaumont, a serial adventurer who broke the world record for cycling around the world by completing 18,297 miles in 194 days.
