Susanna Connolly won the Anne Clements Breakthrough Award in 2019-2020. She is currently in her Third Year of study on BA History of Art and Design.
Furniture: Japan. Two easy chairs with bamboo frames and woven or strip seating, 1949.
Design Council Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives
Earlier this year I was shocked and honoured to have won the Anne Clements Breakthrough Award. Having been unaware of the award beforehand, I was surprised to have received the news and have been asked to share my experience about it on this blog.
The Anne Clements Breakthrough Award is a £500 cash prize, generously donated by Anne Clements herself, who previously had a career in design history. It is given to well-performing second year students to provide motivation as the course enters a more challenging and rigorous stages. The Award also serves to celebrate the student’s progress and offer recognition of hard work.
The Award is organised through University of Brighton’s Philanthropy service and is part of a broader university-wide scheme to encourage students through their second year of study. A celebration ceremony is usually held in December to invite donors and students to meet each other and others across the university. Sadly, due to the current climate it is unknown if this year’s ceremony will be taking place.
Winning the Award has helped boost my confidence dramatically and made me feel more secure in my choice to pursue a career in the arts industry. I have been enjoying the course immensely so far and am very grateful for Anne Clements’s generosity in supporting careers in art and design history. I thoroughly enjoyed the second year of study as the course began to focus on the art movements of the 20th century. A key reason for me choosing the Art and Design History course at Brighton was its focus on modern art and I found the core module, Modernism, Ideology and the Avant Garde, fascinating. An aspect I really appreciated was how we explored Modernism across the globe and not solely about its impacts in Europe. I did my presentation on Modernism in Japan, specifically in advertising, a subject I doubt I would have come across had I not been on the course.
I plan to use the prize money to help continue my studies and pursue a Master’s degree. In these uncertain times, it has become increasingly important to demonstrate solidarity with the arts and education industries which have been especially vulnerable due to the current global crisis. I am inspired by Clements’s support to those in her field and am once more thankful for the opportunity to study a subject that interests me deeply.