ADVANCEMENTS in agriculture and urban lifestyle were the moving spirit behind the best undergraduate theses from the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD), presenting innovative models and renewed concepts.

Industrial Design’s sole best thesis awardee Lyca Camille Adriano focused on the prospects of using alternative energy for lighting fixtures.

By using salt water, Adriano’s project aims to power multifunctional lighting fixtures through a more environmental-friendly method.

Adriano aimed to prove the effectiveness of salt water as an energy source as it is abundant in many undeveloped rural areas.

“This light can help people not only in rural areas but also [those] in urban [areas]. This may drastically change people’s lifestyle,” she said.

Improvement in agriculture and efficiency in lifestyle was the goal set by Industrial Design’s recipients of the outstanding thesis award.

Joshua Bernardo’s reimagined design of a can opener sought to provide a more reliable kitchen tool.

“It aims to redesign and develop the usual can opener into a more user-friendly design and by applying the principle of a side-cutting can opener that cuts along the side of the can and leaving smooth edges on both pieces in an easy manner and in a more hygienic way,” Bernardo said.

A dressing aid for people with limited mobility was the idea behind Ajesta Horlador’s “Design and Development of Undergarment Aid for People with Disability or Difficulty Bending and Reaching Down.”

Patricia Verastigue’s “Design and Development of Hog Feeders Used by Small-Scale Farmers in Provinces” targeted the improvement of small-scale farms’ handling of pigs by designing a feeder that is sanitary and prevents feed wastage.

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Meanwhile, two graduates from the Advertising Arts program produced coffee-table books derived from their own reflective individualities and personal experiences.

Best thesis awardee and Varsitarian art director Keno Enriquez focused his book on fresh and upcoming artists in the country. His thesis, titled “Art & Soul: The Artists' Lifestyle Collective,” was inspired by 15 struggling artists who pursued their passion for art despite much challenges.

“A big part of our culture is art,” Enriquez said in an interview. “It may have evolved to contemporary, but the Filipino trademark can still be seen in the works of our artists. We cannot remove that. We have to preserve our culture by supporting our local artists.”

John Paul Autor, Varsitarian photography editor, bagged an outstanding thesis award for his project, “Traslacion: Quiapo sa Mata ng Deboto,” a book that detals in well-designed photos and texts the devotion to the Black Nazarene of Quiapo from the devotees’ own unique perspectives and vantage points.

It also aims to address the problem of apathy toward the aesthetics, by unveiling the real essence and beauty of Quiapo through photographs and narratives.

“Quiapo, serving as the hub of Filipino faith, strengthens the sometimes wavering faith of the millions of Catholic laity regardless of their state in life, making it one of the most visited places in Manila,” Autor said.

For Painting, outstanding thesis awardee Celine Lee casts a new light on the traditional medium of oil painting by reviving the early forms of animation with the use of the zoetrope mechanism.

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A traditional zoetrope is typically a drum-like circular vessel with a series of pictures on the inner surface that gives the illusion of continuous motion when rotated. Lee, instead, formed the zoetrope into a decagon.

“My thesis work is kinetic art,” she said. “The idea is to paint on 12 separate canvases in succession to be able to produce the effect of animation by looking through the slits.”

Lee’s “Time and Free Will According to Henri Bergson Visualized in the Animation of Oil Painting Through The Use of a Zoetrope” was also inspired by the artist’s interest in astrology and the idea of celestial bodies affecting the way a person lives, according to the creative evolution philosophy of Henri Bergson.

Interior Design’s only recipient of the outstanding thesis award, Elysia Gotauco, aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the use of design of an interior space as a way of learning resort guests’ needs and preferences with her design titled “Incorporating Stimulus-Response Theory through Color and Material in Enhancing the Designing of the Selected Areas in a Resort.”

For this year, 13 CFAD students were given recognition for best thesis while 27 received the outstanding thesis award.

CFAD assistant professor Fernando Torres noted that quality, execution, and rendering are among the criteria used for grading the students’ projects.

“The proposed concept should be able to address the problem raised in the thesis. Concept or the main idea should be plausible and has a breath of freshness in it,” Torres said.

Students who received a perfect grade of 100 for their work are awarded with the title of Best Thesis while a grade 96 to 99 is given an Outstanding Thesis merit. Ethan James M. Siat and Aliliana Margarette T. Uyao

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