28 November 2019
Canberra College student James Hiscutt has won a $6,000 Faculty of Arts and Design scholarship to study at the University of Canberra.
James won the major award at the UC Design Competition ceremony with his short film Save Our Seas, which focuses on an increase in the population of sea urchins and the consequential negative impact on the marine environment around Montague Island on the South Coast of New South Wales.
James’s film included underwater and drone footage, highlighting the impact sea urchins have on other fish species, effectively leaving a barren seascape.
James says he first came across the problem while scuba diving around Montague as part of Canberra College’s Outdoor Education program.
His entry was one of 120 submissions received for the UC Design Competition across four categories and 11 sub-categories. Entries were received from 29 high schools and colleges from across Canberra and NSW.
To highlight the popularity of the competition, a total of 1,883 individual votes for the People’s Choice award were received.
In the Arts category won by James, there were three commendations: Rory Moulton, in the sub-category of Creative Writing; Stephanie Ni, in the sub-category of Culture and Heritage; and Taylor Campbell, in the sub-category of Digital Media.
The winner in the category of Built Environment was Christian Kreskas from Burgmann Anglican School, with his entry Soccer Stadium in the sub-category of Architecture.
There were two commendations in this category: Mathew Liu, with School Library Redesign; and Dylan Jowett, with Emu Inlet Belconnen.
Georgia Wallace, from St John Paul 11 College, won the Communication and Media category with her entry Life Planner, an online feature article, in the sub-category of Journalism.
Erica Stanhope received a commendation in this category for her entry titled: Gun Violence, Australia’s past VS America’s future.
Noah Sampson, from Radford College, won the Design category for his Visual Communication Design entry: 3x3 Basketball Competition Mock-up Design and Poster.
Nicholas Heerdegen received a commendation with Pill Bottle-Good World Project.
The People’s Choice Award was taken out by Narrabundah College student, Vatanhou Veng, for her architecture entry, with the two other entries making up the top three from Patrick Dowers and Noah Sampson.
Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Design, Professor Jason Bainbridge, says the judges were astounded by the quality and quantity of submissions received from ACT and NSW high schools and colleges.
