We were fortunate to bump into Kialy at Young Designers this year and knew there and then that she had a story to tell that made her a perfect guest for this podcast.

In this episode, we hear how Kialy set her heart and soul on working in fashion at a very young age, and when she secured a place on the foundation course at Central St. Martin's, this set the stage for her dream to come true. For many reasons, this did not provide the experience she sought, and she endured the course rather than thriving within it. Kialy moved on with a friend to a Fashion degree course at Kingston University in London.

Again this did not flick the switch for Kialy, and she found herself slowly disengaging from the course; in the second year, she finally left the course. This brought Kialy to a dark place as she tried to work out what it was about her that made her unsuitable for studying a subject that had been her dream for years. "The more I analysed it, I realised that it wasn't the courses, it was me; I was the common denominator".

At this stage, Kialy took any job that helped pay the bills and worked in retail, recruitment and even door-to-door sales for a charity. At a loose end, she took a friend's advice and, without a plan, moved to Glasgow. Again, after several non-creative roles, she found a job as an assistant to a Milner and found her inner-creative self. Within this role, she thrived and grew in confidence as she saw a hard-working, creative boss make a good living from doing something she loved.

Kialy then successfully applied to a Textiles degree course at Glasgow School of Art and, on graduation, almost immediately set up as a freelancer. Today she sits somewhere between designer and artist and flits reasonably seamlessly between the two. This was an effortless, casual and honest conversation with a designer/artist at the very start of her professional journey but already with a powerful story behind her.

So grab a cool drink, pull up a chair, find a quiet space, take us to the gym, take the dog for a walk, put those air pods in, and enjoy Designed for Life - In conversation with Kialy Tihngang.

Selected past projects:

‘Useless Machines’ 2021 - moving fabric-covered wooden panels exploring environmental racism and electronic waste

Selected upcoming projects:

‘Fetissoes’, 2023 - solo show at God’s House Tower, Southampton, speculating on precolonial African religion through sculpture and moving image

'Toghu', 2024 - an animated embroidered film about queer Cameroonian identity

This podcast has been recorded with the help of our sponsors, The Edge Foundation https://www.edge.co.uk/ inspiring the education system to give all young people across the UK the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to flourish in their future life and work, and PTC Onshape Providing industry-standard cloud-based CAD to education  https://www.ptc.com/en/news/2020/ptc-onshape-education-enterprise-plan-available-free-of-charge

We are indebted to The Edge and PTC Onshape for their continued support.