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Worth Society: ‘Victoria Schaal: A Leading Light in Contemporary Art’

 
From: https://worthconnecting.org.uk/news/news-from-the-worthian-network/82/82-A-leading-light-in-contemporary-art
 
 

I was born in Paris, but grew up in Venice, before arriving at Worth in 2011 to do the IB. After Worth I went on to the University of Exeter where I studied Management & Marketing with Spanish. I plunged myself into the business world the moment I started my studies, working as a door-to-door salesperson for an organic food company to becoming a Marketing Analyst for a leading company in the customer service training industry.

But it was also whilst at university that my artistic adventure began. I was walking through Exeter one day when I spotted a Nikon digital camera in the window of a pawn shop. It was love at first sight, and after a few months of self-learning I became an official photographer for Getty Images and Shutterstock.

With my degree in my pocket, I thought it was time to leave the then Brexit-oriented UK and I lead a rather nomadic life working in Europe, Southeast Asia and Central America as a marketing professional, photographer and content creator. I ended up in Malaysia where I enrolled in a humanitarian mission that gave me a place to sleep and an opportunity to get to know the country. I had planned to stay in Malaysia for 4 months, but it turned into nearly 3 years. In fact, due to my professional marketing experience and my photography background, 123RF, one of the world’s largest stock creative content companies, hired me as a Marketing Executive in its Kuala Lumpur HQ.

Life in Malaysia was exciting and novel, I had the impression I was learning something new every second, although life could be dangerous at times for a young Western woman and I did have a few scary experiences during my years there.

Yearning for a new adventure, eventually I left Asia. For a change, this time I moved West. I settled in Martinique, an island in the French Caribbean. There I worked freelance offering digital marketing solutions, photography and graphic design. I also further pursued my artistic vocation and 2020 Capsules Australia, a renowned design guide, elected me as one of the Leaders in Contemporary Art.

Doing business in the Caribbean became rather challenging, and as my clientele was starting to list businesses and organisations worldwide and the pandemic was cutting off islands from the rest of the world in every aspect, I returned temporarily to my hometown of Venice.

Now, I am a listed artist at Saatchi Art Gallery, an official photographer and illustrator for several agencies and I participate in stock photography related projects with the valuable insights I have gained through my professional experience.

My only wish is that the pandemic will soon fade so that we can all start grasping opportunities abroad soon.

Victoria Schaal StM’13

 

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123RF advises to talk to plants while in confinement

Hello all. So only a few hours after Shutterstock’s letter to the community with regards to coronavirus, 123RF- Inmagine Group decided to speak up as well. It was about time, given that the group’s HQ is in Malaysia where lots of cases are spawning. 
Shutterstock and 123RF chose different approaches. While SSTK’s letter was signed by the COO, 123 had Stephanie Sitt sign their email. Stephanie is now the CEO but she’s also the wife of the company’s founder, Andy Sitt, and has always been extremely involved in high decisions. 123RF went for a less professional and more friendly style in its email to the contributors and clients. They also showed a very cute illustration of suggested activities we can do while we’re stuck at home. I particularly like the ‘talk to your plants’ recommendation as it is something I’ve been doing even before the epidemic. 

Here is the full letter:

Dear friends and customers,

In light of the continuing spread of COVID-19 in the past few months, INMAGINE Group has stepped up measures to safeguard our staff at our offices around the world, while simultaneously ensuring that our products and services continue to be delivered efficiently to you.

At 123RF, we prioritize the safety of both our employees and clients. With that said, we wish you, your colleagues, family, and friends well during this crisis, and ask that you take extra precautions to be safe and stay healthy. By doing so, we can help minimize the spread together!

If you’re practising social distancing and working from home (like us) here are some suggestions of what you can do at home from our colleagues at Designs.AI.

 

We’re still here when you need us!

As the virus continues to ravage economies and communities, all of us have to change the way we work and socialize, just to be safe and stave off the threat. Amidst these challenging times, please rest assured that we will continue to deliver the highest level of quality service to you.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to your relevant, dedicated Account Manager. You may also reach out to us on our support pages or Live Chat or email us at info@123rf.com. If you’d like to call instead, here’s our complete toll free and local number directory for your convenience.

As always, we value your presence and look forward to continuously supporting you in making your business successful.

Together we shall prevail, be safe out there!

Stephanie Sitt
Group Chief Executive Officer
Inmagine Group

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Level Up Conference in KL 2018: Report

Last week I had the chance to attend the famous Level Up conference in Kuala Lumpur.

The atmosphere at Level Up was truly electrifying. Seeing all these youngsters showing their artistic creations was absolutely marvellous.

The conference talks were held by a plethora of speakers from a wide range of backgrounds within the gaming, digital art, software and hardware industries.

I found particularly interesting the presentation given by HTC regarding VR and their future intentions for the new technology. The speech was quite technical but luckily I had gone to a VR lab the week prior to Level Up to try it out as I wrote in my previous article. My first experience was quite…..hilarious. If you’re interested in seeing a ridiculous girl pretending to ski in VR and falling by herself, click here to watch the video.

A disappointment, however, arises from the lack of debate regarding the ‘side effects’ of VR.

We do not know how the human psychology will react once VR is easily accessible to everyone or even a future commonly found at home tech, like they all seemed to predict at Level Up. Controversial studies have been carried out and subsequent correlations have already been found between violent videogames and real life aggression. And this was with 2D on screen games, so what’s it going to be with VR games? And we also have lots of cases of gaming addiction, particularly in Asia where bootcamps are held for rehab from technology. So what’s going to happen with VR in the mix too?

I loved some of the games that were exhibited and was mesmerised by the new Prestige range of MSI laptops. In fact, I am very tempted to buy the P42: such a powerful laptop and yet so thin and light. A masterpiece truly. If you’re interested, you can have a look at its features here. After all, both 11.11 and Black Friday/CyberMonday are getting close so we won’t feel to guilty to buy a new toy if it’s discounted!

So all in all, the success of Level Up is totally justified. It was well organised, the location very neat and pleasant, the crowd quite varied and the speakers capable.

But to me, the best of Level Up was seeing so many young minds attending, each showing a great passion and a strong will to succeed in an increasingly competitive environment like gaming, apps and digital art.

In a way a contradictory but also reassuring observation I made was that several of these digital talents were still sketching on paper all the time, even during talks. It is nice to see that art evolves but the starting point remains traditional: the hand sketch.

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