Nicole Kirk

静の動, Motion within Stillness

A personal response to the question “what is a column?”, told through two figures caught mid-throw.

Queen Mary University of London · 2025

The brief

A personal response to expressing the idea of ‘column’, what is a column?...

This is not a design product, i.e. this should not have a function (e.g. plant holder, jewellery stand, pen pot etc.). The aim is for you to explore meaning and aesthetics to discover your decision-making and fabrication process when there are very few constraints.

Three loose pencil gesture drawings: fast, looping lines of bodies turning and reaching.

Concept development

Red pencil gesture sketches stacked down a page: a figure standing, then turning, then thrown over.
The finished piece: a blue block figure stands upright on one leg while a red block figure is swung around it, legs in the air.

temporary column; fluid to become the axis around which the opponent spins & flips

My note, beside a concept sketch

A page of pencil sketches of two people grappling: one lifting and turning the other, the other falling and rolling.
Ink drawing of a throw: one body upside down over another, with the note “temporary column; fluid to become the axis around which the opponent spins & flips”.

What is a column?

Pencil sketch of a classical temple: a row of fluted columns under a pediment, labelled “traditional ‘column’”.
Traditional ‘column’
Ink sketch of a pair of legs with the muscles shaded, labelled as the columns of the body.
Columns of the body = legsbearing the weight, balance & essential supportdynamic ‘columns’
Sketch of a cut muscle, its bundled fibres drawn as small columns, with handwritten notes.
Muscle fibrestrong, unified structure that can withstand tension + forceminiture columns within the body (each fibre = mini column)
Blue and black pen sketch of a tornado, with handwritten notes comparing it to an architectural column.
Rotating columns of wind and energyArchitectural columns connect the foundations of a building to its roof, tornadoes connect the earth to its cloudsJust as columns bear loads and transfer forces in architecture, tornados transfer energy & momentum between earth & atmosphere
Pen sketch of the base of a tree trunk spreading into buttress roots.
Buttress rootsextremely anchored

Models

Black and white photo of a model figure: a round wooden head on a block body, limbs wrapped in bubble wrap and packing paper, a dowel through the chest.
Model
Black and white photo of a wire model on a flat base: three bent, plastered wire figures in a row, each leaning further over.
Model, wire on a base
Render of a blue block figure balanced on one leg, the other leg kicked high.
Render of a block figure in a red top and grey trousers, kicking high on one leg.
Renders of the block figures

Final

The finished piece from the front: a blue block figure stands on one leg as the red figure, hooked under its arm, swings over with both legs off the ground.
The finished piece from the side: the blue figure upright, the red figure turned around it mid-throw.

静の動 (motion within stillness)

Nicole Kirk, Queen Mary University of London, 2025