Piyush Kumar Gond cast every piece of his bachelor’s degree by traditional methods, which at Banaras Hindu University meant building and operating the furnace. Not supervising it. Building it.
If you are choosing a sculpture department, three questions are worth asking on the visit, and all three have a visible answer:
Who operates the furnace? If the answer is a technician and students watch, you will graduate knowing what casting looks like rather than what it costs.
How much metal does a student get in a year? A department that cannot answer in kilograms is telling you something.
What happens to the failures? A studio with no failed casts lying around is a studio where nobody is attempting anything difficult.
One opportunity this week. [Open call, checked before it goes out.]