General and art education stuff:
Jonathan and I spoked about a number of things at the tutorial. I'd sent him a word doc in prep so he could see a summary of where I'm at now. This doc forms the basis of this post now.
As I've been working on autobiographical elements in my work, I've wanted to remain tuned into a broader context, something that applies what I'm looking at outwardly so as to avoid being too inward looking. It was interesting to discuss how this links with art education, which is of course another big part of my work.
We talked about those autoethnographic focus I want to maintain. I want my art practice to keep feeding into my educational practice - and of course vice versa. It's been enlightening to see how this happens so organically. How working with children on 'drawing games' or creating resources that explore Shakespeare through art link up and draw on so many of the things I've been doing over the last two years on the course.
Many of the processes I've been using are common in a therapeutic context- and there's little debate that free, creative activity is beneficial to mental wellbeing. So much of this way of working is absent in our education system and we talked about this issue, including the potential for me doing further research or activity in the area. My work with AccessArt will continue and I've been sending out feelers to the Outreach department at UAL to discuss the possibility of collaborating in some way.
Jonathan mentioned my contact with museum of archaology and anthropology in Camb could form the basis for an arts council funding bid, creating work inspired by the collection and sharing this in an educational context through workshops. I love this idea and will defintely apply for this in the Autumn.
There's also the possibility of further study at PHD level, which I've always been attracted to as an idea. It's probably not for now though, and would be tricky financially. Nevertheless, it's something I'm going to look into.
My work:
Jonathan asked me what I felt was most resolved conceptually in my work. Quite a hard question to answer, but I guess for me it's quite a personal one. Through digging deep into my own personal experiences, I've found a language that has allowed me to claim an experience.
Visual narrative is a term I've been using, and the way I'm working now feels so far away from where I was at the start of the course where perhaps I redirecting my thinking away from myself and onto other people/characters through literature. There was nothing wrong with this, but I believe the 'permission' I was given (and gave myself) has allowed me to capture something of myself, and create a language that conceptualises it - not just for an audience, but for me personally. Put smply, if I was to 'show more of myself' in my work, as suggested at the end of Unit 1, it would be impossible for me to do this and not reflect on the experiences I've shown in my work. It wasn't possible for me to be autobiographical and at the same time, ignore a fundamentally shaping event.
The exhibition:
Jonathan suggested I test both extremes of the fragments idea I'm doing.
What would happen if there were no fragments on the wall at all, only lines representing the journeys? (I was intrigued by this, but because the fragments represent the memories arranged, rearranged, disrupted, aligned etc I feel their presence is important conceptually).
But I do think this could be an interesting idea to explore in future work.
What would it look like to have less of the fragments though?
The fragments are there, but the lines drawn in between are more of a feature.
I like the idea of 'space to breath'. This is something Betty mentioned in a previous tutorial and I can completely see how it would make sense within this context.
There's something about spreading something out and looking at it from a distance that helps us resolve, reflect, breath, recuperate, see it for what it is.
Van de Kolk often talks about the key to resolving trauma is for our bodies to truly understand that the traumatic event is in the past, that it is over, that it sits apart from ourselves in our present state.
Perhaps laying it all out on a wall and looking back at it is my way of doing this.