Practice

KEEPING UP MOMENTUM

This blog will be updated over the next few weeks, as we progress with the session which will go over two meetings during October 2020

First Zoom meeting : 3 October 2020 – 10am – 12pm UK time

Google meeting with group, led by H Resemier and dr Bryan Eccleshall. We had to bring two works to share with group as a basis for the virtual exhibition that we will be curating. It seems there are at least 30+ attending. The idea is to be divided into subgroups. I am allocated to the Bourgeois group – we are 6 in our group and a mixed group in terms of study area and levels of studies at OCA. We were encouraged to set up a Padlet board and that we write about the experience in our learning blogs. The idea of workshop sounds simple, as Dr B Eccleshall hinted to, but we need to talk with each other and imagine that we will be curating a group show. We should consider collaboration and that curation is a creative act.

• exploration
• sarcasm
• critical
• intellectual
• beautiful
• obscure
• making things how and where they go into the world
• overwhelm the viewer – batter them
• not to use the whole space – cluster in an area

He shared images with us to support the creative flow for discussions before we broke into our groups (rooms in Google :)) Thinking about the contamination side – it is about how things change, being in the presence of something else – how it affect someone. We are reminded that artists are notoriously bad at understanding their own work.

Next session will allow each group a 5-8min proposal to share the essence of the exhibition. We are reminded to imagine it will realize and have to make a professional pitch. Brian shares a book, How to write about Contemporary Art, by Gilda Williams – good information for our project.

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First group discussion of 1 hour

Holly kindly took the lead and suggested we quickly introduce ourselves and show our works – group observed, asked questions and talking about our work.

• Julia showed series of flowers by looking at detail (like colour purple) and sharing a spirituality with flowers. She is collaborating with her sister in Israel;
• Stephanie shared to images taken in an empty subway – loneliness in a big city
• Bob looks at threats to plant life and shows two different images of flowers, Queen of the night with a poem and Cyannotype narcissus;
• Eddie shared a part of series of autobiographies that relates to his own journey with illness and his love for travel;
• Holly shared a journey she does when visiting her parents – this time of Covid lockdown impacts on journeys and memories
• Karen shared a collage of a cabinet of curiosities and a sparrow collage – reminding of a longing for place and home

We consider cabinets of individuality, our work are diverse and could cover places and dislocated journeys. Bryan joined the session and suggested looking at journeys – we all like the idea and have to think how our individual works will talk to this theme. We started by sharing our work on the padlet and looked at suitcases and a them around the idea of the tension between being between different places. We are reminded of the Duchamp exhibition and a pile of suitcases with the different works of group in it, sounded like a good idea. Julia suggested that she will look into it. Eddie made a summary of execution points and shared it with the group. We will have our next meeting on 12/10/2020. I feel energised to complete my work and the learning from the other students in my group. I started to put ideas on to my own padlet.

Meeting 12 October 2020 at 5pm – 40min+ (UK time) We have a story board and need to confirm the title of the exhibition. Below is Eddie’s executive summary and action points he sent via email to the group.

Eddies email on 12/10/2020:

For clarification I have noted some points discussed and next Action Points for the group exhibition.

Meeting Notes:

• Exhibition Theme / Title : Location – Location – Dis-Location
• Individual images will have associations to other images through key words
• Starting point of exhibition will be a stack of suitcases with labels/ titles using the word associations.
• These associations of words will be a particular theme for each individual suitcase.
• When a suitcase is selected on the title page then it will jump to that suitcase and show the associated images as a group on a single page
• There will be several suitcases groupings.
• An image / work can be in more than one suitcase.
• The presentation will be formatted and presented using PowerPoint from an individual PC, this will be accomplished using the SHARE SCREEN function.

Next Action Points

• Load the images you wish to use for the exhibition (2 -3 images each). Please load this up in the next couple of days (deadline Wed 14 Oct 6pm), this will allow a draft to be made.
• Images to be loaded to Padlet : https://oca.padlet.org/robert5071401/y5k1y9mf2zladd7a
• Note any words associations for your images / works.
• From Wed (14 Oct) evening, view group images in Padlet and note word associations, I.e. groupings of paintings /images/works.
• Complete your linking and word associations by the evening of Thursday 15 Oct. [This is a tight time frame to allow for a PP to be drafted for next Mondays meeting.

Please feel free to add to these points and re-circulate to the group. Have a great week and see you next Monday on Zoom, invite will be sent separately.

P.S

I mentioned a zoom  OCA meeting last week, please see these links:The website was a collaboration between 15 OCA grad students to showcase their work.  The video is where they discuss how they went about the process. Website : east meets west The suggested video was great learning and I value the shared experience initiated by Eddie. Now we need to find words associated with our artworks and the theme – Location – Location – Dis-location

14 October – I post this, still WIP onto our padlet, yesterday I have added my words and thinking around how my work relate to the theme.

Monday 19 October 2020 Zoom meeting with group

Eddie presents the Powerpoint presentation and after discussion we decide to make changes to some of the text – do not want it to be to prescriptive for the viewer.

15 October 2020 Above link is where the project was today – I looked to see how everybody had contributed.

At this stage the themes for Location, location Dislocation:

• Physical – transis, on place to another
• Mental – personal journeys
• Dislocation – change of state, we have natural and mental/mythological change

On 20 October Eddie shared the revised presentation on the padlet for comments and how we consider a narrative as a speaking voice with the video should work. He awaits feedback on email. I suggested the idea of everyone partaking in a 20 sec talk about their work in the exhibition, and that be stitched together as part of the presentation narration.

Blurb for virtual exhibition Location – Location – Dis-location, posted my group member, Holly

The concept for this virtual exhibition has its roots in the idea of the Cabinet of Curiosities, which originated in the 16th Century as a method of showcasing wealth and access to marvellous objects. The Cabinet, or Wunderkammer, was usually a room in which a collection of objects which appealed to the owner was located, and which guests were invited to admire. As time went on, people of more modest means took up the idea, bringing their personal interests together in a series of curated objects.

From this emerged the idea of the suitcase exhibition or Boite en Valise, as exemplified by Marcel Duchamp, who produced a portable exhibition in a box, containing tiny replicas of his works. The objects within could be arranged and re-arranged by those who received it and Duchamp had 20 slightly different versions made to send to his patrons and friends.

The appeal of this concept to the group was two-fold. Firstly, a collection of disparate objects can be brought together to encourage the viewer to make connections between the objects, and secondly, there is considerable appeal in removing the artist as agent and enabling the viewer to explore the exhibit in a personal hands-on way. It allows for an intimacy which is missing from large scale exhibits.

Taking Duchamp’s theories further, we decided to make this a virtual exhibition, both because of the current difficulties around physical exhibitions, and also because virtual exhibits increase democracy in the art world. The days of huge physical exhibitions and festivals appear to be waning, with their reliance on real-life footfall. A virtual exhibition can be viewed by anyone with access to the internet, any time, anywhere. This must be a good thing – we cannot all get to big cities all over the world to view real life exhibition

Final Padlet

24 October 2020

Final meeting with group and all groups present their work. I think the main experience is how involved everyone became in the process and the generosity that happens in collaborations. The possibilities and difference of presentations showed the wonderful creative power that lies within each member and how contamination and openness to learn from drove the momentum. It was just one of the better experiences of my learning with OCA. The interaction between groups was inspiring and I felt in a way blown away with what came out and what can still grow out of this experience.