Final Weeks after the exhibition, was the self reflection and creating the PowerPoint presentation. This is actually one of my favourite processes of the module. It is the time I find that most learning is involved. What part of the project worked and what didn’t.
Major positives from this project was pushing myself to try something new for the exhibition. I have never done a performance piece, this was a really good experience for me and has pushed my boundaries.
There have been some pretty harsh lows however for me. In particular the failure to complete my audio work. I now only have drips and drabs of a project that could have been so much more. To learn from this I need to start saving my work more consistently and in different locations. It seems so elementary and honestly it is incredibly embarrassing and my project has suffered greatly.
I enjoyed our sessions this year in class but I struggled to connect with all of my classmates. It was not until the end of the semester when it felt like everyone was beginning to open up and I was comfortable with all of my classmates. I actually enjoyed helping Matthew with his project however that more felt like it was out of necessity rather than actual want. I was sad that I did not get to present my own project for the class.
I am only now truly realizing what home is to me. It is not a location in fact it is perhaps the feeling of being lost – a quote by Rebecca Solnit really sings home at the moment –
“Nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am, nights with the strange paintings and floral spreads and cable television that furnish a reprieve from my own biography, when in Benjamins’ terms I have lost myself though I know where I am.” (Rebecca Solnit) A Field Guide To Getting Lost
I am looking forward to pushing myself next year. I feel like this semester has been a failure in many aspects of completing all of the project to the best of my ability. However I think I had a fairly strong performance but it was missing key areas of development and depth. There is still a lack of working consistently and this needs to change if I really want to push myself to be an artist, which is something now I feel I want to aim for rather than something that I previously thought was out of reach. I.P this semester has had the best tutorials and ones that have pushed me to understand why I don’t work, that I need to work harder and be more devoted. I’m only reaching the surface of what I can truly achieve, because at the moment I’m not pushing hard enough to really reach what I can achieve.
Isaac