What: Expanding on the notion of community, I wanted to start by taking the incoming final years on a field trip. We were given the first week by our year coordinator as a week to run a workshop, or plan an activity. I thought it could be nice to take the students out of their usual studio setting, get them in the sun talking about Art and Design. I found a great opportunity to do this at Frieze 2024. Within Frieze is an exhibition called Frieze Sculpture, an outdoor public arts exhibit with a series of installations talking on a range of themes from social and environmental consciousness to playful encounters with media and technology, performances in the public to spiritual and conceptual practices (Frieze, 2024). There is enough here for the students to engage with social justice but how do I get them to engage with each other?
How: I came up with a plan (see below) for the students to be randomly paired into teams of two. I used some of our existing methodologies within the Cert to assign folks a number (each number repeating twice) so that they could be paired up with someone new or (hopefully) an individual they haven’t worked with before. They were then given the task and asked to meet back up with me at a specific location for a debrief.
Transcript of the task:
TEAM 1
Workshop:
Finding the Frieze
Directions:
- Work in your Team.
- Download the Bloomberg Connect App to have access to the Audio Guide (part of the pre-task).
- Visit (at least 10) of the installations. Ideally as many as possible.
- Feel free to walk around them and engage with them. Talk to each other, take photos, and enjoy being outdoors appreciating the art and its connection with the landscape.
- Write down three keywords that you found useful, per installation. Post them together with a photo/s of the installation under your Team’s column in the Padlet.
- These (keywords) could be related to specific issues that the artist is addressing through their work, perhaps how the work made you feel, cultural, social and/or political parameters that the work situates itself within.
- Work together to author a key statement about ‘Art in the public space’, what are its key motivations, what interests you as a pair of researchers? Upload under your Team’s column in the Padlet
- Meet back at ‘I Don’t Have Another Land’ by Nathan Coley at 13:45 for group discussion.
Padlet Link:
https://tinyurl.com/GMDFrieze
Where:
Regent’s Park London
When:
Thursday, 03.10.2024
Why:
Why set this task?
To answer this question I would like to refer back to some of my reflections on belonging and community. I was interested in keeping the learning conversational, in an attempt to flatten the power dynamics between me and the students but also between the work (the art on display) and the students (see Reflection On Belonging).
Perhaps, co-creating an artefact (Bunting & Hill, 2021) – whatever that artefact is; a reflective piece of writing, some images, conversations with me and the wider group could help with this. I wanted it to feel like a game but equally an opportunity to connect, be out in the sun and have a moment to gather; to co-own some space and time, acknowledging that we are part of a larger group and there’s much to learn from each other and about each other.
Observations/Reflections (Data)
At the end of the session, we gathered around some logs and tree stumps to discuss findings and share our experiences. I wanted to keep the conversation open ended but find a way to encourage participation. I invited each student to have a chance to speak, and was happy to see that most contributed. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time for the students to be able to really co-author a statement about art in the public space, but they did manage to write some of the keywords from the first task. These keywords helped serve as good starting point for their conversations and something to jump off of. They did also share their experiences and I’ve collected those as bits of data for self-reflection. See below
Data collected:
Student 1: “It was nice to have another person to reflect my opinions off of – created a conversation as opposed to having the pressure of interpretation.”
Student 2: “The materials in the artwork and the unexpectedness of being outdoors allowed for humour to become part of the experience”
Student 3: “It was fun to watch the public interact with the art. We saw a family take pictures with their children, often the children finding new meaning in the shape or form of the piece”
Student 4: “It felt like there was an easier buy-in towards some of the more complex soical issues due to the nature of the interaction” (Referring to being in the park)
Student 5: “We questioned whether some of the pieces were truly interactive” (There was a few pieces situation in more of a performance context and another one using AR).
Reflections – Each of these are examples of statements that led to further conversations in the group. Conversations that we might not have otherwise had, perhaps that is wishful thinking, perhaps not.
Challenges/Limitations
- I perhaps could have done a better job thinking about accessibility requirements for students. The closest station didn’t have step free access and I discussed this with one of my students who needed more access support. I have permission to speak of the student’s experience. We came up with an access plan, which included an alternative route for the student to be able to access the park along with their supporting individual. However, there were obvious blind spots. The student ended up missing the train which meant we could no longer be the meeting spot we had planned. This added to the fact that it’s never easy finding a spot to meet in a big open green space, creating other challenges for the student being able to find us. It just got me thinking about community and how creating a sense of belonging really means doing this for everyone, including challenging ourselves for when we think we could have done better.
- Some of my findings (from the conversations) feel convenient. I can see how an activity like this would benefit feelings of belonging and community – and as such, maybe some of the findings are expected. Perhaps moving forward, how do I facilitate conversations that don’t feel like they are about me or my project. I tried to make it as informal as possible, but there will always be a bit of power dynamics involved. Maybe students feel the pressure to have to say something interesting and that makes is challenging because I don’t need that, that’s the whole point to begin with. More work to do!!
References:
- Bunting, L., & Hill, V. (2021). Relational Reflections: How do we nurture belonging in creative Higher Education?. Innovative Practice in Higher Education.
- Frieze (2024). Open now: Frieze Sculpture 2024. https://www.frieze.com/article/frieze-sculpture-2024 (Accessed: 05 Nov 2024).