AGM60 Seminar Discussion of Project Work 17 March 2020

Unfortunately, due to the current situation, the planned seminar did not go ahead. At this stage, the University of Brighton was still open. However, as one of the tutors was self-isolating, it was decided that three of my class would each have an online, one-to-one tutorial with him. The remaining three who could take part would attend the university for a one-to-one tutorial individually to reduce the risk of exposure. As I was staying put in London and not feeling 100%, I welcomed this sensible action.

In preparation for this seminar, I had already carried out two scheduled tasks. Firstly, I had to identify a current exhibition, upcoming artist-talk or event or potential interviewee that I felt was pertinent to my project. I would then need to bring to the session a short summary of the chosen influence. I had to be prepared to discuss how I think that I could engage with this in a way that makes it specifically useful, productive and relevant to my own research and practice.

The current exhibition I chose for this purpose was British Surrealism at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which I visited on 6th March 2020. The summary of this exhibition was made here:

AGM60 Pertinent Exhibition – British Surrealism 6 March 2020

I did find this exhibition specific, useful and productive and relevant to my own research and practice as it extended and expanded my knowledge of the surrealist art movement. It gave a good insight into the basic tenets of surrealism and its influences. What I was coming to realise that I tend to work in a ‘surreal’ way and have always had that influence running through my creativity since I can remember. One sentence on show at the exhibition that sparked a line of inquiry was:

‘Surrealism opened the door to the permissive, inventive counter-culture of the 1960s. It has not gone away.’

In order to get a better understanding of both myself and surrealism, I began a blog post to pick apart elements of this art movement:

AGM60 Surrealism Research and Thoughts 17 March 2020 DRAFT

The second task was to identify how something ‘outside of the box’ – something not necessarily related to contemporary art or photography. This could be something I engage with in my life outside of my studies or encounter in my day-to-day experience. This element could be one that may bear an interesting relationship to my research project. I had to be prepared to discuss how and why I think this is specifically relevant to my work.

Initially, I had chosen a book called Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy:

AGM60 Outside the Box – Woman on the Edge of Time 14 March 2020

The online tutorial itself with Xavier was very productive. Interestingly, it was my first-ever Skype call. I have avoided this type of communication so far due to certain aspects but considering the circumstances, I was willing to go ahead.

The results of this conversation will be outlined in a separate post once I receive further feedback from Xavier. Needless to say, the themes of isolation, an altered reality, surrealism, and restricted circumstances will come into play with this project.