Finishing off the Rationale and book

I wirte this from a Hotel in Dublin, where I am finishing the Ratinale in a book design.  The brief says display in an appropriate format and for this project nothing short of a book seems appropriate.  It has been quite a journey and I have enjoyed the last two years. I feel my research has meant a lot to my practice and vise versa. THe way I view my work, the ideas that underpin it and the context it is in is vastly different to when I started.  Even without gaining the qualification, I know that this time will be very useful to my practice and career as I move forward.  Thank you to all my tutors and staff who have helped me over the years!

Preparing the final prints

Although everthing that I have done is presented on this website/blog, I also prepared a series of large scale prints to show off the final work.  As I am in Ireland as I write this I have had to get someone to hand it in for me.  It is wonderful feeling getting to a final hand in and completing everything within plenty of time.  I have throughly enjoyed the MA and the journey it has taken me on.  I would cerrtainly reccomend it to anyone!

Exhibition in Iraq <> Exhibition in the UK

This part of the project is concentrating on two main stages. Firstly, I have put on a solo exhibition in the Ismail Khayat gallery in Iraq. Secondly, I will be exhibiting in a group degree show in the UK. The juxtaposition of these two exhibitions and the dialogue they create is where this part of the project lies. I also have a couple of exhibitions scheduled for October 2012 in the Crypt Gallery off Trafalgar Square and The Exhibition Hall at Stockwood Discovery Centre in April 2013. I will also aim to show some of the new work I have created. These, however, fall outside the time frame of the MA.

Overview and main changes to proposal

In 2009 I travelled to Iraq. I collected a large amount of data, images, video and audio. From this large database I created art work, curated a travelling group exhibition called Iraq – The Forgotten Story and creatively supported a charity. I went on to create and exhibit a number of projects for the first half of my MA. For the final major project I have brought this large body of work to an ambitious conclusion with a return trip to Iraq in June 2012.  The project has resulted in two main outcomes;

1)  Exhibition in Iraq <> Exhibition in the UK

2)  Peace for Luton, mountain installation and reenactment.

The outcomes are showcased in this studio journal, the rationale, the final major project work and subsequent degree show.  The cultural exchange exhibitions were initially set out in my proposal, however, the Peace for Luton project has developed after persuing some of my initial research and following leads I had in Iraq.

Taking over the MA space on the 5th floor

MA students have started to occupy the space on the 5th floor.

MA group crit: Medium is the Message

Notes to look up from group crit

In the future of the image

Jack Ranciere

Jeremy Deller

In tangible 

Social responsibility

Mustufah 

Idea of Detachment

MA group crit: 3 pieces of work

A group crit with Hannah Birkett, proved an enagaged and interesting look at some of the recent work my fellow students have been creating.  I presented some recent  photos, the peace project and an image I made while in wales.  We were encouraged not to explain the work and see what people think of the work.

Group crit: Medium is The Message, Process is the Product

Half way throught the process brief, we had a presentation to talk to the group about our processes and to talk about the plans for the rest of the brief.

MA group crit: setting the process brief

The Crit Room

Poster group crit

Exhibition: The Hat Factory

Notes - The Creative Process

Notes MA Thursday 13th October 2011

The creative process

Encourage playfulness, risk-taking and experimentation.

Allow for uncertainty and ambiguity.

Emphasize collaboration and partnership.

Encourage student independence and intrinsic motivation.

Value the individual.

Encourage debate and active engagement.

Acknowledge individual approaches to learning.

Encourage intrinsic motivation.

Promote convergent and divergent thinking skills & value divergence and diversity.

Make the creative process explicit.

Provide opportunities for learner choice and autonomy.

Creativity is important to effective communication; discipline analysis, essential to creative thinking, provides a systematic framework for investigation; the processes of idea-generation require raw material (facts and knowledge) to provide the basis of associations; and the creative process in art and design has received insufficient critical analysis.

Personal creativity is:

...a process of becoming sensitive to or aware of problems, deficiencies, and gaps in knowledge for which there is no learned solution; bringing together existing information from the memory storage or external; defining the difficulty or identifying the missing elements; searching for solutions, making guesses, producing alternatives to solve the problem; testing and re-testing these alternatives; and perfecting them and finally communicating the results.

TORRANCE, E. & ROCKENSTEIN, Z . (1988) ‘Styles of Thinking and Creativity’, in R.

Schmeck (ed.) Learning Strategies and Learning Styles. New York: Plenum Press

Creative aims:

nurture capabilities of personal and team creativity;

promote understanding of the nature and role of creativity within a student’s individual social and economic contexts;

overcome barriers to the creative process;

develop frameworks within which to evaluate creative, entrepreneurial opportunities;

enhance communication and presentation skills; and improve team building and working abilities.

to avoid writers/designers block:

keep writing/working

Presentations - build confidense

Graft Architects 

Dont divorce yourselves from your feelings

Jersey Seymour.com

Installations 

Investigation of materials.

Sketchbooks, notebooks, blogs

Debate, collaboration, individual study, 

Keep reinventing yourself,

promote divergent and convergent 

Ben Wilson 

Painting chewing gum

Starting the Studio Journal

e, experience, experiments, obsessions, ideas, problems, questions, solutions, processes, inspirations, collaborations, exhibitions, influences, investigations and Ben's thoughts on it all.

Please use the archive or index of subject tag links to navigate to certain subject areas, topics and types of research. Key links to research, journals and relevant information are supplied via a delicious database on the left.  On the right, the twitter feeds are from Ben and they give up to date information on exhibitions, research and projects.  There are also widgets importing photos from both Flickr and direct from Ben's iPhone.

Please contact with any questions or comments: ben.hodson@mac.com