CASE STUDY 1. Interviewing my mother
DAY 1
First day of interview proved to be tedious and tough task for me. After all the efforts, I convinced my mother and shifted her to my grandmother’s room. Doing this was vital so that there is some change of surroundings for her. It was approximately after two months that my mother has stepped out of her room.
I began by showing her my website and also explained her about my work that I have been doing and why. To make things easy and smooth for her, I told her that I want to make her biography. It was visible from her facial expressions that she was very surprised to hear this, but I managed to clarify the reasons behind it. I disclosed her that it is my personal goal to accomplish this in my life. More than my work, it is important for my personal contentment and satisfaction. I was always curious to know about all the events that had happened in my mother’s life.
I commenced the interview with few basic questions like what is your name, when and where were you born. She answered it all along with some additional details. It was interesting to note these details as they were not limited to the questions that I asked her. I was happy to see the extra input from her side while responding.
After these set of questions, I got stuck on how to go ahead with the interview. To proceed further, I prepared the list of pre-determined questions that are supposed to be addressed in the interview. This also made it easier for my mother to remember the answer of all questions.
I recorded her responses and simultaneously made notes for my referral. I think this is the best way to hold an account of information for a longer period of time as I can’t afford to loose it.
DAY 2
Second day of interview went better as it was more formulated. My mother was all ready for the questions. When I asked her where did we left the interview last, she quickly responded by saying that we covered only the basic questions.
While answering the questions I found that she was trying hard to remember each and every detail from her childhood. I was glad to see this attempt from her side. However, there were certain responses where I received no answer from my mother but other responses had a good amount of details in it.
Whenever she was not able to answer any question, she used to get upset and started crying. But there were certain questions which brought smile on my mother’s face and it made my day as we hardly see smiling now. It was a special moment for me and I wanted to capture it with me forever but I couldn’t because my mother become very conscious in front of the camera and this is the reason why I will be keeping the camera out of it in the coming interview as well.
CASE STUDY 2. Russell Pop up Show
Before summer we were given an opportunity to exhibit our works in two groups at Russell’s space. The task of curation was assigned to artists only and had to work as a group.
The space that was fully occupied with chairs, tables and boards as it was used as graduate studio, has to get cleared and transformed into an exhibition space which we artists along with our tutors managed well.
The curation of show was a bit of task as it was a small space with more of exhibiting artists with people having their preferences for their respective works.
For Group 1, things went quite smoothly. Being a part of this group, we managed the display well in time with everyone’s consent. Working in a group was the most interesting and challenging part of this show. This allowed us to not only give importance to our work only but also to cooperate with our co-artists and respect their work in order to make it work for everyone.
Lot of artists made use of the elements present in the room. For example, shivangi’s cloth with drawings of dead birds was placed on the floor near the red-brown stains which indicated the dried blood stains of the dead birds.
Overall I feel that in such short period of time, creating an art work, curating the show, displaying it in few hours was a great learning experience.
As far as my artwork is concerned I have received mixed feedback in group crit. The first informal crit was with one of the tutor just after the display. Here everyone present, agreed with the placement of work as apt as well as that work itself was very much powerful.
On the other hand in the formal crit with all tutors and external crit, I had clashes of views and responses from viewers. Where few agreed that it was meditative and involvement of artist is clear. But one of my tutor was disappointed too as it didn’t show any improvement and experimentation of new media. They felt that it was a step backward to what I have already done. And I should be more experimental with my work and try to execute my ideas in different media. It left me worrying about my practice but initiated a desire within myself to achieve my goal.
CASE STUDY 3. Post Grad Forum
Through this presentation we were asked to reflect and analyse the concerns and contexts that inform our studio and written practice. It allowed questions and lively debate to occur which contributed creatively to the developments in our practice.
Key points in my presentation were:
- My main concern, not only as an artist but as a daughter also, is to tell my mother’s story that eradicate the disparity between how she is seen and what she actually feels.
- How can I really present her in terms of images?
- And why does it really matter to me that I do?
- “Why would I want my private photographs on show for everybody else to see? Maybe it is because this record of my life lacks so much that I want to share its gaping holes with others.”[1]
I received lot of criticism and positive feedback as well for my presentation which proved useful for my practice. The absence of critical context in my practice and the fact that I am not able to convey what I want to was a matter of concern. My thoughts, ideas and intentions were not clear in my work. Lack of research and context was evident in my presentation.
Through discussion, new perspectives were aroused by audience, which I never thought, were worth considering. It also helped me to get a feedback from audience on a raw piece of work and opened up new ways of executing it. My work involving skype snapshots was very well received. It was interesting know different ways of seeing that work.
[1] Putting myself in the picture, visual autobiography- Jo spence
CASE STUDY 4.
Collaborative Project
With Richard Lizell
Wimbledon College art, University of the arts London
On site project
We were asked to form groups of 3-4 and discuss the aspects of our art practices that we are most passionate about and then brainstorm and generate ideas uncritically.
We then spent the rest of the morning working together, discussing our practice. It was interesting to find out how our practices reflected our history. We found the common link in our works. All four of us were concerned about individual’s history, dependence on our cultures, expressions, body language, relationships and memories. Memories were observed to be the most likely feature amongst all. Hence we agreed on preparing a collaborative art piece, which reflects each one’s practice in some or other way.
The piece thus produced was a collage of memories, which we had collected from our batch mates. The collage was then ripped off in layers representing the gradual process of loosing memories. No matter how hard we try to preserve memories, they are lost in the process of creating new. The performance included the use of mannequin parts to symbolise the fading memories where one of the colleagues tried to make an interaction with the lifeless parts depicting the sense of loss.
Through this project we learned the art of collaboration. The project was beneficiary to me as I got to know about the work of my co- artists. It opened up a new dimension for us in terms of collaborative art not necessarily with the same group of people but with any artist in future.