MA Week 10 - Christmas already??

It’s hard to believe that it is already the end of the first term, and with it, the hand-in deadline looming. I’ve learnt quite a bit this term. I’ve gained a deeper understanding of my practice and have related it to some current artists. I’ve understood that I’m starting out professionally, and that means taking small but definite steps. I’ve documented all this in my 2000 word critical evaluation, but here are a few more informal thoughts.

Learning points:

• I need to manage my time and energy a bit better. The project plan worked well, but my contingency got eaten up by various unwanted life events (and, truth be told, a couple of “morning afters” that lasted all day). This sometimes meant I was having to work when I really didn’t have the energy/wherewithal.
• I need to understand a bit more about how blogger works as I seem to keep getting formatting and line breaks where I haven’t put any.
• I need to read more journals and articles, not just books and websites.
• I need to do a bit more artist research – but that will come naturally, if past experience is anything to go by.
• I need to not be afraid to draw, even if what I draw is cr*p.

Highlights:

• Joining a supportive cohort of like-minded people and making new friends. Thank you, everyone!
• Getting back into the college library and finding out I can borrow 25 books at once.
• Getting my Linder article published on FCK LDN’s website.

What next?

Christmas, my birthday, then back to College to do some printing and laser cutting!

MA Week 10 - Ethics

Reflection on taught session, Friday 4^th December 2015

Ethics

 

Karen led a discussion on Research Ethics.

As we’d learnt before, one of the defining principles of research is that it disseminates information, so by definition it’s not individual. Images, objects and actions can have consequences too. Ethics is crucially important when it involves human participants. Karen gave an example of a student researching disabled dancers. Who owns the research? What gives the researcher the right to do that research?

 

We also discussed the ideas of the Ukrainian photographer Boris Mikhailov. One of my fellow students had been doing a lot of research into him. His series of partly-stripped homeless people in the former USSR came under discussion. Mikhailov evidently defended it as photographing nudity was forbidden under the Soviet Union – but basically, sex sells, and including partial nudity would ensure the plight of the homeless people was raised. If he paid the participants in cigarettes, which they wanted, was it so wrong? I think they were exploited, but I’m not a homeless person, so how can I judge… what gives me the right to judge?

A group discussion followed. One of the points raised was the desire for us all to put work “out there”, trying to build an audience, weighed against the likelihood that it would be stolen or pirated. For example, music samples and photographs. Also, it’s far too easy for people to be able to make anonymous, negative comments via social media. Another thought was that we could be promoting stereotypes (an example given was “McDonald’s eaters”) in our quest to produce interesting work.  We concluded that you can’t allow for every circumstance. You may also decide to publish some work even if it does offend.

I had been pondering ethics after writing about Stuart Whipps’s work in my week 9 blog post.  Had Whipps considered what emotions the Mini carcass might provoke if seen by workers who’d had their lives turned upside down when the Longbridge motor works closed? If so – what did he think and do about it? Anything? I don’t know, and probably never will. However, this was brought a lot closer to home for me earlier in the day. A fellow student told me they had been upset by an image I had used as it unexpectedly reminded them of a very distressing situation.  Generally I have used my own image in any image manipulation I’ve done, in order to avoid ethical issues. And yet I hadn’t avoided them! We talked about the situation and it was clear there was no way I could have anticipated my classmate’s reaction. But this image wasn’t set out to upset. It may have been intended to shock – there is a difference. When I did my depiction of my breast cancer experience, I didn’t care if it shocked. I just wanted to describe the reality of having this disease in a way that is masked by all the pink fluffy sisterhood approach. Although it might have shocked some people and struck a real chord with others, I’d never set out to upset (to clarify, my classmate’s experience was not to do with breast cancer). So in future I need to think about this; if I might upset one or a few persons, should I hold back on expressing myself? I think probably not, although in that case I have to be prepared for negative comment or criticism. As we said in the group discussion, you can’t allow for every circumstance. But a good learning point for me, and I thank my fellow student for being open enough to approach me about it and talk it through with me.

MA Week 9 - Artist Research : Simon Fujiwara

Simon Fujiwara, "Aspire", installed at University of Leeds, 2015

I first came across Simon Fujiwara when his public artwork, “Aspire” was unveiled at the University of Leeds in June 2015. The work resembles a brick chimney and is Fujiwara’s view of the history of the city of Leeds, and in particular the University. It is made of cast jesmonite with a galvanised steel core. At the base coal is incorporated indicating the industries upon which the city was built. The colours then become lighter as the chimney rises, to a pale verdigris which depicts Leeds’s current economy which is “almost complete immaterial industry – entertainment, services, education”. In Leeds, a new, post-globalised urbanism flourishes. Or so thinks the artist (Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, 2015).

I like this piece. I like the textured surface, and the way the colours pale and rise and reflect the massive plate glass windows of the new library, in front of which it sits. I am less convinced about Fujiwara’s take on my home city’s history. Of course, he is duty bound to produce an uplifting, optimistic piece of work as a commission for a University. The name is not only intended to reflect that, it’s a pun on the two nearby church spires (neither of which, incidentally, now serves a church). My own lived experience of de-industrialisation, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, is quite different. However, I could relate to Fujiwara’s depiction of bricks, having started out on my own brick investigations. Taking both at face value, my work and Fujiwara’s work are connected by what one physically views when one looks at them.

But Fujiwara likes to play with memory. In 2012, Tate St. Ives staged Fujiwara’s first major UK show, “Since 1982” (Grant, 2012). In this exhibition, he drew upon and embellished his own lived experience. One example is “Welcome to the Hotel Munber”. His parents had lived in Spain before his birth, running the aforementioned hotel. Fujiwara presented a performance piece with the assertion that his early life in the hotel had strongly influenced his art, whilst at the same time noting that this could not have happened as he was born after his parents left Spain. Fujiwara notes he invented “a whole new narrative in an attempt to lend significance to the work” (Martin, 2011, p91).

In his 2012 piece, “Saint Simon” in the Tate exhibition, he investigated the Mexican saint San Simón, also known as Maximón, who is popular in Guatemala. The saint is venerated during Holy Week when his effigy is paraded in the street, usually with a mask for a face. In Fujiwara’s work, he intended to project himself psychologically into his saintly namesake, replacing the mask with an image of his own face (Tate, n.d., n.p). Here we see a manipulation of memory conflated with his own identity.

This idea of reworking memories is of growing interest to me and I mentioned it in blog post about Stuart Whipps. Here I think Fujiwara takes it a stage further by openly acknowledging that some of his work is fictional , yet persuading an audience – and possibly himself?? – to take it seriously. The idea of manipulating his own identity means he puts himself almost bodily into someone else’s past and questions the idea of the believers. Subversion and manipulation are always so interesting ; they make you question what you’re doing, and why.

Fujiwara also has two pieces in the British Art Show 8 ; a video loop about a Mexican rubbish picker and a Berlin web designer who has no arms, and three shaved fur coats stretched over frames. These are comments on wealth and materialism (Leeds Art Gallery (1), 2015). The work discussed in this blog post shows Fujiwara’s breadth of practice. It seems he will not allow his practice to be described simply, nor allow himself to be pigeon-holed; I have the idea he likes to re-invent himself, almost, and keep his audience guessing. I find his approach both challenging and inspirational.

MA Week 9 - Artist Research : Stuart Whipps

Stuart Whipps, "The Kipper and the Corpse" (2015), installed at BAS8, Leeds Art Gallery

 

Stuart Whipps has come onto my radar via his piece in the British Art Show 8 (BAS8), “The Kipper and the Corpse” (Leeds Art Gallery (2), 2015). It is the carcass of a mini built by British Leyland in 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher came to power and the year Whipps was born. Whipps’s work explores the “slippery relationship between memory and truth” (Leeds Art Gallery (1), 2015) and as such I feel it relates to some of the work I’ve done on de-industrialisation – pulling from my own memories. I had quite a strong emotional reaction to this piece; it reminded me of what my family went through with the de-industrialisation of Leeds. There was a sense of emptiness, starting into the shell of the car… where had it travelled to? What had gone on inside it? Who owned it? A stark monument to the Thatcherite chapter of our collective history. Whipps intends to restore the Mini with the help of ex-Longbridge employees as BAS8 tours over the next year.

The piece is the third part of a series of works which investigate the demise of the Longbridge motor works in Birmingham. For the first part, Whipps photographed the plant between 2005 and 2008, and also travelled to Nanjing in China to photograph the motor company that had bought the property rights from MG Rover. (Colin & Yee, 2015, p 120)/

The second chapter was exhibited at the “East International” exhibition in Norwich in 2009. This included photographs of the recently closed plant and archival documents including “text pieces that use the cumulative word counts for all of Margaret Thatcher’s Speeches, Interviews and Other Statements between her election in May 79, and the sacking of Derrick (Red Robbo) Robinson at British Leyland in November 1979. They are presented by the categorisation method utilized by the Margaret Thatcher archive”. (Whipps. S.,(1) n.d.). Herbert (2009, p329) also comments on the inclusion of a script from an episode of Fawlty Towers, mentioning striking car workers– the name of the episode gives its name to the current piece.  Herbert considers the 2009 piece underlines and opposes the Thatcherite line of de-industrialisation’s inevitability and affirms the move to a post-industrial economy.

All three chapters in this series seem to resonate directly with me. One of the first pieces of practice I undertook concerned the de-industrialisation of the UK and the rise of China as a superpower. The piece I produced commented on the loss of industry in Yorkshire in particular, and the vigorous and bullying rise of Chinese imported goods. The saddest thing to see on the Mini carcass was the British Leyland works plate next to the museum exhibit number. British industry now only exists as some memory in the Museum space.

 

How are the mighty fallen

 

Another piece of work by Whipps which deals with archive and memory is “Birth Sprse in Peckham. Latham was a Zimbabwean-born British experimental artist who was concerned with processes, and the recording of sequences of events and patterns of knowledge (Stiles, n.d.).  Whipps investigated Latham’s archive and interpreted it as a fragmented display, including an animation of text from books in Latham’s collection, which he made during the exhibition itself (Street, 2013). Whipps deliberately disturbed Latham’s archive by collapsing together the various events and their representations. (Whipps. S.,(2) n.d.).

In all these pieces of work, Whipps is taking archival material –photographs, documents or a car – and re-interpreting it. He builds upon the memory, but he also re-works it, and so by implication distorts it. He gives his own viewpoint; it’s not his own lived experience, he is giving his version of someone else’s history. He is often creating randomness from order, as with Latham’s archive and the archival documents in the East International exhibition. He also makes works in progress ; the restoration of the Mini, the animation of Latham’s books. Here I believe he is creating new experience – something existing, viewed differently – and thereby new memories.

 

 

MA Week 9 - Published on FCK LDN!

Fame! Well, in my eyes anyway.

 

 

FCK LDN is an online magazine which covers all things cultural outside London. To quote their website, “FCK LDN is an online magazine; a magazine that does to London what mainstream arts coverage does to the rest of the UK. It pretends that it does not exist. We talk about music, the arts, fashion and culture everywhere in the UK, except London.”

Much as I like London and enjoy visiting that city, I am in complete agreement with FCK LDN’s ethos. Too much emphasis is placed on London when it comes to discussing culture, to the detriment of the rest of the UK. I had wanted to contribute to their website for a while and had been thinking of trying to do a gig review, but once I started the MA it occurred to me that I could do some kind of arty review. Let’s face it, I’m much more likely to be downing a pint than taking notes when I’m at a gig. However, the opposite is true when I’m in a gallery.

My chance came when I wrote up the “Linder in conversation” event which was held as part of the British Art Show 8. I contacted FCK LDN and sent them the link to my blog. Their response was sensible and encouraging – basically that it was the right sort of subject matter, but it needed more context and less academic language. I rewrote it, and was absolutely chuffed to bits when they published it – view it here. It may seem like a very small step, but it’s one that I wouldn’t have taken if I wasn’t doing the MA.

The style in which I rewrote the piece is much nearer to my normal writing style than the kind of “academic” style I’ve tried to adopt for the Research Methods blog so far. I also think it’s probably a more interesting style. So this is something to think about over the Christmas break – can I make my blog more interesting – and even get people to want to read it!! - without losing the academic viewpoint? Let’s see.