NABA: The first 2 Days...

It has been a very strange experience so far adapting to the Italian way of Artschool. I didn't realise how opposite and different the teaching of practices could be just through a small distance. It is so different...
I found out yesterday that I do not get a studio space... There are only computer lab spaces available for students where everybody works on their own projects. And then in the more practical classes, you create the work in the class, or out in the courtyard.
Although at first I found this quite hard to deal with, I realised that in a way it is interesting, because even though I had a studio space in Dundee, I never really made work in it, it was more like a 'hub' space for me to go and think, and collect strange artifacts. It was like a store room for inspiration.
It is quite a liberating thing though when you think about it, because now I am not tied to one place, or have one space to associate 'art making' with, everything is now a possibility and it is good practice because as an artist you are not always going to have a studio space...
So with this change,  I have decided that my bag is now my studio and NABA is the grounds I walk on... It is my way of trying to translate all these changes into positive things and to overcome every challenge -including the language barrier, which has been very difficult!

I have to say the one thing that I am enjoying is that the Italians are very expressive and quite political, they are open for discussing! Everyone I have met so far has been really friendly, and even though I don't understand everything, what I have picked up in my classes has been interesting... 

Yesterday in the Video Art lecture there was a discussion of using and experimenting with Super8 Film, which is something I've never done before and have always wanted to do! 

What this experience is giving me is a lot of reflection and perspective. Its giving me time to look back at my artistic journey through college into university, and to realise where my real interests lie and what I want to do an explore...

I realise now why not a lot of people go on Erasmus, I guess its the reality of being sucked out of your world and put into a completely new and different one. You have to re discover your environment, your practice, your approach to everything! And within it all you are a stranger, so it is quite a lot to digest all at once. But what you do get out of this experience is a completely new way of thinking and being, it is something that transforms you as a person, stretches your boundaries and ideas, and helps you overcome the little insecurities that come with life, because here you have to really make that leap into the unknown and to just accept things and to go with the flow of things, to really let go...