I definitely feel like I am getting used to this re-adjustment of learning environments... After my first week and having time to reflect on it all, there are definitely a lot of aspects that make me really appreciate the differences at NABA. These are very much manifested in the passion of the tutors and how they teach their subject, giving you a real basis and stream of knowledge, which feeds right back into your personal practice.
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My two favourite subjects so far have been the Public Art/Urban Intervention course and my Sculpture course. I feel that these subject areas have wonderful philosophies behind them and are very interesting because they are so vast in their approach to art making. I think it will be in these two subjects that I will be able to explore and create projects that are more rooted to my past artistic experiments and ideas...
My Public Art teacher, Stefano Boccalini originally studied architecture and it was from there that he was drawn into Public Art through his interest in the anthropology behind space and how humans react and relate to their environments. In my first class he showed me some very interesting pieces of work which all explored the relationship between people and space. I think it is really important as an artist to understand the significance of space and to work with it… For us to learn how to manipulate it and to create real 3D artistic environments, so that your work is not just about one idea, it is about putting it into a greater context without it having to be a completely site specific piece.
Within our 3 hour discussion Boccalini really helped me to envision Public Art in a completely new way, taking away the attention of objects being interventions within public space, and opening it out to being much more about an open dialogue between the artist and public...
~Public Art presents something that affects us all and brings us together; it is something that questions the presence of our humanity.
PUBLIC SPACE= toilets, politics, gender, social identity, human behaviour, social dialogues, the governed state, public relationships, private relationships, our inner insecurities....
There was one particularly lovely piece that Boccalini showed me, which was made by a boy from the course last year. His project consisted of quoting a politician of Italy and he took it and wrote it on the bottom of his skateboard. Then for a whole day he filmed himself skateboarding in the middle of the city, and in the process scraping the quote off the bottom of the skateboard. He presented it as a durational performance piece, skateboarding until all the words had faded away...This a really wonderful and simple piece, and for me made me completely see Public Art as a very different practice, and revealed how personal and subtle it can be...It doesn't have to be in the Public eye, yet it can be something that is very publically understood and empathised with.
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In my Sculpture class, the tutor was also very open and interested in discussing what the possibilities of Sculpture could be. On the first day we all had to present an individual piece of installation/sculptural work that we were interested in. This was great way to meet my class and to get an understanding of their artistic tastes and view points. The one thing that I really enjoyed about this process was learning about really interesting work which I had never heard of, and discovered this great piece by Gordon Matta Clark….
Sculpture is very interesting because it can be anything; it is a very open and flexible medium. I am hoping in this subject to transcend some of my performance and live art influences….And to look at how both ideas and spaces transform through time.
I have realised that I am an extremely space orientated artist. I really want to begin thinking how I am going to translate all my previous project ideas into this experience but still focus on how this experience is going to inspire and influence my work. It is going to be a wonderful artistic journey…
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