EXERCISE 2.1: The group crit and/or peer feedback

Considering the importance of taking on the perspectives and responses of others. I am part of a group of Fine Arts students who regularly share our experiences and work. We use a Padlet for this purpose. Below are images of the work and ideas I shared and asked for feedback.

I am also part of a more active group of EU students who use WhatsApp to share work and ideas continuously. We share our work and learn through each other’s feedback and making. We do crits from time to time by member request. I have requested that the group have a silent crit late in July 2023, which I use as feedback for this part of the course. I will write my reflective commentary for the next exercise on this experience. I shared a blog from my Research Part and added images of my body of work to the document. (www.karenstanderart.co.za

EXERCISE 2.2: Reflective Commentary

Some of my feedback was written in our interactive WA group, and others were shared as emails with me. The fact that the group did not consist only of Fine Arts students made the insights into each other’s work practice more varied. It was interesting how some focus on detail and have a broader perspective. Different ideas made me aware of differences in experience, perspective and materials we use. The threads highlighted in my work are primarily about oneness, collaboration, connectedness and how weaving can complement my making. I was made aware that I show close/intense awareness of nature and that my work highlights ‘intensive observation’ and ‘collaboration with my chosen subjects’. My repetitive daily making process is a further highlight of this process. The nests and feathers were mentioned as ‘instant connections and continuation of observations’ of how I use the networks within nature to work with. My mushroom growing project on the clay sculpture is seen as the closest to this connectedness – it was called ‘oneness’.

It was discussed that my work opens further questions about how we go beyond anthropocentrism – if we only observe from a human point of view, could it be ‘top towards down’? Me versus them? We were asking that in my work: Am I emulating them? At what level do I connect, and what does that look like? This opened up ideas about what we look like for them and if one could turn the exercise onto ourselves – scale-wise. My idea of us as ‘little beings’ was valued.

These discussions made me to reconsider ideas on Ubuntu and to instead focus on Feminist Phenomenology. It was suggested also to consider Bruno Latour’s work.

Some reading suggestions: Dunnigan, J. (2013) Thingking in: Sommerson, R and Hermanno, M. L. (eds.) The art of critical making – Rhode Island School of Desing on cdreative practice (s.l.). Wiley. pp 94 – 115 and Alexandre Antoneeli (2022) The HIdden Universe: Adventures in Biodeiversity

The movie Where the Crawdads Sing was also discussed. The themes are similar to my work. I have seen this movie and understand the connections.

The Idea of using the Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction in my theoretical work is enjoyed. It was asked if Eco Feminism could be considered: here I can look at work by Val Plumwood: Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Regarding my materials and staying with natural materials, I suggested making charcoal from old twigs as used for bird nests and drawing with feathers dipped in mushroom ink or charcoal dust.

Contextual questions were touched as my ‘net is cast wide’. Narrowing down could be an idea, but my reading relates to making and writing. In the small W A group (who knows me better) suggested that I deal with this openly and fluidly. Good advice was to use more visual examples when describing my processes and tell more about why I do daily drawings and the role of repetition in my thinking/making.

Using a glossary to capture the more ‘difficult’ terms and make it easier for the reader to understand was suggested, as I can use this to give context and definition to readers/viewers.

The idea is to name my separate groupings of work, ‘para’-sites. It was felt that the word is too negative, as a biological parasite as an organism takes from the shared resources without giving back. It is seen as opposing ideas of the rhizomatic and the rest of the kin-species.

These sites are seen as my world of making.

It is about a lived experience.

Weaving as a process alongside the natural elements of the human woven can be a great critical reflection point. Words such as connect, co-design, and co-collaborate come to the front. I find a challenge in my language and contemplate nature’s language. I learned decay is a better word than to dispose of something – it connects back to earth by rejoining the ecosystem and fueling new growth or re-growth.

Ideas I would like to consider: “If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent the night with a mosquito,” says an African proverb.

Did the conversation identify problems or contradictions within the work, and how can I positively address these?

The topic is broad and I should consider to tone it down.

When having a wide choice of material explorations, annotate and ‘park’ some ideas for the next essay or project.

I use materials found in nature/my environment and consider, after making them, letting them go back outside into the environment (like the collaboration with A Holtkamp). I could to the same with the nests, as they could return to the environmen. The nests outside could be ‘given’ to the creatures outside, and the process of use/change/decay could be documented – see if birds would use it and how they would change or modify them.

See the work as about fragility and strength simultaneously through materials and how I closely observe nature. This observance is the space where I discover something about the materials I choose to work with. (“they tell you’)

Feedback received 05/09/23:

I copied and pasted this from an email as feedback I received from a local artist:

” I think art (and students), always the front runner for change, has an important role to play to reconnect humans to oneness. In that sense art is always socio-political.

I quite like your choices for nests, feathers and fungi, as they are clear subjects ánd  offer content: fungi for a symbiotic life, the fungi (and mycelium) contain the life force/energy of the planet, spreading to every corner, whereas the nests point to the holding/the container in which everything manifests, both caring/sustaining life and a space for (human) coordination.The feathers to me indicate the delicacy of the balance needed, the vulnerability of it all. My take on your research/work is that these three subject matters beautifully link into a story that needs being told, and actually is a great place for contemporary art making.

Another perspective is less rational/analytical: if your heart is in, then it is contemporary art! heART. Maybe there’s still uncertainty if you’re on the right path, but then read (again) Rilke’s poem Patience: just continue and have patience, for you can’t know the answers to your questions yet, but then slowly, you’ll live into the answer!”

SUSTAINING MY PRACTICE:

How is my work developing and forming a more cohesive set of ideas and propositions

Am I finding key strands of investigations that will stay with me as I continue to finish the course

When I think about loss and death and how I worked with feathers in an attempt to deal with my son’s death, I now know that I became more aware of my deep need to find myself rooted ….did I know this rootedness could lie in soil and or a connectedness with nature. I am considering ideas around interconnectedness and this will be part of my Research Question I am working with.

On a deeper personal level, I feel that I carry a weight of death in my body and mind, crying for my son, who came from my body and who has now left this life. Motherhood became such pain, still is. I cannot console my husband, my two other sons, my daughter-in-law, our grandson,( his child) – I am in a pool of pain and trying to keep myself on the ground and remembering we are one with soil, with earth. – (Materie kan nie geskep of vernietig word nie; dit kan geskei of weer saamgevoeg word?????). What is form and matter became a way into this dark pool?

Form and matter are thoughts in my mind. I am thinking about Relational ontology, which focuses on the interconnectedness of all entities and emphasizes relationships as foundational. This theory sees the body as entangled in a web of relationships with other bodies, the environment, and the cosmos. The body’s materiality is inseparable from its relational context. I also know that when I look at my mushrooms as decomposers, the body’s materials will be going through biological and chemical processes during its decomposition. I would say I am sensing the perimeters within which I am currently working in. Words such as metamorphosis comes to my mind.

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