Crit Feedback

Yesterday as a continuation of the lecture Tom Rodgers gave on Tuesday, artist and curator Emma Bolland and Judit Bodor came in to give a talk about their own work, as well as the current collaboration (with Rodgers) exhibition Milky Way You Will Hear Me Call in the College Gallery.
They talked about the work they do in terms of curating, creating and collaborating, a considerable amount of which I found to be fairly contradictory, but hey, I guess that's artists for you.

Afterwards, Emma and Tom came into the Fine Art room to talk to some of us about our project work and ideas, then gave the opportunity to offer feedback and constructive criticism.
I wanted to speak to them as I found their words and work to be relevant to my own ideologies; both Emma and Tom could see the links between my intentions and their current work.
I was suggested things like:

• clear out my desk/ wall- it's currently inhabited by a lot of previous project work, so by cleaning and sorting things out, it would allow me to see more clearly the current work I am progressing with, rather than becoming sidetracked from non important material. It again gives the opportunity to see my work as a collective, to see the cohesion and intertextuality between the pieces and to be able to view what works and where it is weaker, etc.
• "take your work for a walk"- this was an idea to get me out of my 'domestic' box that I appear to have put myself into; Emma said to literally move and work in different places as I could become potentially domesticated into the idea of working in one particular place or manner- to remove myself from familiar environments that would allow me to concentrate deeper into the FMP work. Secondly, it was suggested to pick up ideas, for example taking my work to the park: the connoted link between photographs of a child within the park environment, to take new photographs and explore the potential and ideas to come from it. By using old photographs in a new place and time, it seems to explore the links and juxtapositions in a well rounded manner.

These were both helpful comments, something I can carry out and experiment with ease. Initially I was a bit dubious to have my work critiqued by practising artists as I feared my work would be instantly slated, but in hindsight it was extremely helpful. If anything, it allowed me to look a little more 'outside the box', to be horrifically cliched.