Module Evaluation for 5107
During the time that I was working on my project called ART5107 Collaborative Practice, I had to work with two architecture students called Lewis Barton and Jordan Eng and two art and design pupils named Sarah Jane Paskin and Fardosa Osman, to make a proposal for the preservation, and inclusion into the city’s collection, of Paradise Circus. Initially, I found it difficult to decide on the type of artwork that I wanted to generate, to show my viewers my strategy of preserving Paradise Circus and the Birmingham Central Library. When I decided what type of artwork I wanted to create my confidence increased.
One activity for the 5107 Module that I enjoyed the most, was when my Collaborative Practice group and myself joined another group, to create a plaster cast model of a building, which could either be inspired by one of the buildings that we saw, when we travelled to the Paradise Circus and Birmingham Central Library, or any other type of architecture design that we liked. The Chamberlain House construction inspired me to carve checkered patterns onto my plaster cast design. The 4-sided shapes shown on the outer surface of Chamberlain House caught my eye, because it looks modern and solid. I think the design looks like bricks because the surface of Chamberlain House appears equal and ridged.
My experience of making a plaster cast copy of the Chamberlain House construction, gave me a sense of achievement. I have not used plaster to create artwork very often, however, I would consider using this material another time in the future, to produce professional looking work.
I was also proud of producing a PowerPoint presentation to deliver to the rest of my Collaborative project class, which showed different designs that my team sketched onto our A3 sized sketchbooks and A1 scaled cartridge paper. My group also displayed the research behind our drawings and ideas, in order to create something aesthetically pleasing, to help people remember the Paradise Circus and Birmingham Central Library buildings, after they become destroyed.
One example of the designs I drew, as a response to make people remember the Central Library, were tessellation designs of leaves. My inspiration to create my design came from an art piece that was decorated onto the exterior surface of the Central Library. The leaf tessellation drawing symbolised the existence of Birmingham Central Library and the social interaction between people and the building.
When the time came for the students in my class to comment on our presentation, my Collaborative group and myself found their feedback very useful and encouraging. An example of the feedback my group had was to make sure that we meet up regularly, to work together to research about various artworks, materials and designing techniques to help us create several designs and produce excellent outcomes, in order for our visual representations to become one whole idea. Another comment that my team was given was to take photographs of our sketched designs and/or textures of buildings in Paradise Circus or Birmingham Central Library, to use them in the printmaking studio in order to create different printed outcomes. In my opinion I think that using the printmaking studio, to develop our ideas to create symbolic visual representations of peoples social connection with the buildings, would help my group to generate stronger artwork.
Overall I have enjoyed the process of working with architecture students and art and design learners, to create artwork and presenting our ideas. I feel that I have struggled to produce screen-printed work of my final ideas, to illustrate my tactic of maintaining Paradise Circus and the Birmingham Central Library. I have learnt a lot throughout the creation of this project and the various processes included. I still believe that there is always room for improvement.
