All text (unless stated) transcribed from the Why I think this work is worth discussing lunchtime sessions 01.05.2025 – 15.05.2025 with William Litre, Lea St.Georges, Ka Siu Lam, Guandong Diao, Peter Bergman, Chiara Danieli, Max Landau, Christian Harris, Celine Hobeichi, Agnes Hessan, Xinyi(Frea) Lei, Cole Valerio, Juan Abu Raiya, Jiyoo Han, Krisha Mittra, Seonghyun Lee,Esma Guven, Ashita Sequeiera, Eleonora Lushchyk,Paula Martin Rivera, Sally Stott, You You, Elspeth Hamilton, Milan Solonenko,
Workingprogress
So in the previous session we were talking about exhibiting work in progress. I think this kind of discussions kind of reflects the idea of work in progress, sort of open conversations and it’s open to different possibilities. So it benefits everyone in a way ; it benefits the students making the projects cause they can see their work in a way they have never seen it before and they can embrace the criticisms and make the project more rich in a way. I think it’s a really good way for other people to learn about other people’s projects cause when you reach out to people you gather more details instead of a casual conversation in school on the terrace; how’s the project going? Do you really learn anything about project or is it just a catch up?
Deadlines
I guess the booklet was made for a table or a jury so it looks finished from an outsiders point of view but I felt like for the student I can only define from our conversation, he subjectively doesn’t think it’s finished. Which is also, this idea of finished I guess If the project has 3 more months and another term then this project could go on and he would explore various directions but then because there is a deadline then he has to finish. Then we all have the stress to finish for a deadline I guess.
De-render
in a previous discussion a student was complaining that work was over-worked; too many models, too many drawings and I remember with John Frazer once said if he had a job as a caretaker say at the AA what he would do every night he would erase all renderings so that, he thought that could add as a disguise to what the fundamental idea might be. Which is interesting cause I can’t discern ( in this highly finished model and glossy booklet) what the fundamental might be, which could possibly conveyed in just a few lines.
Being positive
there’s somethingabout being positive that’s somehow seen as not being worthy of being critical. But you can be critical as a positive I think. If something is really good you can just say it’s really good and actually you don’t need to have a but, unless you have a but……but
clarity
We purposely chose work that is in progress so maybe it is not completely clear yet. He put a lot of emphasis on that he aims for a concept that is clear, concise and just that.He doesn’t want to delve into the little questions that might arise on the side, he just wants to present one thing.
Do you think that being clear as a student is a good thing? It’s virtuous? Where does the virtue in being clear lie?
I think the problem of only following one line is that uh…I think learning especially in this school comes from trying to answer all the other problems that are on the side of your project because if you’re thinking of one thing it’s impossible to ignore the complexity of the surroundings. So I think there’s also virtue in aiming for a crystallised, clear presentation…..I don’t think I’d be able to do that.
projects
I think it’s quite funny that when we asked him about his project he showed us someone else’s project and he didn’t explain how it was related he just said he liked this and therefore this
introduction
should we make a little introduction on why we are here? So the work we have chosen to present today is strictly work in progress because we think it is quite important to see a project before it has taken a specific direction. We are often confronted with the work of our peers only in project review when the narrative is already written and the drawings are polished but we think it can spark a lot of thoughts to see something that’s not quite clear yet and not concise in a way.
And I think it is quite good if we misunderstand the project a little bit and if anyone has questions about the project you should ask us even though it’s not our project and we’ll probably get it wrong and that’s probably a good thing.
That’s a bit Duchamp isn’t it – misunderstanding leads to new conclusions
We didn’t ask our peers to over explain what they have done we had a conversation once and that was it.
But then in showing work in progress especially when we’re talking to the people yesterday the idea actually only emerges halfway through the conversation because if we start looking at the drawings they probably had a different idea 3months ago when they made one drawing or a model and so there I think it’s quite nice to not to be fixated on clarity and to also treat the discarded ambitions as quite useful.
I think that also……I was denied entry into her jury which is incorrect, I think we should all be able to attend peoples Juries needless if they are Diploma, intermediate or post grad….
So we talk about seeing peoples work and obviously we see each other’s work in Project Review but I don’t know about you guys, maybe I just have attention issues but it is like so much over visual stimulation, like I cannot understand any persons project because it’s like, Oh another model I should see! another model! Another poster! So I think we really need to find ways to see and listen to other peoples work in individual settings because Projects Review doesn’t cut it for me.
Do you want to talk about how you got the work or how about you came about finding someone’s work to present? Oh yeah um….Originally I wanted to I wanted to find some students work from Diploma because looking around here today non of us here are from a Diploma unit, except me and one other. And this is quite interesting…
Interestingly the person who had originally agreed to give me a bit of his work rejected me at the very last minute because he didn’t feel very comfortable in sharing because It’s not ready.Also same with the student’s work I got from intermediate; the work I got from her you can see it is very complete, there’s nothing there in progressed to be shared
G is not for Graduate Gallery
…’we’re only at the beginning of our awareness of how sentient and powerful plants are. We don’t really understand the genesis of life on the planet, how intricately connected it is to forms of plant life. Like, if you take them into your body and you talk with them in an altered state of consciousness you realise that these plants are conscious, they’re our elders in a sense…some of the unexplored dimensions of life on earth are, to do with what we know and what we’re about to learn from other forms of life, in particular, plant life.
clip from Adam Elenbaas, western astrologer(married to a herbalist), lives in Minnesota, talking on The World of Astrology, The New Dawn: Neptune in Aries, September 6th 2024