thebestofitall

Another wonderful day of teaching at Camberwell – Symposium 2 is always a transitional moment within the students time on the Book Art Course – a time of reflection – to explore where they have come from, where they are going – their presentation is a bookmark - demonstrating the gap between symposium 1 it exposes the teaching and learning that has taken place and where they are now. Within the group the work and thinking behind the work (the research) is wide ranging and formed from rich thinking – I’m looking forward to the final show – there will be some good work.

The weekend starts on Friday – I’m spending the weekend at Pulse festival in Ipswich http://www.wolseytheatre.co.uk/pulse-festival/ the suitcase day – where performers perform with a stage set that can only be encompassed within a suitcase. It’ll hopefully be a number of short and sharp performances that pull you cleverly in a number of ways. I’m also looking forward to attending a discussion about world factory in the afternoon – an idea I saw both in its initial research phase and as a show at the Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich where I ran a clothes factory with 3 strangers!

Working on the PALs course at Norwich – it’s a supportive structure where year 2 students volunteer to help new students get through their first year. It’s an attempt to create a sense of community within the University - the students are the best of young people giving of their time willingly to support others.

Meanwhile some more images from the trip to New York of the Serra show – it really was an extraordinary experience communing with the giant blocks of steel.

thecentreofuniversalcoolnesswearealldoomed

An excellent day at Camberwell with all the students who are graduating this summer presenting work at symposium 2. The work was of a high standard with some really interesting research strategies on display.  I went to the degree show at Central St Martin – the ‘new’ space really is quite a corporate monster of hipness– the centre of universal coolness. There was some excellent work – my key moments were the interventions into the space by Marijam Did and the response from the organisation says something about the nature of the place. The truly beautiful domestic dance/movement piece Ritournelle by Dorthe Slej Pedersen was very moving http://dortheslejpedersen.com/

The work of Dan Gardner a video of a word for word transcript from a ‘porn’ film spoken in a matter of face way had me in stitches, especially the boredom etched on the face of the male as the woman said yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES.

Meanwhile at Norwich we are deep in the middle of assessments – which are going well – each year the standard improves with the level of teaching. The work we are doing around professional practice is giving the students a great grounding for getting them ready for the ‘real’ world – it’s becoming more focused and this is evidenced in the presentations the year 3 students  have been giving as part of their assessments.  

Last night the start of Pulse festival was marked by the thoughtful Credible Likeable Superstart Role Model by Bryony Kimmings. The piece explores the world through a nine year old girls eyes – or in one instant a lack of them!  - thoughtful and thought provoking – see it while you can – Taylor can only be nine for a short time! http://www.bryonykimmings.com/tourdates.html