The Beginning of Unit BA3a...

14/09/2015 - 20/09/2015

This was my enrolment week, and my first week as a student at Norwich University of the Arts as I am a direct entry student from a foundation degree course at a separate institution. The main tasks this week were enrolling and attending health and safety talks, as well as having a digital resources tour. Although my own work previously has been a lot of analog collage, I could see an exciting opportunity within the media and digital printing rooms to refresh my Photoshop skills and create some larger-sized printed digital collage/photo-montages as I progress through this year.

21/09/2015 - 27/09/2015

At the start of this week, I was introduced to the unit handbook for unit BA3a 'Research and Development', as well as general course information and my scheduled tutorials.

I have spent this week planning and prioritising my time management, through activities such as creating my own schedule of work (see below). My intention with this is to ensure that my workload progresses at a sufficient pace and I am very aware of my deadlines for each aspect of this unit. I have sectioned my research report and creative practice in order to ensure these continue to work alongside one another.

I have also began debating and deciding which aspects of my creative practice and research report will come together to form my statement of intent, which will ultimately give me my aims and objectives for this unit.

I am hoping that my schedule of work will help me to encapsulate all aspects of my creative practice, my professional studies and my personal development, as I hope to get on to a post-graduate teacher training course with a Primary Key Stage 1/2 specialism for September 2016. This week I attended a Suffolk and Norfolk Initial Teacher Training evening, and I discovered the different options available to me with this particular provider. I am eagerly awaiting the start of my work placement in a few weeks within my local primary school, as I feel this will be the real eye-opener for me to see how I want to learn next year and where I want to go.

Research Report

Following my weekly schedule, I got out one of the books suggested to help me with my research report within the unit brief, 'Writing and Presenting Research' by Angela Thody. Unfortunately, I have not yet had a chance to look through this properly, but it seems that it may really help me after my statement of intent is complete.
Over the past year I have been aware that in my final year of undergraduate study I would be required to write a dissertation or research report. I have been very sure from the start that I wish to write a 10,000 word research report, in order to prepare myself for post-graduate study, and therefore I had decided that my written piece would focus on the place of art and creativity within the national curriculum.
I began looking into the resources available for this type of research report, and found lots of very interesting online resources, such as Create, a journal of perspectives on the value of art and culture, as well as an article from the Times Educational Supplement, in which award winning film director Mike Leigh 'blasts totally illogical arts provision' within our public schools.
Following a discussion with my tutor earlier this week, I can't see clearly enough how an academic paper on the place of Art and Creativity within the national curriculum would benefit my creative Fine Art Practice this year, however, I have decided that if I keep the research I have already begun this may help me with my postgraduate study.
Fortunately for this unit, I did spend some time over the summer researching another topic area, which I feel would really boost my practical pieces. It all starts from a programme I watched a while ago on BBC2, where Professor Amanda Vickery discussed the banning of "needlework, artificial flowers, cut paper, or any such baubles" by the Royal Academy, when it was founded back in 1768-9. It made me question the place of analog paper-based art in the Fine Art world today, and I have been questioning topics such as accessibility, specifically if views have changed from then to now. I feel ready to thoroughly research this subject and create my full statement of intent.

Creative Practice

This week I have been getting some inspiration from artists' who have worked in a similar style, such as John Stezaker. I find that Existing Artists' research boosts my confidence in my own practice, and will assist me in creating my statement of intent.

I am planning on spending this unit experimenting with the compositions of my work, particularly using frames and framing to demonstrate juxtaposition.

As in my previous practice, I want to continue to create work which makes a social comment, and I have started to consider some pieces of media which have more recently evoked my own emotions, specifically news articles surrounding Syria's children in the current civil war (see left image). I can see my work acting as a piece of social commentary highlighting the cultural differences between children and their development.