inquiry task

'Vanitas: Flesh Dress For an Albino Anorectic' 

Jana Sterbak 1987

A recurring theme within my work has always been experimenting with materials and using them in an unconventional way. When studying costume design I experimented a lot with casting and using materials in different ways to create a desired effect on a garment.  This concept I have continued to investigate and propose that one of my lines of inquiry should look in to the materiality of a product. How does the viewer/user alter the way in which they interact with the product when its material make up is changed?  Does this alter the form and function of the artefact?  Other artists have tackled these questions; artists such as Jana Sterbak, she made a series of work referred to as her wearable pieces. In particular he piece entitled ‘Vanitas: Flesh Dress For and Albino Anorectic.’ She stitches together 60 pound of meat to create a dress. By using meat instead of fabric it changed the way that the viewer interacts with an item that they are already familiar with (a dress).  It also asks us to think about how women are objectified, they are thought of as ‘pieces of meat’ and how the fashion industry has encouraged us to believe that ‘you are what you wear’.  The piece, when exhibited is left to hang on a mannequin and rot alongside a photograph of Sterbak wearing fresh ‘flesh dresses.  As the piece rots it encouraged the viewer to think about their own mortality and the alienation of our own flesh throughout the ageing process. I wonder if Lady Gaga put this much thought into it when she wore her meat dress?

Lady Gaga at MTV music awards September 2010

Meret Oppenheim made a series of surrealist pieces whereby she took items that were at the time traditionally associated with feminine decorum and covered them with fur. In doing this she altered not only their function but their also their meaning; these easily recognisable objects were transformed into more sensual, sexual objects.

'Breakfast in Fur' Meret Oppenheim 1936

Another perspective that you could approach this investigation from (one that excites me equally as much as the previous one) is from a more fashion based angle. Designers have often experimented with unconventional materials to manipulate a garment’s form or functionality. Very often it is the case that runway shows and fashion week collections are created as a performance and the desired outcome is not always to display garments that can be mass produced and worn.  Two of my favourite designers who have worked in this way are Issey Miyake and Alexander McQueen. These designers often pushed the boundaries of fashion not only with their designs by how they executed their shows.

 Fashion for centuries has been a very important factor in our lives and something that we have extensively experimented with through style and material, encouraging this experimentation to alter the form of the garment, but how much has we allowed materials to alter our physical form?  This is something that I have briefly looked into and a topic that very much interests me and would like to investigate further.

In conclusion the main theme of this inquiry would be materials how we use and manipulated them to portray different messages, and how we allow them to alter and manipulate us.

 

A critical reflection on reflective practices

The Collins dictionary defines reflection as ‘to think, meditate or ponder’. For the purpose of this essay I will be using this definition. From this my understanding of the action of reflection as a period of time spent thinking about the particulars of an event with the intention of learning something from this action. Through out this critique I will only be looking at how we as practitioners reflect on our practice, the general practice I will be referring to is ‘the arts’.

The key concepts that will be focused on in this critique will be the different ways in which I use reflection as both an art educator and a practicing artist, and how reflection can help both students and professional to gain a better understanding of a subject. Using Kolb’s learning cycle as a guide what does my personal learning style say about the way in which one chooses to work? Does the way in which one feels comfortable learning have any impact on which field you work in or how you choose to work? Are Sir Ken Robinson’s and John Dewey’s theory that education should be allowed to grow organically correct and if it is not allowed to do this what could be the consequences?

Reflection is an ongoing process that we all engage in even if we are unaware that we are. A common thought that I picked up on when reading through other student’s blog posts was how many of them were unaware that they were already actively reflecting upon situations. Perhaps a more accurate analysis would be that they were reflecting upon situations but were not aware that these reflections are turned into knowledge; that they are learning through experience.  John Dewey describes reflective thought as:

        “Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed from of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusion to which it tends.” (Dewey 1933)

This idea could be used to explain something as mundane as looking at yourself in the mirror and recognising that your outfit doesn’t match. This is you reflecting on something you are wearing, because of this realisation you might act upon this reflection by changing one of the items of clothing.  This observation is then stored as knowledge to be recalled  as and when it is needed.

As an artist and an art educator I often use reflection to further improve my work and my understanding of the students and how they learn. Reflection helps us to stop seeing things as black or white, it encourages us to gain a deeper understanding of a particular subject by posing questions such as ‘was this successful?’ and ‘what could be improved?’   It is particularly important as an educator to try to identify the different ways that each pupil learns. David Kolb developed this cycle to try and explain the different ways in which people think:

(Kolb’s learning cycle, www.breo.beds.ac.uk/.../cre8/_413286_1/A_blank_page)

A firm understanding of this learning cycle will allow the educator to cater to a much wider variety of students. Kolb suggested that everybody will have a preference as to where they enter the cycle but will go through each stage of it.  Although studies have shown that many have preferred methods of learning which might not include all of the stages. Some people do not feel comfortable working in all of these ways and as of yet there is no evidence to suggest that you will not learn something as effectively if you do not use all of these stages. Peter Honey and Alan Mumford took Kolb’s learning cycle and adapted it, suggesting that there are four ways in which people work, the activist, the reflector, the theorist and the pragmatist. Any given individual may learn and work in a number of these ways. 

(Honey and Mumford’s learning cycle, www.ic.polyu.edu.hk/.../Learning_to_learn.htm)

In the reader entitled ‘Reflective Practices’ compiled by Adesola Akinleye she suggests that one of the key concepts being put forward on this course is that ‘a large part of professional practice is about finding your own reflective practices, and through doing that finding your own professional direction or ‘artistic vision.’’ (Akinleye, 2010)  As previously mentioned each individual reflects and subsequently learns in a different way. Does the way in which you learn in some way sculpt what you will be?  Do the majority of people who learn through active experimentation become people who work with their hands, or feet as the case may be, do the reflective observational learners take on careers where they can take time to think and be more calculated? In my opinion I don’t believe that this defines what you should do but definitely suggests a direction in which you should be looking.  In Sir Ken Robinson’s speech entitled ‘Schools kill creativity’ given to a TED conference in June 2006 he tell a story about a friend of his who as a child is thought to have a learning disability because she was unable to sit still in class, when taken to a doctor they learnt that ‘she isn’t sick she is a dancer.’ (Robinson 2006) This child, Gillian Lynn went on to become a very famous choreographer.  She like many other dancers ‘has to move to think.’ (Robinson 2006).

Personally I believe that I enter Kolb’s learning cycle at ‘active experimentation’ for the most part. I find that certain situations require me to adapt a different learning style but on the whole my preferred method for initially approaching a problem is by jumping in and starting to try things out, using a trial and error method, physically trying out ideas to see how it works. I find it is much easier to try and work out a problem if I can see or touch the different elements as they come together. I find it gives me a much better understanding of the subject. Take for example when I was at school doing my GCSE design technology coursework, our teacher was constantly reminding us that we had to show our thought process through the use of annotated drawings. Showing the stages we went through to get to our final designs. For me this was not an issue I had pages of sketches and drawing to show how I ended up with this conclusion because I feel comfortable using drawing to work problems out, whereas some of the other students did not work in this way and thus struggled to articulate their ideas through drawing. I don’t believe that because of my learning style it was inevitable that I was going to end up in the field that I am in, but I do think it guided me toward a path where a creative career was at the end of it.

As an artist I understand that it is vitally important to reflect on the social, political and economical climate. Within the major artistic movements in our history one if not all of these issues has been a huge factor and has massively influenced the works made by the artists involved in said movements. From my years of studying art it is my understanding that if an artist fails to do this they will be unable to effectively communicate the meaning of their piece. You cannot work in a vacuum. We constantly have to reflect upon our lives, our surroundings and allow ourselves to be influenced by other people and their work.

        As an educator reflection is also a key tool, John Dewey said that education is a ‘constant reorganisation, reconstruction and transformation of experience.’ (Dewey 1916) We have to take into account the dynamics of each class and adapt your teaching methods accordingly. By reflecting on how each group is engaging with the subject you will be in a better position to assess the group learning requirements. It is also important that the idea of applied learning is a concept that a lot of children don’t automatically think of.  As mentioned earlier in the essay when one has reflected on something it is stored as knowledge to be recalled as and when it is required. To extent children do this but from my experience of teaching children between the ages of 11 and 16 there is a definite perceived barrier between subjects. Unless they are encouraged to do so some children will not make the connection between, for example what they have learnt in history and what they are learning in art. We are currently teaching the art GCSE group about the pop art movement, without being led in the right direction they will not make the link between the social and economical influences that led to the emergence of the pop art movement and what they already know about this period from what they have learnt in history. As a result it is important to actively encourage children to draw on their ideas, concepts and knowledge that they have accrued from their previous learning. Trying to empress on them as much as possible that almost everything that has happened has been influenced by or is a result of something that has already happened. Then encourage them to find these links.

In February 2010 Sir Ken Robinson gave a talk entitled ‘bring on the learning revolution’ at the Technology, entertainment and design (TED) conference. In this speech he suggests that learning is a process that grows and adapts.

‘Life is not linear it is organic, we created our lives symbiotically as explore our talents in relation to the circumstances they help to create for us.’ (Robinson 2010)

He suggests that within education we should not be so focused on the end result be it getting a job or getting into university, he believes and I agree with him that university is not the right step for everyone to take. We should be looking at people’s talents more and guide and advise them with these strengths in mind rather then merely pushing them onto the next step. Robinson says that he believes that we need to have an overhaul of the educational system, that the curriculum is to strict and rather it should be moulded around each school’s individual needs. This is similar to a concept that Dewey had, he believed that education is a ‘continual reorganisation, reconstruction and transformation of experiences’ (Dewey 1916). I agree with this, we should not pile everyone into the same group, especially children, they all develop and learn at different rates, and like with so many other things their social and economical backgrounds must be taken into account. As previously mentioned, everybody has their own learning style and by forcing everybody to learn in the same way means that some will get more out of the experience than others. We should reflect upon all of these factors and allow those who are making these reflections to help tailor that school’s curriculum. Of course this will make standardised testing a lot harder but I believe that this would mean children will come out with a better, more rounded education and the quality of the education is far more important than statistics and results. Hopefully the introduction of the academy schools should help us move away from one uniformed learning system for all.

In conclusion my understanding of reflection is it is a key concept in learning, we use it to try and stop ourselves make the same mistakes twice or to try and recreate a positive outcome. It teaches us that everybody has a unique learning style and by reflecting upon these styles you will better understanding of a person and a situation. In light of this fact we should be modifying our educational system to try and accommodate these differences and not be so quick to assume that because a person might not be approaching a problem in the same way that you would expect them to, does not necessarily mean that their way is wrong. As an artist I understand the importance of reflecting on my surrounding and events in my life to further inform my work and as an educator I should take this understanding and encourage my students to use it as a tool to help their educational process.

Bibliography:

·       www.ic.polyu.edu.hk/.../Learning_to_learn.htm    

·        www.breo.beds.ac.uk/.../cre8/_413286_1/A_blank_page

·        http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html   

hthttp://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

·         Harper Collins, Collins concise dictionary Glasgow 4^th edition 1999

·         National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education Sir Ken Robinson May 1999

·         Adesola Akinleye Reflective practice course reader

·         Moon, J. Reflection in Learning and Professional Development.London: Kogan Page

·         Moon, J. Learning Journals: A Handbook for Academics, Students and Professional Development. London: Kogan Page

·        http://www.howardgardner.com/

·      http://www2.unca.edu/et/br022102.html

Journal Writing Experience

The day that I chose to write about occurred while I was at work, on this particular day I was working in the technology department (as I have mentioned before I share my time between the art and technology departments). Throughout the course of this day I thought I would be a good day to reflect on for my journal as I refer to this day as my first bad day at this school. I was an extremely busy day so I did not have the opportunity to put these reflections into words until the following day; something that I was later to learn would be very beneficial to me. I am going to try as much as possible to not give you any of the particulars as events that occurred that day involved existing students, in spite of this you will be able to understand what I have learnt from this exercise.

        I found this exercise very useful as it allowed me to break the day down and really analyse what was successful and what wasn’t. As I have mentioned before I am still relatively new to teaching and am still learning a lot, especially control and discipline. This is one of the biggest challenges I have encountered in this job. Mainly I think it is because I was not prepared for this level of insolence and disobedience as my only prior school experience was my own which was very different. I was lucky enough to attend a private school in Derbyshire where we had a healthy fear of our teachers. Also the fact that I am young and look a lot younger then I am, and I am short so by year nine most of them are taller than me; because of these factors I think that some of the students  don’t respect me as they do some of the larger male teachers. At this point I would just like to clarify that these students that I speak of are a small minority, the majority of them are very pleasant.

The first thing that I noticed about this exercise was how long it take to put in to words a series of events which only lasted a few minutes; but it allowed me to carefully think about what had happened and try to relive some of the moments. When writing about my initial reflections they were very slightly different from what I was think at the time, this is one of the cases where I was unable to write down my reflections at the time and had to wait until the following day. As mentioned above I think this was beneficial as at the time I was very angry and emotional and I don’t think I would have been able to reflect on the event objectively. It also allowed me to realise how worked up I was by the events.  I believe if I had written about it straight away I would have focused more on the particulars of the event, the behaviour of the students and my emotions towards it and less self critical. This exercise made me realise that one of the main things I need to work on is not to let what students say or do to me wind me up as this is the only reason they are doing it.

In this case I found that making a list of things that came to mind and things that happened was the least useful part of this exercise. I found that other methods of writing helped me to reflect on my day more effectively. In particular writing about the day from another person or an object’s perspective, in this case I chose one of the student’s who had been involved in the day’s events.  Again I thought it was more beneficial that I didn’t write this perspective straight away, I allowed myself to mull it over in my mind for a day or so, so that I could look at the situation objectively from the students point of view. I still drew the same conclusion, the child was showing off and being unnecessarily rude but it did help me to think about why some students feel it is necessary to get attention this way and it made me think about possible ways to try and diffuse the situation if a similar one arises again.

Another reason I chose this day to do this reflective writing experiment on was because in our school we have a behavioural monitoring system called ‘Iris’ which we use to record student’s behaviour both good and bad because this is something that parents can review if we enter something negative about a pupil we have to justify it by giving a brief description of the event. Whilst doing this I realised that I was majorly paraphrasing the events ad thought it might be useful for me to write it out in full if only to give myself a full description of what happened.  When writing from the perspective of the child I thought that this might be a good exercise to get them to do following an incident such as this. It would allow them to portray their side of the story privately without their peers influencing them and it would allow members of staff to see it from the child’s point of view thus giving us an insight into their behaviour and the reasons why they do some of the things that they do.  This is a suggestion I am going to make in our next departmental meeting.

In conclusion I have found this exercise extremely useful and insightful as it has helped me to highlight where I am going wrong. I managed to identify the specific aspects of the day that got me upset and annoyed and by identifying them hopefully if a similar event occurs in the future I will be able to handle the situation much more effectively.