Integrative Studio & Seminar end-of-course reflection
What connections can you make between your final project and the rest of your work this semester?
There are no direct connections in terms of the content of the studio projects, but I think they showed my increased interest toward fashion design. From my second sets of collages that I connected to Francis Picabia, I tried to make the collages that were based on the structure of Picabia’s specific artworks but looked like the images from fashion magazine rather than artworks. The idea for final project is definitely related to fashion, but somewhat different from what I would do in next three years since all I made were useless and unwearable objects. As an undeclared student, my first year was full of vagueness and confusion. During this semester I finally decided what I want to do, and that process is directly or indirectly shown in the projects I made this semester.
How did the research you did in seminar affect your choices in studio?
Although I did not fully mention in my paper, I skimmed through a lot of modern artists who made artworks that were satirical and criticizing certain social phenomenon. Since what I was doing for the studio was closer to modern art than any other genre of art, researching the renowned artists who did similar works with me gave me a lot of inspiration, especially Marcel Duchamp whom I concentrated in my research paper. However, researches I did that were only related to life of Marcel Duchamp did not give any significant change or improvement to my project. It rather taught me interesting information that I would like to know.
How did research with materials and making affect your final piece?
Since I planned not to use any money from the first place, there were limitations in materials that I used, and researching with materials did not help me a lot since there was no guarantee that I would be able to find that material in the trash. What I did instead was deciding the material from the first place, and then trying to scavenge for the most similar material to that. Luckily, I planned to look for a thick wire to make a frame for a sunglass, but I found a broken sunglass itself at the basement of my dormitory which made it a lot easier. For the lens of the sunglasses, I initially planned to just cover the sunglass entirely with glitter but I found the moss so used that instead. Although there was no research done for the materials, this process was actually very helpful and fun to do.
How is this project related to work in other classes?
This project did not have any visible relation to other classes. One small part that may be related is that I used only wastes to finish my final project, and that I was taught several times during Sustainable Systems class about the importance of reusing the waste. Although the primary reason for me to do that was to cut my personal budget, I did notice how much waste that are reusable are being thrown away without any recycling.
What was the turning point for this work? What made the idea come together?
When I first chose the topic for studio project, I chose to make fashion items only because I recently declared my major as fashion design and I thought it would be good to try at least one fashion related project in my freshmen year. Initially I got the inspiration from a tin pencil case that could fit only 3 pencils – which have close to 0 relationship with fashion. When I went out on a picnic to Chelsea area during studio class, I had to unintentionally experience my project with my own body by wearing a Miumiu sandal that hurt so much so that I couldn’t walk. That day made me change the entire design of the shoes (from heels to a sandal) and actually realize that the tendency of design that I wanted to criticize also exists in the field of fashion design.
Is there anything you wish you’d done differently?
If I were able to find enough thrown away bobby pins, I would have definitely made a clutch that is covered with bobby pins. This was one of my initial idea, and I still think it would look very good, but I couldn’t find enough bobby pins to cover a surface area of a clutch. For seminar paper, I wish I could have put more effort in revising. I was absent in one of the peer critics class so missed the feedback, and I think it would have been very helpful to get the advices from classmates since the first peer critic did helped me a lot.
If there were a next iteration of this project, what would it be?
I only made three fashion items that fit to this topic, so there could be so much more that I could do in a next iteration of this project. I could create a clutch, as I mentioned, pants, shirts, hat, helmet, bracelet, accessories and anything else. For the researching part I think I could do research on artists other than Marcel Duchamp who did similar works to mine, like Méret Oppenheim who made a coffee cup covered with fur.
Can you see themes and working methods emerging through your work?
For the final, definitely. All three items I made were all based on same topic, and they all look so useless. Working methods were similar with all three objects to – I scavenged for materials that might fit my plan, sorted them to choose which would be the best, and then just put them together.
What did you enjoy most about doing this project (can be about studio or seminar or both)?
This might sound a little bit weird, but I enjoyed writing the research paper in seminar class although it was definitely the hardest thing I did in this semester. This was my second research paper (first one longer than 5 pages) that I wrote in English, and there were so many unfamiliar things like footnotes, annotated bibliography, quoting and so on. I had to spend a lot of time each day to write just a paragraph that was even full with grammatical errors, but looking back the semester after I finished it, I think it was the assignment that I learned the most from.
From studio, I enjoyed playing with materials that I have no experience of, especially broken water bottles and moss. They were not handled that easily, but it was very fun to use the materials that I haven’t thought of as materials for artwork before.
How has your definition of the term “visual culture” evolved over the course of the semester?
Before starting the semester when I just enrolled for visual culture classes, I just thought of galleries and artworks and a community formed within them. During last week’s seminar class, we read the manifestos which were also part of visual culture. For some reason I did not have huge interest in communication design and did not perceive posters or any writings I saw in daily life as ‘visual culture’, but that idea changed a lot after taking the two classes. Visual culture is literally everything around us.