The course started off with all of us talking about ourselves. We wrote down 30 things that defined us on sheets of paper, made paper planes out them and flew them around class. Then we chose one and illustrated the different aspects to the person. It was quite fun and we got to know quite a lot about the person. I wouldn't say this helped us understand them completely, but we knew a little more about them.
Later on we picked a medium we were comfortable with. We were now supposed to create a piece that would show our explorations, possibly going beyond our limits.
I chose writing as my medium, though I was thinking of choosing illustration, and wrote 'Tale from a Town'.
The writers were supposed to do something that was post-structural and on researching I found out that post-structural pieces of work were 'pro-reader'. It meant that the meaning the author intended was secondary to what the reader would have perceived from the piece.
Thus a reader could extend, interpret, even give a new meaning to the writing.
I realised this was quite challenging. It's not exactly easy to create a piece of writing that allows multiple, possibly contradictory, interpretations.
I'm not sure if I've done this unconsciously though. But I did not intend the writing to be post-structuralist.
The weeks after that were spent discussing socio-environmental issues. We were to put up an exhibition, 3 of them, on those issues. Our first exhibition, we decided was going to be on theme of 'Individuality vs Utopia'. Individuality as in the person we each as individuals want to be, being able to do, believe, practice whatever we want. Utopia would be the common ideologies of the public, usually orthodox and against the 'minorities' in the society, though they (the minority) are more in number.
It turned out to be the only exhibition we put up. We had discussions with two other facilitators, one about social issues, the other about environmental issues. What we needed was, lets say, a look at the other side of the coin. Having expanded our view on things, we were to take a stand on the topic.
The process behind putting up the exhibition itself was a learning. We learnt:
Space Design - where and how the art pieces would go, how the positioning would affect the movement of the crowd in the N3 basement (where it was being held).
Curatorial Note Writing - a write-up on the exhibition, the issue we were dealing with and the various types of work being put up, apparently very crucial for the exhibition in the sense that it was the basis for filtering received art pieces.
Making Posters and Flyers - classic example of VCD, the optimum font size, colours, size of objects and position of all the elements on the paper.
Making a Website - classic example of Graphic Design, again pretty similar to making the posters, we had to consider the size and colour of fonts, pictures, backgrounds, and the general positioning of all the elements on the webpage.
I'll admit it was quite tiresome, trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. With the talks by various people, we just got even more confused. But at the end of the day we managed to pull everything together and put up a pretty good exhibit of the work we'd received and given in ourselves.
I wrote three more pieces (other than Tale from a Town), two poems (Outcast, Shields) and one story (Knotted Infinitely), and put it together in the form of a book. I've put up the pieces on this blog just below.
It's been a pretty cool course. Quite informative on how hectic organising art exhibitions can be. But it's something I wouldn't mind trying again.
