seminar given to OCA Final Art Students

2. building a reference point(s)
what do you like about making work?
why do you make work?
what do you want from your work?
what’s your work for?

3. building a reference point(s)
what is your work about?
where does the work go?
who is your audience?

4. building connections
art history
music
dance
writing
general/local/national/global history
geography/place
contemporary practice
science

7. your making - contextual framework
social
personal
political
critical/ theoretical
historical
geographical
institutional
cultural

8. geographical

9. social context
Making and seeing an image always
takes place in a social context. The
way it is seen and how it is seen are
culturally constructed.
Audience for work - who is
included/excluded/implicated on the
ways an image is produced, circulated
and consumed

10. political context
Specific political issue
broad political issue
gender - race - ethnicity - sexual
orientation - class - disability - religion

11. personal context
Biography - narrative of the self
particular issues - memories
What motivates/ drives you?
Your particular skills as an artist/
designer/writer/photographer
What strategies do you use when the
work is not going well?
How do you relate to the forces that in
part condition what you know and in
which you make things?

12. critical/theoretical context
Does your work relate to particular
critical debates about contemporary art
and design practices?
Is your work informed by/engaging
with/contesting particular theoretical
frameworks/issues?

13. historical context
Understand how/whether your practice
relates to a tradition, with a history
How knowledge relates to periods in
time.

14. geographical context
Local, regional, national, international,
global.
Where do you make your work?
Do you make your work in relation to a
particular place?
studio home church city rural cyberspace

15. institutional context
MA Course - school of design
Your educational background/experience
Your professional
background/experience
Your family background/experience

16. cultural context
In it’s broadest sense - ‘a whole way of
life’ - this relates to all the other
categories.
More specifically, what works of artists,
designers, writers, filmmakers,
photographers, musicians are important
to you and your work - why?

17. mapping your practice
Any other contexts worth considering?
Importance
Overlapping
change - evolution of practice

18. geographical

19. If you don’t know
where you’re going,
how do you know
when you get there?

20. If you don’t know
where you’re going,
then it is best to
surround a problem in
order to solve it.

21. If you don’t know
where you’re going,
then any road will get
you there.

22. Martin Creed: Work No. 202: Half the air in a given space.

23. Louise Bourgeois, The Insomnia Drawings.

24. Creed
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tateshotsmartin-creed-tate-st-ives
Bourgeois
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiOHA0INiqA

26. A
B

27. A

28. B
A

29. B
B
B
A
B

30. building a research
project

31. making-thinking
define
research
ideation
prototype
choose
implement
learn
ideation (idea generation) – is the
process of creating new ideas.

32. stage 1
• finding the need
• begin to wonder – what if...
• could this be better – personal
dissatisfaction
• recognising gaps – professional stimulus
• raising questions
• strengths and weaknesses

33. stage 2
• the identification of a ‘hunch’ – leading to an
identifiable question
• so what....the wider significance - why is
your research needed?
• how are you going to develop an
appropriate methodology? gathering,
generating relevant
• what do you hope to gain by undertaking
research?

34. stage 3
• Initial search for information that supports
your hunch
• Initial feedback – peers

35. stage 4
• No apparent external rationale – could
the work be too indulgent/idiosyncratic
for a research project

36. stage 5
• Refocusing the initial proposal based on
your discoveries so far

37. stage 6
• Mapping the terrain
• Surveying the context – to increase
understanding
• Selecting what is relevant – evaluating
critically
• Identifying gaps

38. Stage 7
• Identifying a question
• Using this to develop a plan
• Aim, objectives, rationale, methodology,
projected outcomes and outputs
• Ethics?

39. stage 8
•
•
•
•
•
•
So far
Planned the journey
Mapped the terrain
Located your position
Now – crossing the terrain
Modes of transport – methodology and
methods

40. stage 9
• Interpreting the map
• Evaluate – what is valuable, relevant,
significant?

41. stage 10
• Conclusion - so what?
• Critical evaluation – making visible
• Identification of future research

43. to conclude - research should
Be required and relevant – clear – an external,
professional and personal rationale – a need
Be intentional – envisioned, proposed, prepared
for, strategic, planned, focused
Be disciplined – rigorous, critical, ordered – it is
a structured investigation
Develop a research approach – initiation,
context, methods, making findings visible
Be revelatory – contributing new /alternative
perspectives and insights
Be public – open to public and future use