Unit 5: What remains?

Strongest memory from U5 – a moment from class that remains in your mind?

• The in-person design sessions we had during the residential: it was so powerful to see how differently we instinctively visualised something and to push ourselves to do this differently. Learning to use visualisation to process/explore/develop my own understanding, and to communicate something to others via a different plane to just words has been game-changing. 

What readings/materials had the biggest impact on you, do you remember best and why? (Either from the course reading or that you found yourself prompted by the course)

• Zadie Smith writing about fiction and cultural appropriation in her essay ‘‘Fascinated to Presume: In Defense of Fiction’, The New York Review of Book. It felt like Smith was getting to the heart of what I was struggling with around the value of fiction. 
• Joseph Shaules ‘The Intercultural Mind’ – I read this book during this unit and it really chimed with my experience of adapting to foreign environments and intercultural communication. 

Were there any moments that ‘caught’, where you felt friction, felt personally challenged or like you learnt something, grew or changed?

• As I reflected on this blog, I felt deeply personally challenged by the portfolio of experimentation, particularly when it came to sharing experiments that I felt had produced poor-quality work. This led me to reflect on the value of experimentation, particularly when the desired outcome isn’t entirely clear. 

Has anything happened outside of the course that wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t enrolled in MAIP?

• My experiments with translation have led to me using short stories as a route into learning Spanish. I’ve been joining short story discussion groups.
• Focusing on my writing practice – prioritising it – also led to conversations that were more honest about my ambitions in this area, which have been useful in terms of building a support network around my work. 

What skills or knowledge do you feel you’ve developed this term?

• Both tasks have given me space to work on my design skills, which I’ve really enjoyed. As previously said, developing techniques around diagramming and visualising has been really helpful. 
• Possibly more than the writing skills that I set out to develop in my portfolio of experimentation, I think it’s taught me methods for integrating practice and experimentation into my daily life, making a habit of it, and of shifting my attitudes towards this. It was also useful to articulate some of the central tensions at the heart of my practice and acknowledge them as paradoxes to manage, not problems to solve. 

What lessons have you learned from your peers this term?

• I feel we lacked chances for exchange and feedback this term; work felt a bit more siloed in this unit. But I was struck by the playfulness and lightheartedness with which Khloe approached her experimentation, and by Milana’s methodical approach. I’ve also really enjoyed seeing people’s aesthetics develop in the way they’re presenting their work. The way Makha uses mixed media and drawings is really inspiring.