Speaker: Michele Whiting
Hosted By: OCA EU Group
Format: Zoom
Jan 21, 2023
Notes
What do we mean by contextualization?
- We don’t make work in a void. We’re reacting to world events, local events, personal events.
- Speaker’s recent work is concerned with walking.
- Experiencing the landscape from within the landscape.
- Based on long duration walking
- no recordings. Long duration.
- Paint/Draw impressions on return
- What is the context of walking? Affect Theory
- Speaker’s process is reflecting on the emotional and physical
- Informed by, impacted by their research process around space, feminism
- Realizing the position of women in the environment
- “My body as the site of memory”
- “Using the body as a site of restitution”
- The process is fundamental, the outcome just kind of happens.
- “Artist references are lower priority”
- Not ignoring other makers, but rather motivated by events.
- “Dona Haraway: Why should our bodies stop at our skin“
- space place practice
Activity
- By starting with description, we can identify areas of context to pursue and understand.
- Begin by narrating what you see in the work, not what you intend.
Reflection
- The lecture/discussion around the Speaker’s process was very interesting. I’m going to have to spend some time thinking about what was being conveyed. The why that the speaker creates from. How does this relate to my own? what is it that I’m trying to communicate? what am I concerned with?
- The descriptive exercise was interesting. By listening to my break-out room partner visually describe her work, I got the impression that it was concerned with travel: street signs, architecture, advertisements and lost-cat poster.
- The final part of the session was concerned with three of the breakout teams presenting their discussions. I’m still processing this component — though I was too focused on the conversation to take any notes. It did, however, reinforce how physical description can lead into understanding/identifying themes and context.