JANE PICKERSGILL
Engine Chat Chat - Pop Up Common Room 22nd – 28th March 2018
Engine Chat Chat was held over 4 evenings during two weeks of the Easter break. It provides peer feedback sessions; and is led by Elizabeth Murton; alumni of Goldsmith's UCL, and facilitated by Camilla Brueton of UAL.
Participants included fellow post grad students, UAL alumni and an artist who had been in residence at Griffin Gallery, the host venue.
In the introductory session each of the 8 participating artists gave a 5-minute ‘mini-me’ presentation about their practice. This session also included discussions about how to give positive feedback, a talk about the host studios and gallery, and a tour of the two exhibitions in the space.
Subsequent evenings involved all the artists making a 10-minute PowerPoint presentation with the option to bring actual work in to the gallery in addition to showing digital images. Each artist was allocated 30 minutes total in which to show images and have their practice discussed by remaining members of the group.
Approaches to the slide show varied:
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One alumni showed a ten-minute film asking us to free associate whilst watching it and feedback comments only after it ended.
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Another read from influential and inspirational literature whilst showing images.
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Some showed a range of chronological works to illustrate how their practice had come to its current stage.
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One simply showed her latest project and asked for feedback on it as a work in progress.
Questions raised included:
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In being wedded to one process, or material am I boxing myself in or am I making an in-depth investigation?
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Is my work just about struggling to make – is the process more important than what is produced?
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Is there a continuous line in my practice, and if not, is there a problem with it?
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Is art a platform for a new discourse on controversial issues eg. destruction of the environment?
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Is my work about process, am I pulling apart the process of drawing?
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Is process more important than the finished piece?
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How do I tie together different strands or ideas in my practice?
At the end of each evening Elizabeth briefly gave a summary of each artists practice gleaned from the presentations, which included some of the feedback comments.
Elizabeth encouraged us to think about our ‘intent’ with the work we were making.
In my presentation, the questions I raised included:
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What makes a landscape?
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Does this image convey a sense of the sublime?
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Are shadows positive or negative space?
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What is the meaning of 'to project'?
Feedback received :
The photographs could be turned back into drawings?
With regards to my degree show, and photos of installations, one of the suggestions was to show a sequence on a wall with perhaps a large-scale structure/sculpture on the floor beside them with an angled light to produce a shadow? Viewers would also interact with it by way of their shadows.
Is the work meant to be overtly political or is it simply about the exploration of shape/shadows/space?
Am I really interested in the architecture or is it just a starting point from which I am already moving away?
When I talked about the skyline (of city churches) they did not differ so much from our current city skyscrapers. Both are about power; the power of state and church is today superseded by the power of commerce and capitalism.
Do I want to create something beautiful or am I more interested in making political points, can the two be combined?
We talk about shadows as depriving us of something? Is that a negative? Are we being deprived of light – are shadows aggressive?
I might want to consider exterior corners as much as interior ones, and the various aspects of what is thought of as exterior or interior?
It was suggested that I take look at
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Josef Albers drawings, particularly the 'graphic tectonic' series
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Daniel Liebeskind’s sketches
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Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal by Colin Rowe & Robert Slutzky
