End of Week 8- Final overview

 “Harvesting Fragment’s From Hulme”

I photographed balconies from the Social Housing in Hulme, to capture the difference in people living there. How they interpret their own environment and use the space around them. Even though they are a community, they use their personal space in a different way and make it their own. 

Reflecting on project outcomes and the unit as a whole

What have you learned in this unit about:-

-          The breadth of context of art and design practice (i.e. other creative disciplines and ways of working beyond your own)

-          Collaborative working

How well did you:-

-          Manage your time

-          Manage your project as a team

-          Communicate/present your ideas to others

-          Critically reflect on the outcome(s) of your project, how successful was it, did you achieve all you set out to do, if not why? How well did it express your ideas and communicate to an audience?

-          What were your team’s key successes during the unit? What would you do differently next time?

-          What personal strengths and weaknesses have you identified and what will you do about this in the future?

I have learnt from this unit to take other peoples skills on board when working together. We did not do this as a team and I think we should have been more involved with one another, learning new skills.

I believe I managed my time very well due to the fact that during this project we didn’t have a lot to do. Also by working by myself I could do my work as I pleased and quickly. At the start we had trouble settling on an idea that suited everyone. We then decided to work on our own individual projects under the same title so there was a link between our work. We made this decision because we thought it would be the best way to work and it wouldn’t cause problems. I personally believe I communicated what I was planning on doing well and everyone understood what my intentions were. Also I think in our presentation to another group we again communicated our idea well.

I think our project working within a group wasn’t too successful due to the fact that we ended up doing our own thing where as I would have liked to have worked together. So that I could experiment within different practices. I think our idea was successful and was still all linked, showing that we came up with the idea as a group. My work shows exactly what I wanted to capture, people living in the social housing having their own take on their environment around them and their personal space. Also how I presented my final images are arranged like the social housing buildings, different levels of flats with balconies.

Our team’s successes were that we saw a problem early, this being not being able to settle on one idea, and fixing that problem by going off on our own under the same title. We also communicated well within a group and kept the other members up to date on our progress. I think next time if I was working with another group, I would like to work all together as a group on one idea. This way you have the chance to experiment within different practices.

Strengths for myself are that when I know what I want to do I will crack on and get it done and brainstorm a lot of ideas. My weakness is probably that it takes me a while to decide on an idea that I want to progress in, next time I will research more and gain more inspiration right at the start. 

End Of Week 6

Reflecting on the project so far

-          How well have you developed your ideas so far (individually and as a team)? What practical testing have you done? What impact has this had on the development of the project?

-          How well have you worked as a team so far? (Reflect on the positive aspects of your collaboration, but also comment on areas for improvement)

-          How well did you communicate your project at the mid-point reviews? What feedback did you receive from your audience? What has your team done in response to that feedback?

-          What are the team’s ambitions for the work and how are you going to achieve them? (How are you going to conclude your project? What still needs to happen in the time remaining? What are your responsibilities within the team in the time left?)

I have developed my ideas further with myself photographing the social housing. I have gone out and taken more photographs of the balconies to see if I could find anymore wonders.

I think we have worked well. We have met up and discussed ideas but we decided to work individually so we wern’t working as a team, due to not settling on one idea that suited us all. I think we should have spent more time together and gaining knowledge and use of each other’s skills.

We all communicated our own ideas to the other group individually and summed up the title we were working within. We were told to work more as a group and make it all fit with one another’s.

We all need to decide on our space for our exhibition and plan how we are going to present out work. 

End of Week 4

Identifying team roles and project proposals

-          What happened during the ‘Team Roles’ exercises? What did you discover about yourself and your team members? What role have you adopted within your team and why?

-          What were your initial project thoughts? Which aspects of your Hulme research has the team decided to respond to, and why? What project proposal(s) have you come up with?

-          How are you responding creatively to your research findings? What are you doing practically in relation to your starting points? What action plans have you formulated as a team? What do you plan to do next?

We haven’t actually given eachother roles within the group. We have just decided on us all doing our own thing under the same title, ‘Harvesting Fragment’s from Hulme’. So we are looking at different areas within Hulme and collecting information about our chosen spots. We went round in circles at the start trying to decide on an idea, but we couldn’t settle on one idea to work on together, so this is why we are doing our own areas. With this we are gathering information from different time periods and reinterpret the information in our won way through sound, images and objects. For my own work I am photographing the social housing. To see the difference in people living in the social housing, how they interpret their own environment and use the space around them. Even though they are a community they use their personal space in a different way, some more exciting than others.

I have found out from visiting the social housing and finding information about them, that there is a community and a mix of cultures and people, such as Punks, Rasta’s and Hippies. So I am trying to capture the balconies to see if there are hints of the cultures coming out. Plans of action we have devised are that we work separately on our own in our chosen areas, then bring them all together at the end as a group of work, not just one final piece. Next I plan to edit my images captured and look more into the social housing. 

After Week 2

What have you discovered so far?

-          What do you think are the opportunities of the project and working collaboratively? (If you don’t feel motivated about the project yet what do you propose to do about it?)

-          What have been your most exciting research discoveries and why?

-          How are you working as a team? (Have you met regularly and kept in contact? Have you covered a wide variety of research activities between you? Have you fed back to your team about your findings? Have you started to make decisions in your group about further research you wish to undertake?...)

-          Have you started to discuss potential direction as a team, if so what is it and why? If not, what do you think you need to do about this? As a team do you need to conduct more research, generate more ideas and starting points? Undertake further contextual/practitioner research? Have further discussion about your interests and ways of working?...

I think this project gives the students a great opportunity to gain a new relationship with Hulme. The university plays a big part in their community and especially with the new campus being built. It gives me the opportunity to learn more about Hulme and its history and culture. Working within a team with different practices gives me a chance to learn new skills and improve working within a group. These will what I will need in later life and this is preparing me for that. I am looking forward to working with Film Making because Photography is quite similar in the sense of capturing an image and I have always wanted to work with film.

My most exciting discovery so far is the Crescents. I didn’t even realise they were there until our talks. All the history behind them such as they were used for parties after residents had left, based on the crescents in Bath, Somerset, were only standing for about 30years. Probably the main focus of the crescents that appeals to me is the mix of people you taking them over, Punks, Hippies, Students etc. I love hearing storied about what went on and the different cultures. Here is a link to my research blog for this project : http://sorrelunitx.blogspot.co.uk/ . It is where I put my research and ideas and also development work.  

I believe we are working well as a team. A girl from 3D design was finding it hard to connect with our ideas the rest of us had because she enjoys crafting and making, where we wanted to focus on making a film and documenting. We have now decided to bring all our different ideas and interests together and possibly make a film at the end. Such as the girl from 3D is interested in the history of Hulme, then the boys are interested in the music scene and present day in Hulme. We have a Facebook group where we can share ideas and links and organise meet ups. We all also have each others numbers as another source of contact. We have all been going to different talks and events and feeding back to the group after to maybe spark off more ideas. This is a good way of getting involved in everything and gaining as much information as we can.

We want to as a team go off in our own directions and interests and then bring them all together because we had some difficulty settling on one idea and area. I think this is a good plan because then no one is doing something they don’t want to do and then we can present all our own interpretations on Hulme. This way we show different aspects of Hulme that we have all discovered.