Critique Session, Tuesday 8th March, with Prof. S. Swindells.

The critique sessions are an opportunity to show the current work and theme that I have been pursuing since embarking on the third year of this project. It is an arena to provide feedback for current thoughts and practice.

There were six other viewers in the critique session, comprised of three tutors and three other students.

The idea of the maquette seems to work quite well, in that it is searching a difficult subject.

The outcome of the session was recorded as follows, with an aggregate graph of the viewers responses as shown below;

Questions and points raised by the Critique panel were;

• Where does the 'search' start?
• Where 'do the dead' go?
• This whole area has an inherent difficulty in presenting it. 
• What can art do in order to rationalise this in some way? 
• The literalization of this whole topic may, in fact, be an obstacle in itself.

Dr Alison Rowley suggested looking at the work of Mary Kelly, she uses lint and explores the idea of 'the little boy lost'.
- the oddness of a mask. Dr Rowley confirmed that she loved the maquette, there is an inference to the Greek artefact, but also domestic monumentality and an engagement with the weird.

Prof Swindells suggested looking at a number of older art themes, interestingly the name Tony Hart came up which I felt was of particular insight by Prof Swindell. He also recommended I looked at the work of Fischli and Weiss (Peter Fischli & David Weiss), and their "low-tech" sculpture.

Another artist to look at may be Phyllida Barlow. She conducted a children's commission at the Whitechapel Gallery where she made chalk objects into sculpture.

Conclusions;

• The Title seems to be weak.
•  Layout and Presentation also needs to be re-considered.
•  I should think about that area particularly and modify it. Overall though, I think the critique went well and my scores seem to back this up...