I started to review my progress against learning outcomes earlier in second half of this unit and so will continue this so as to map progress from now until end of unit.

Photography 3.1: Practice and Research (PH6PAR) Learning Outcomes

LO1 – Examine your emerging practice through a considered body of self-directed work

Last month I stated that my research, written works and creative test pieces were developing in pace with my emerging practice. I said that my work wasn’t polished at this stage.

This was a very general starting point to how I consider my work, my learning and my development as a researcher and as an artist. It lacked any sense of anything detailed or personal.

Before I started on this 3.1 unit, I had a progression meeting where I outlined my thoughts on my photography and a specific idea I had for a project. At that point in time, I had a vague idea of the creation of a series of works based somehow around the medical scan. I had little concept of how research would shape my choices and interests.

My early research has led me from the medical scan to how doctors do their job when surrounded by death to the abstraction of death imagery and of thinking of what places of death are for other than as places to store or dispose of and to memorialise the dead. These spaces are for the living. Memory and memorials and the photographic image are all for the living. The dead are gone and only the living can celebrate and recall. I used these insights and knowledge to produce a series of test pieces and started to explore the idea of graveyards as places of a type of performance. At same time as I was working on these aspects of my project, my emotional response to this subject seemed to become clearer to me and I had new understanding of the death of my daughter and of my mother.

How is my practice starting to emerge from this? My process and interests are starting to deepen and to coalesce into firmer concepts and into more concrete creative ideas. At same time, I can see that scope in the future for my practice revolving and revisiting my original concept of the medical scan and of other projects surrounding death, grief, loss, memory and the photographic image.

LO2 – Apply relevant research methods and subject knowledge to test, inform, and develop your work.

Once again, my comment on learning outcome 2 was fairly generic last month and I stated that my research was leading me rather than me trying to force a direction.

This month, I will try and be more specific on my research journey.

I have researched and read extensively for this unit. In fact, I have read much more than I ever imagined I would as I thought the creative work on course would have been more dominant. I started by looking at the medical side of death, looking at brain activity in those close to death and idea of our lives flashing in front of our eyes. I also looked at photographers who specialise in taking pictures of those close to death. Allied with reading work of Barthes, I started to consider death as seen by the living and that we can never bring the dead back to life. I looked at how the photograph can shape and change memory. I did some research on death symbolism and on boxes and the fragmentation of memory. Specific to my own experiences I then looked at an area that was very close to my own sense of grief and why we might consider the death of a child differently from the death of an adult.

LO3 – Present informed connections between your research and practice interests.

Last month I mentioned that I felt there was a gap or mismatch between my research and practice interests.

The connections I perceive at this time between my research interests and my creative test pieces is something that is continuing to develop. I have refined some of my creative test pieces and focussed my energies on some specific examples such as the use of mirrors and shadows alongside graves and of the used of found photography from old photograph albums used next to memorial benches. Depending on how this work progresses, I might add to these ideas some typographical work around performative death or x-ray images of plants and flowers. These creative ideas or trials come from work researching the ideas of Geoffrey Batchen and thoughts of memorials and metonymy and of Martha Langford on the photograph album although each piece of research builds on previous research so it seems unfair of me to mention just 2 authors.  Based on research of Barthes, Batchen, Langford and others, I looked into what happens with forgotten deaths and invisible deaths, worn gravestones and unmarked graves. I was intrigued by this idea and started to experiment with creative test works to explore how the dead are memorialised and how I could give those who might have been forgotten or airbrushed from history a new story.

I started to think about presentation of some of my ideas but at such an early stage of level 3 study this was perhaps premature of me.

LO4 – Articulate your creative ideas and critical thinking using suitable communication methods.

Last month I commented that I was comfortable with articulating areas of interest, ideas that interest me from my research and creative works and with interpreting my creative impulses. As I said, I have made more of a conscious effort to write about my creative choices. More detailed methods of articulating such thoughts likely to be made in form of a video presentation which I will prepare before the end of this unit.

I have wondered about how I might present my final written and creative works. It feels early to have firm ideas on this. I always assumed my work likely to form an exhibition but at same time I have worried in my studies about emotional impact of my work on my audience so that is one consideration for me. Am aware that some of hospitals near to be have exhibition space by my subject matter might be literally too ‘close to the bone’ for a hospital. Producing a book might be another possibility.

As regards how I present my work to the assessment panel, I am leaning towards a video presentation which gives a chance to get over more of the personality of myself with nuanced meanings that can be hard to capture in a dry written description.