My reflective commentary this month looks at the differences between my study last year and this.

My work on this 3.2 project already feels different than when I was working on the 3.1 unit. I can break up this feeling to explain it more. My written work is shifting and seems as if it is deeper and more involved. I have been making a conscious effort to try and improve my essay writing so have been spending more time working on this in a different way to how I worked on my literature review. I hope that in the future, should I continue down academic path, that these skills will stand me in good stead. My creative work is continuing to develop although as I always said that as the work I was producing was a series of test pieces, it is perhaps no surprise to watch this continued progression. As a background to my essay writing and creative works, my research is, like my essay writing, more involved and deeper and perhaps more complex than it was. It is definitely less wide ranging and more focussed. I mentioned my creative test pieces. One part of this has been my external facing project which on many levels this has been a frustrating exercise to date. I have found difficulty putting into words what I wanted from this external work and found it very difficult to find external parties. I wasn’t sure if this because my project wasn’t appealing or was too emotionally charged or if because what I was asking of potential partners was too narrow and didn’t allow that artist any space for self-expression. In past month, I decided to replan my project, to change my approach and adjust my expectations. I would mark down my previous attempt to experience and as a false start. Instead of a narrow set of requirements which resulted in a narrow set of potential partners, I have broadened my approach and loosened what I expect from a partner and so have broadened my potential pool of partners. I now have a few different partners and directions I can take this external project. I think I will use those of most interest and might discard some for reasons of time. If I wanted to continue with my narrower approach, then I have no doubt that it could have worked, I just think it would have taken longer and might not have been delivered within timescales of this unit. It will be interesting to see what comes out of this collaboration.

The creation of my artwork, the feedback from peers and tutors, my research and my developing dissertation all seem to have slowly become more and more integrated with my practice. I would go further and say it is hard to distinguish these different elements and to deal with these things separately. My research provides understanding and new avenues for different or for deeper research and at the same time my knowledge increases which I use in my essay. In all of this I explore my research through my creativity trying to find ways to express and understand my own sense of grief and of death and memory all to gain a better understanding of the cultural significance of the sense of self and of the loss of that sense of self through disease and death and eventual loss of memory, of the social and medical impacts of traumatic grief and much much more. I am left with a series of questions; is a creative interpretation of death any less or more valid than a scientific or a religious interpretation? Does trying to find a solution or an answer ever end? Is my research of value? Will my research and practice continue to expand as my knowledge grows? Also, as I research continues and expands it becomes clearer how little I actually know.