Tutorials are a bonus of taught programmes – you get the opportunity to talk about yourself and your work without worrying if you are too boring or self indulgent (hopefully neither, but probably both). However, I’d like my tutorials to have more direction and in a note to myself I’ll plan better just what I’d like to get out of them – it’s a luxury to be able to discuss the direction of my practice with a tutor and I’d like to make the most of it.
Feeling a little under pressure of the obligations of reading/assimilating/responding to a reading list for this week’s seminar reminded me of one of the reasons I have chose to return to higher education – for the academic nature of the course which I felt was lacking in the undergraduate (or rather not integrated). Starting back and delving into academic reading is a little daunting – but the return is well worth the effort. Spending time in meaningful discussion about relevant matters is how I’d envisioned the theoretical side to a taught course and as much as that is a challenge for me, it’s one I’m welcoming no matter how difficult it may at first appear. Thanks to a peer group willing to engage and work together in a collaborative learning environment, it looks to be a platform for discourse I’ve felt lacking.
Finding and adapting ones space has been another concern of the week – space is a touchy subject for the art student, it seems we always want more and there is never quite enough. I consider that I’ve always been pretty lucky in terms of allocated space and this year is no different – but my space so far is just a space, in need of something to mark it as my own…
