Oxford Brookes

An Interview with Claire Ringrose:

How is preparation for the degree show going?

So far I’ve found a couple of sponsors and helped with several bake sales at university. I’m mainly involved in fundraising and finding sponsorship for the show.

What are you currently working on?

The concept for my work is a mixture of mythology, anthropology, prehistory and fantasy. At the moment I’ve got a series of immersive photographs, all of objects within or on the surface of water, which are highly ambiguous and perhaps even unsettling. These photographs take us to a state of mind, hopefully bridging a link to our primal selves.

I’m researching into displaying these photographs to fit the ideas of the project and the objects that go with them. My starting point was imagining objects cast off from the river, and the objects, these tools I’ve made, remind me of figures, members of an imagined community living alongside the river.

I will be making more objects, just to see what comes up. I’m still trying to figure out whether to take an artisan or bricoleur approach to the objects.

What are you thinking about presenting in the final show?

I’m working on producing an installation, using wall and floor, and both the photographs and the objects.

I want the objects to be leaning against the wall, which implies a latency, an action waiting to happen, objects that perhaps have the power to be used in some kind of ritual. I also might include a vitrine of smaller objects.

What problems have you encountered in the working process?

Well I’ve been examining my work really closely, why I am doing what. I want to be unencumbered by debates on form and surface, it’s just not an issue in the way I want to work. I trust my own eye and hand, I want the work to be driven by instinct rather than theory or aesthetics.

An interview with Alex Hackett, speaking to Bette Wood.

Hello Alex!

What is your role in the organisation of the degree show?

I am part of the publicity team, in preparation for the show I’ve been setting up social media profiles for BA³ to connect as many people as possible to the show. Also, I contacted artist Tamarin Norwood recently and she has kindly agreed to be our guest speaker at the show’s opening.

And what are you working on in your practice?

There are three themes in my work – the body, the landscape and food. Their relationships to each other interest me, and I’m looking at how they are interlinked. Bodily experience of a landscape, sensations of food and how food can be linked to a landscape, a certain place. The body as a place; I take images of the body to create imaginary landscapes, record experiences of the body in real landscapes.

What does the near future hold?

My final work doesn’t have a shape yet. I am looking for a way to bring my own body’s experience of food and landscape to the audience. Working with large scale drawings, and text, combining mediums. Food will perhaps be involved.

Lastly, what have you found challenging leading up to producing your final piece?

Excluding work. Choosing how to represent an entire body of work, a whole practice in one ‘thing’. Also, I’ve found myself stuck in the studio a lot and am working on overcoming that – getting out and exploring the less restrictive areas of my practice.

For the past few weeks we on the publicity team have been busy establishing a network of social media strands that will hopefully give an insight into the preparation process of putting on the degree show, and as a result encourage many to visit the final exhibition in May.

Despite being three Twitter-phobes and none of us owning a smartphone, we’re gradually getting to grips with our brand new Twitter account, and have enlisted help from a fellow student who’s happy to post the ups and downs of their busy studio practice.

As well as our contributions to the a-n blog here, where we continue to post interviews of our fellow students about their individual progress with degree show work, we’ve also established a visual blog for images of work in progress and studio shots. It might not quite be Damien Hirst’s studio webcam, but we hope it will give an inside view and taster of work to come – a virtual version of the almost obsolete studio visit.

We’ll keep you updated!

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