I am back at college after London and after my solitary writing residency in Morecambe for 5 days [bliss…].
In the meantime I have:
chosen the university: York. I have chosen York for many different reasons, but mainly because I need to leave, I need challenges, I need to be challenged, I need to meet and talk with different people, I need to see different places, and to be stimulated by different things. I am aware of the fears connected with leaving Blackburn as an academic establishment, I am aware of the financial difficulties and more than anything else I am aware of my gut feeling: I need to go, I need to leave. It feels like a breakup, but I have survived other breakups so be it.
written another 10,000 words in the book. It doesn’t flow as well as I hoped or as well as the beginning of the book, but there is structure, there is a frame I can build on, and I can see development. I have sent this rough draft to a friend of mine who in the very first evening read already 20% of the book and is very impressed!
I have applied to a writing residency at Leeds University and I did not get it. Having said that, the feedback that I got from Catriona McAra via email was very positive and the panel thought that my CV and experience were excellent. Whether this is true or something that they say to anyone, the important thing is that they took the time to reply.
I have applied to other Open Calls in the North re. Before Nothing and I am awaiting replies.
I have a long conversation on Sunday with Alex Zawadsky of DecoPublique who offered me Prism Contemporary Gallery at the end of April to do another experiment with Before Nothing [!!!]
I also had an in-depth tutorial with KS today about where I am with my practice, with my FMP, what is coming next, what am I thinking about making, etc. We discussed the progress made, including London and the results from that experiment in itself; I mentioned the barriers and difficulties and how I solved the problems; and then we focused on discussing what happens next and the plans I have for the next month – month and a half before the experiment at Prism. Among all the things I want to do and experiment, I have to remember to take down LEGACY since I do want to recycle part of the material for my FMP.
Also, I am interested in this wind-down time to develop a bit more the theoretical aspect of my practice, including critical context and evaluation of other’s work; I’m thinking about research > analysis > evaluation of the whole project and I think that this would be a good time to revisit the theoretical approaches I could use, the different contextual perspectives I could look at my practice in order to integrate theory, said practice and technological understanding and feasibility. At the moment I am thinking about focusing on Art as an Act of Expression and what is it that I am expressing.
For this same reason, I have sent an email to the tutor at York University who interviewed me [TR] and with whom I had some contextual conversation if there is any material I could read re. Critical Context which has been discussed in YR1 at university.