And we are back. Or, better: I am back.
So: what is this? I want or plan to use this blogging as a form of reflecting on my process of learning and navigating through this full-time full-on year doing my MA by Research. I am interested in seeing where this is going to take me and I am trying as much as possible not to have pre-concepts on what I want this to be, and what the course is going to be. It will be reflective but also a dumping ground of data, links, or anything else I might deem necessary. Whether then I will be using this material in my final thesis: I am not sure.
There are a lot of things that I do not know.
As much as I have an idea of what I am researching, I don't know its final outcome, nor where this... THIS... whole thing and its multiple facets are going to take me. I haven't done readings during this summer because I thought that, first, I needed a break from the BA and, second, because I want to have as much of a clean slate as possible to build on. There are some knowns [like the background readings I did for my undergrad dissertation] which I will use as my starting point. And some other known theories I will be using, but the encountering of them, plus time, plus life, plus new unknown: well! I have no idea. And it is all good!
For the first time, I am feeling very comfortable with not having answers and staying with the questions and the conundrums enough to allow for my own answer to arise; or my own answer together with more questions. This is the excitement of an adventure. This is the joy and thrill of the unexpected I was looking for. This is me embarking on a journey making up whatever is missing out of a map that is already a stitched patchwork of other different maps. This is me stealing the blue coat from Dr Daniel Pierce, the shirts of Sherlock Holmes as worn by Jonny L. Miller, the travelling of Dr Robert Langdon, the hat of Dr Tobias Merriweather Curtis, and the elation experienced by Dr Henry Walton Jones, Jr.; not to mention the leather bag used by Prof. Jasper Tempest!
All the while I will be supported by Dr Tilo Reifenstein at York St. John University.
In the meantime this summer - for the ones who do not follow me on Instagram already [how dare you?!] I have allowed time to do its magic and for all the critiques and conditioning to wash away from my skin. I have allowed labels and boxes that I felt imprisoned me to dilute and vanish. I explored, made up, created, used, amended, tested, re-tried, approved and then changed again a system of self-exploration and inner-checking that took me to places I thought I forgot.
But I didn't.
I allowed myself to disappear and be angry; to be excruciatingly sad, to cut ties and create some new; to rise my voice, to assert my ideas. But more than anything, I learned to embody and fill this space my body lives in. I expanded, grew thicker, and less transparent. I went on an inner tour, I moved things around; I threw away old paraphernalia, clothes, concepts, and limitations. And I have learned to say "fuck off" to anyone who told me "I know exactly what you feel". No, you don't.
I have realised it took me about 35 years to come to this point and I know I have played by the rules. Now, I have opened the window and let the rules go.
I welcomed my voice when it said: this is my research, this is what I am interested in.
And I just want to have fun while getting lost.
onwards and upwards,
mx
READINGS:
Greenhill, J. (2001) This thing about making. In: Speaking & making. London, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.
Cocker, E. (2013) Tactics for not knowing: preparing for the unexpected. In: On not knowing: how artists think. London, Black Dog Publishing, pp. 126–135.
Bolt, B. (2010) The magic is in handling. In: Practice as research: approaches to creative arts enquiry. London, I. B. Tauris, pp. 27–34.