I had a positive and interesting Hangout review with my tutor for A4

He was happy with my research and reading both directly related to the course and around it. He commented that the writing was ‘intelligently done’ and appropriate. We spent some time discussing my interest in both looking at and collecting photobooks and how that could be helpful in extending my work especially with thinking in a more contemporary framework.

• Pleased with this. I find looking at a range of photobooks both useful and interesting. The types of books available at present vary widely, from the spare, contemporary approach used by Mack, to the dark, dense books produced by many of the Japanese/Chinese school.

For A4 he felt that I have extended my practice and worked using a more conceptual approach. It is not a ‘new’ piece in that other’s have done similar work but has been thought about and fed on from research and thinking about memory and time. He felt that I had ‘let go’ to some extent and been more experimental with my approach. Technically consistent and thought /worked though problems.

• Again happy, I did a lot of reading around the topic of memory and archives for this, and about how to incorporate text into the work – or how to use it to develop the themes
• This was a difficult and very personal pieced of work and I think that comes though in both the images and the way I got to them via interaction with family and my mother’s archives.

We discussed the video I made for Exercise 4.5 and the accompanying album. We looked at taking this on further for A5, either as another video, this time using archival images to accompany the words, or as a pdf photobook. He reminded my that working from intuition is part of the process and my feelings/thought around this become part of the work.

• 3 possible ways forward
  • A video
  • A photobook
  • The idea of using the archival images outside – but this would be limited at present as I cannot get to many of the places she thought important
• Keep is simple and contemporary
• Keep it short
• Make it personal and include the history around it
• Make text (if included) contemporary (I seem to be using that word a lot) and readable.

He gave me 3 helpful links which I will follow up about family work and archives.

Altogether very helpful and the discussion has helped clarify my ideas for A5.

No reworking needed for A4!