This project has been, as most of the solo projects have been so far, something of a soul searching process. I’ve been meandering through the dark a little with what form my ideas will take and have only been safe in the knowledge that they’ll involve the raw materials of art and creative practice coupled with some hopefully somewhat radical thinking, feminist principles and slightly difficult conversations. Peppering this with practical advice, as well as ideally some funding and more than just me doing everything, I hope somehow to create something that looks and tastes like change, actual change, IRL and not just stuff posted about on social media or that only extends within the confines of my small privileged little bubble.
Not that there is anything wrong with bubbles per se. The work I have achieved within my current small community has given me a foundation I know I can build on and I have watched actual change happen before my eyes. Incrementally, like evolution, but change none the less.
At first I was really reluctant to use the UAL blog but have 180’d myself into leaning on it heavily in the end. I named it Change Soup because it was, is, a way to just throw all the ingredients in and work out what I am making as I go. I am swimming around in a metaphorical big pot of ideas and I’m trying to make sense of them. Some enhancing the taste of others and some ruining it for everyone. I’ve posted lots, not by any means all, of my research onto it so my thought processes are visible and it acts weirdly like quite a good filing system also for when I need to go back to stuff. I’ve tried to cover all the bases of stakeholders and relevant subject matter in various forms from articles, research papers, books and online workshops to potential collaborators, quantitive research and all the interesting stuff in between as well as documenting some conversations I have had after reaching out to people for advice. I’m still waiting to hear back from some, have had brief interactions with others and have some scheduled conversations yet to happen also. In a way this has been the most helpful thing, the conversations I had with Lou Mensah and Helen Bart really helped me work through this process of sieving the ingredients and working out what flavour it’s gonna hopefully have. I’ve always found bouncing off people, conversing with and filtering ideas through them the most helpful thing. I think it’s really helped shape ideas and projects I’ve created in the past, such a useful tool and hopefully it’s something I can continue to do using the UAL platform also.
It was a really useful process also, documenting all this research, which I haven’t really done before – unless you count the endless piles of old work notebooks I have, as someone on the Gen X / Millennial threshold I still prefer to handwrite notes and as a visually minded person it’s still the best way to help me retain info. Documenting what I was doing held me accountable to the direction I was going in and helped me maintain focus, notice the holes in my research that needed patching up and highlighted the islands that could be bridged together. The visual element of the blog, as always is evidence of creative process guiding me through my thoughts. As I illustrate in an automotive way I am considering all I have learnt from the particular branch of enquiry and the overall visual language I am developing is, for me, a big part of the process also. It’s still in its infancy as a work in progress but I trust that the truth will out and the artistic practice side of this journey will reveal itself and say what it needs to say, in the end. As an artist, allowing myself this process in such an untethered way, something I haven’t done in a really long time, has been really freeing and I am enjoying it immensely.
Last weeks three minute pitch was the next level in trying to articulate the results of these enquiries into some kind of decipherable language. I think I managed it although I find it really hard to self edit (and am conscious of my quick decline into rant sometimes too) and am developing a small but possibly enduring aversion to powerpoint. The Dragon’s Den feedback I got was really encouraging, I am not scared of being vulnerable, especially in the context of things I am passionate about (as I am these subjects) and the advice they gave me was really helpful, if not a little intimidating. I’ve identified some things I should probably look into next in my mind and I’m looking forward to hopefully finding some more people to connect with on it also. I think Change Soup is starting to taste OK and may even have an actual flavour in the not too distant future.