Midterm Presentation

Midterm.

At midterm Professor Becky Early from University of the Arts London, (the guest judge for my presentation) gave me some fantastic advice.

I’d pitched the idea of having other people wear my final garment – to see how they would style it, as a fun experiment. I wanted to do more photography and thought it’d be a great excuse to take their portraits.

This was a systems project after all, and I knew other people absolutely to be shown as part of the story. The whole point of my project was to make room for more personal and intellectual connection into my work.

Becky liked my idea. But she said (I’m paraphrasing): “Don’t forget, YOU are still the artist. So don’t let it get too broad. Make sure your original point of view is still palpable”.

She was totally right.

After this feedback I realized it wasn’t about how people style the jacket. It was about the ones who would help me make it – who were going to sell me materials and give me advice.

I realized the jacket was a symbol, but the project was actually about the process.

This advice helped the project become a much more honest and beneficial way to test out my system design -- because it was going to push me to even more things I’d been meaning to get better at. Now I’d have to ask strangers for their portraits, not friends. It was also a good excuse to practice French. I took French immersion as a kid and have always wanted to get it to a level where I can converse with people in shops without them switching to English for me.

GANTT

Below is a rough gant chart of the timeline for my project.