FINAL EVALUATION OF PROJECT
In terms of professional and personal development I feel as I have progressed further as a creative due to the exploration and research I have undertaken in this project as well as the fact that the general working style of this project was fairly out of my comfort zone; as I don’t usually create three-dimensional work. However this gave me the opportunity to learn a variety of new skills that I will take forward into my future practices, placements, future uni projects and graduate jobs.
In terms of research, exploring types of mediums and artists that I’m not usually surrounded by, allowed me to expand my understanding of different styles of art, for example, looking into Melanie Martinez music videos had such an impact on the entire progression of our project due to her very strong concepts of childhood, nostalgia and ageing reflected in her style of video which heavily incorporates props and extravagant set design, which are topics I don’t usually research into for projects however aligned with our work beautifully.
Due to the ever-changing nature of this module in line with the current social affairs of the coronavirus, my working style had to adapt which proved to be quite difficult, as I had to change from working in a close group setting with access to camera equipment, university software, lighting equipment as well as physical props to then changing all of my outcomes to online platforms or altering them digitally for the new revised final outcome that we had remotely. Although struggling at first, I began to utilise my phone when my laptop couldn’t perform effectively by creating a mood boards using photo editing applications and creating my sketchbook within my blog, which opens me up to the possibility of using an online platform in the future for a final outcome which is an essential skill for contemporary art in terms of layout as well as just being able to communicate with a large crowd and creating a interactive design.
Teamwork was an essential factor for this module, as we had to support each other during the beginnings of the lockdown, with the class room teaching becoming unavailable and transforming into online teaching, we adapted our usual meetings from in person to calling on WhatsApp or Microsoft teams as a group. Previously, we had struggled as a group to bring ideas to life, and to create actual outcomes for the first half of the project, however, we still met up often to discuss ideas and we all made several new boards some of which are on my blog that helped us progress and visualise ideas further. I felt the support from everyone in the group equally as we negotiated between us and divided up roles to suit each person; which led me to creating the website as I volunteered in order to gain a new skill. My role was to collate all the work and create a website, someone else as well was the complete the film that they had started as they were confident with editing, another was to compile our work into the PDF, and another was to compile the illustrations into a look book.
Learning new skills is something I did struggle with without the added support of a classroom however, I overcame this by researching tutorials on how to create a website, which was my role for my group post lockdown, which worked in my favour as I now know how to make a website with basic skills using a website maker, which will prove in handy for my future endeavours and reflected in the fact that I have made a website for my online portfolio too.
