Today was the first day back at the University Of Wolverhampton to begin my sixth and final year of my Undergraduate Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Photography. It’s taken so long as I am attending part time and completing one module every year whilst the full time students will be completing two modules.
Welcome
The first week back is the Welcome Week where we meet the staff on the course team, meet each other and spend some time picking up notes about what we will be doing this year.
After getting into the foyer and meeting up with one of my new coursemates Clare and then Kirsty where we were provided with a free cup of coffee or two. Then we headed into the Lecture Theatre for the introduction to the University including from Alex Robottom the replacement for Pritpal as the Head Of School. He explained how the university has tonnes of services that will help students if they require it. They went through the different websites and apps that we have at our disposal, and the different departments that were being represented in this Level 6 meeting.
There were Illustration, Graphics, Glass and Photography as well as Fine Art and there were some students who are new to the Uni as they have done level 4 or 5 at a local college before changing to come here for Level 6.
After the talk from Alex, we had a presentation from Poonam about the Student Life programme which also gave us opportunities to get help or assistance whether it was financial, child care, academic, or mental health. And After this the final presentation was from a representative from the Student Union who explained the opportunites for being a part of the organisation and how we could help, along with the support services they offer, the societies that are available to join and also the facilities available.
Then it was time for lunch, and Alex had ordered Pizza in but I had other plans.
Masters
The exhibition in the Wolverhampton Art Gallery of the Uni Of Wolves Masters Degree Show was waiting for me. It was opened a eek ago and this had been my first opportunity to get there so I had a good look around. There were some interesting pieces of work, most seemed to be mixed media of one sort or another with Big Questions about the environment, migration, health and all manner of other topics. There were interesting photos, paintings, writings, VR exhibits and lots of items that I found to be thought provoking and I tried hard to read everything and interact with items if they were inviting participation.
My favourite work there was a collection of photographs and writing by Lea Stefan who was “exploring the relationship between time, impermanence and the continuous process of becoming” There were some lovely photos in the collection and these were presented on the wall, in a corner looped zine and also in a fold out book.
Another that I saw after Id come out of the gallery and crossed into another part of the exhibition was a shot by Caron Malcolm called Step Back From The Platform Edge which was a motion blur of a Paris Metro train. It’s right in my wheelhouse and i loved the super subtle colours.
Back To The Basement
After this I popped into town and grabbed a small portion of chips from Charlie’s before heading back to face the afternoon of finding out what we would be doing.
Euripides and Dan were in the Studio with a large projector and a group of seats, there were not many of us Level 6 students in the room and it seemed to be a sore point, I think that many more of the class were expected to have been there. From what I’ve heard off others, it’s not unusual to have a few people jsut not turn up, but as it is Welcome Week maybe they thought it wasn’t worth it.
Euripides got underway and showed us a load of slides that explained how this year was important and contained messages about being Entrepreneurial, using our own voice, not trying to impress with a star photo but to make work that makes the insignificant significant. He also mentioned that we’ll be the last degree show in the building as they are moving the Arts school into another building from next year.
There were a few photos in there too of works by others that have been through the course in the past, I remember a good few of them from the groups that Ive worked with over the past five years. There were examples of the careers of alumni students and also a lot of talk about live briefs with one being Prosper magazine, another for Cosford and some for West Brom Football Club. Last year I got involved in a couple of live briefs, one being the assistant to a photoshoot in Shrewsbury Prison and another doing behind the scenes shots for Jaki Graham and Johnny Hates Jazz with Revolver Records.
We had a chat about the live briefs , the work that previous students had done and how we should tailor our work to be our true voice and then it was time for Dan to take the new starters on a tour around the facilities whilst talking about the health and safety requirements etc. This was the cue for everyone else ot head off home and plan to be back in from next week, every Tuesday.
On the way out through the foyer I bumped into Brian and Shellie from last year, they were back to look at a Masters degree. Brian was perturbed as he is now 61 years old and as such doesn’t qualify for funding from the student loan firm for the studying. I suspect hell still do it anyway as a way of fillign his time.
On the way out back to the car I saw an artist using rattle cans to paint a mural on the wall of the subway, which I’d seen the outline of earlier on the way into the university. It was looking good and I’ll wait to see how it looks when I go back on Tuesday!
Thoughts
Overall, I’m pleased to be back at Uni again. It seemed like the information shared today was similar to the previous few years, there might have been an odd change or two here or there, but these are with items that really don’t concern me too much. It was good to be there anyway to meet a few new people on the course and introduce myself, as they may have seen me around for the last two years but not known who I am. Itll be more impotrant on Tuesday when more of the group should be in.
Ill be in on Tuesdays all day, as it should be Monday PM and Tuesday PM, but Euripides and the course staff have organised to let me do all day Tuesday and they’ll move the tutorials from the Monday to the Tuesday for me. It is very good of them to do this as it would get impossible to have two afternoons out of work per week, especially when I’d have to leave work at 12:00 noon both days.
I’ve had a few thoughts on projects that I’ll discuss with Euripides when we have the brief for the years worth of work, but until then I’ll keep racking my brains to see what else pops up.
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