Semester 2 Week 4 – Review Prep

The week coming up is week four and the run up to final year degree show, so the level 6 students are preparing their final shoots and selection of images, ready for the exhibition in June. This week will be an opportunity for some peer feedback and extra notes from our tutors and course leader.

The brief for the week tells us we must write a 300 word entry in our journal documenting the feedback we receive during the session and this will follow on from the busy week I have planned. As well as attending my workplace for as much as I can, I am also at the Uni on Tuesday afternoon for a talk by Ian Gavan, then at Uni all day on Wednesday for this review and other work, finally on Thursday I’ll be at Shrewsbury Prison acting as an assistant for Pete Muller who is carrying out a shoot to provide them some marketing shots. For the Tuesday pm and the Thursday I will be using Holiday time off work to ensure I am not seen as taking the piss too much.

The brief for the assignment that is the submission and presentation of the slides is:

This Peer Review is a valuable opportunity to reflect critically on your progress and receive constructive feedback at a key stage in your project’s development. It is strongly advised that you attend and participate fully in this session.

You are required to prepare a 10-minute presentation (PowerPoint, PDF, or similar format) in which you critically evaluate your work to date and outline your proposed direction for the Degree Show. This review is not about showing a finished outcome, but about demonstrating clarity of thought, conceptual development, and a plan for how your work will evolve.

You should aim to:

• Reflect on the conceptual and visual development of your project so far.
• Identify key themes, influences, and contextual references.
• Discuss any challenges or uncertainties you are facing.
• Propose how your project will progress over the coming weeks, including any technical or curatorial considerations.

Student Tasks:

• Prepare a 10-minute presentation including images, project rationale, and development plan.
• Engage in peer feedback and take notes during the session.
• Write a 300-word reflection in your journal summarising feedback and identifying next steps.

For this weeks review I have practically finished the slides, barring a couple of small changes for some last minute possible updates. Those updates might include the inclusion of some redscale images if they are returned from the lab in time. They were sent to the lab last Monday and should be back soon, if there are any good ones they might make the review pack and also make the exhibition planned for April-June with the Shrewsbury Civic Society.

I’ll copy and paste relevant text from the slides into here, and include the actual slides in the review feedback post that will occur at the end of the week.

Project Statement

Photographic portrait of an iconic set of municipal brutalist buildings, destined for demolition, with the aim of creating a visual record that captures its grandeur and the subtlety.

Chronicling  the beauty, dilapidation and demise of a divisive estate will ensure that its historical architectural importance continues to remind previous occupants of the memories held within and the loss to the landscape of the town.

Producing for posterity:

• A curated collection of images that invites viewers into a visual narrative of place.
• Resources poised for exhibition, commemoration, and sharing with the local council.
• A lasting archive of images and other media to reflect on, post demolition.

Project Development

Themes

The themes that are part of my practice in general align with this project and are documented as:

• Age
• Architecture
• Waste
• Abandonment
• Urban Planning
• Environment
• Civic Pride
• Brutalism
• Modernism
• Preservation
• History
• Decay
• Squares
• Rectangles
• Change

Influences

Some of the influences that have guided me into this project and inspired me to make better photographs are.

• Morley Von Sternberg
• Stuart Whipps
• Mark Power
• Maurice Bloomfield
• Chris Killip
• Jeffrey Milstein
• Ron Ackling
• Spaceplay
• Modernist Society
• C20 Society

Challenges

Success of the project is not going to be hamstrung by any one particular factor, I have enough work to pull together a series of photographs but there have been some issues.

• Access to interiors
• Speed of film processing
• Winter Weather
• Excess ideas

Development Examples

The next few slides detail some of my works in the fields of interior, exterior, aerial, art experiments amongst other things.

A mixture of the photographs I’ve made could be shown here:

Future

To give my peers and leaders an idea of my future plans I have documented them on the final slide.

• Produce Print For Civic Society Exhibition
  • 27^th April – 25^th June
  • Awaiting size restrictions
• Image final selection
• Select Redscale Images
  • Awaiting return from lab
• Engage with Civic Society & Task & Finish
  • Mileage in art project?
• Video Options
  • Created YouTube videos
• Investigate utility of videos
• Continue with 3D Printed Model
  • Learn CAD Modelling

The exhibition with the Shrewsbury Civic Society at the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery (SM&AG) will be an opportunity for me to exhibit some of my work. This year my coursemates will exhibit at the Degree Show, but as I am on part time and still have another year to go, I will only partake in the degree show next year. The chance to appear at the SM&AG will be my outlet so I’ll hopefully have a good piece of work for that. I’ve a couple in place but am jsut awaiting a film to return from the lab, as mentioned previously.

If my redscale results are ok I’ll include them in the pack and share the results in a future post but until then, lets see what happens. On top of the busy week, I am taking my son with me to London tomorrow (Sunday) to see Batman (1989) movie at the Hammersmith Apollo, accompanied by a live orchestra so that will also be a long day and the reason why I’ve had to complete this work over the whole of Saturday.