At the inaugural CRITgroup meeting in November 2011 the possibility of a collaborative project was raised. After one year of Creating, Reflecting, Investigating and Talking, we are now pleased to present our first collaboration.
We are interested in investigating the perceived differences between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, as this has been a feature of our conversations in several meetings. How does the apparent need to ‘label’ oneself as a particular kind of practitioner (a ‘photographer’, a ‘craft worker’, etc.) affect individual practices and how do those descriptions of discipline relate to differing methods of producing work?
To get started, we are running three ‘mini projects’, which we will use to pin down and agree a clear research question to inform the next working stages of the project. The idea of these is that by introducing particular boundaries or criteria we will flush out key aspects of our respective practices, which will better equip us in our collaborative investigations. Our first project is titled Creative Whispers.
We are interested in investigating the perceived differences between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, as this has been a feature of our conversations in several meetings. How does the apparent need to ‘label’ oneself as a particular kind of practitioner (a ‘photographer’, a ‘craft worker’, etc.) affect individual practices and how do those descriptions of discipline relate to differing methods of producing work?
To get started, we are running three ‘mini projects’, which we will use to pin down and agree a clear research question to inform the next working stages of the project. The idea of these is that by introducing particular boundaries or criteria we will flush out key aspects of our respective practices, which will better equip us in our collaborative investigations. Our first project is titled Creative Whispers.
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Each collaborator produced ‘a thing’ (this could have been a physical object or just an idea recorded in a written/sketched fashion) which they felt somehow represented their practice. These were brought along to the Christmas Party on December 19th 2012, pooled and then shared out at random. The task facing the recipient is now to take that outcome away, respond to it in some way (it may be to physically add to or develop an object, produce an outcome based on an idea, etc.) and bring it back to the January meeting where we will pass on the results to a new collaborator. The process will repeat until everyone has had some input on each starting point. We will then discuss and review the outcomes with a view to being in a better position to derive a clear ‘question’, though we will also undoubtedly have some interesting pieces in their own right. The images below are the initial contributions produced as starting points:
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Further Information:
