This week is “Midterm” week here, so things were pretty busy. But in truth, this just feels like a normal week at Middlebury. It’s not that my classes here are easier– there’s just more of an emphasis on personal reflection and experiential learning rather than constantly producing work. I’m also in a lot of design classes where we do our work in class, so if I’m efficient I don’t end up having that much work outside of class. Regardless, it was still a week where my primary focus was my schoolwork, more so than usual, so I didn’t do much else.
TUESDAY //
Tuesday we visited a new site for our second architecture project. The location is a park situated alongside an elevated train track, running parallel to the border between the neighborhoods of Nørrebro and Fredericksburg. The area is rather run down, and only a small gateway opens up the park to an apartment building, set at an odd angle so that there is only about 2 meters of space between its NW corner and the elevated train. Essentially, whoever planned the train paid little to no mind as to how it’s placement would relate to the surrounding built environment. Our challenge it to fit a small 8mx8mx8m gallery into this already crowded area… When I figure it out, I’ll be sure to update, cause this is a challenge for sure.
My class ran late, so I missed the LLC event that afternoon. I was a little disappointed, because the gallery included an exhibition by a Spanish artist that my friends told me about, but I’ll try to go another time. After the museum visit, though, we had a meeting to plan our LLC project to be presented at the end of the semester. Max shared a great idea that we ended up using as a starting point.
To understand our project, you first have to understand that our group of 20 gets along unusually well– our SRAs and coordinator have commented on it many times. There is no competition; no pretentious artists trying to remain aloof. Instead, everyone is open and curious and willing to share and participate. We admire and are consistently inspired by each other. Because of this, we decided to model our project around this experience. In order to capture our LLC experience, we structured our project so that we are directly inspiring and being inspired by one another. To start, Group A creates a work capturing their own experience, and presents it only to Group B. B works off of this to create their own work inspired by A, and then shows it only to C. C created a work inspired by B, and shows it to D, etc.
Our six groups then display our work together in an exhibition space, in a way that reveals this linear process. Of course, a project like this requires strict deadlines and a lot of organization from a project manager... guess who inadvertently stepped into that role?
I made a point, though, to make sure I was facilitating and organizing, not controlling. I got good feedback from my peers and our coordinator, so I think I succeeded. I enjoy this type of job, but I also know that 1) artists can be temperamental, especially regarding created work that they are passionate about, and 2) if things go south, I’m an easy target to blame. So I’m treading cautiously and trying to be considerate.