The first term of the MA in Art & Material Histories course asks students to investigate the range of contexts that inform our understanding of art’s materials. Lectures and seminars introduce examples of how we might think about materials through an art historical, socio-political, or philosophical lens, whilst one-to-one tutorials and independent research enables our students to critically reflect on their own relationship to particular materials and how the global events of this year have forced us to rethink how we live our lives.
This week, our full time students gave their first assessed presentation, each speaking for 10 minutes on a material or material process of their choice.
Annabelle taught us all about RUST and invited us to consider how we might consider ourselves as corroding and corrosive material things.
Sabine focussed on OCHRE and through the literary device of a love letter, let us into the colourful vicissitudes of her attachments to raw pigments.
Maddie demonstrated how CARDBOARD has become THE material of our age; no longer the ugly twin of paper, cardboard today embodying both the promise and fallout of consumer culture.
Through a particularly powerful performative presentation, Oscar spoke about the illusionary qualities of GLASS; asking us to look AT glass rather than just through it, he reflected on how glass’ apparent transparency lends it to both the creation of beautiful things but also the abuses of State power.
Matilda cut through our preconceived ideas about spilt human blood and the extent to which we ‘naturally’ associate it with danger. Engaging with the work of Julia Kristeva, Elizabeth Grosz and Jean-Luc Nancy, Matilda showed us how the most foreign of foreigners and strangest of strangers might just be pulsing through our veins.
Fascinating, critically underpinned and immensely creative, the students’ presentations marked the end of a hugely successful first term and revealed just how much they have already learnt.