Class crit of student groups’ first investigations and interventions on sites of their choice.

Further individual discussions with student groups about their projects, with a first attempt at intervention to be executed over the weekend and presented in class on Monday.

Ralph was available in the project room from 2 – 5pm for questions and feedback.

NOTE: tomorrow, Friday, I will only be available from 1pm – 3.30pm

Students were asked about their motivations for joining the class – what is their engagement with environmental issues?

Virginia gave a presentation of contemporary art with environmental themes.

We discussed as a class current news about environmental issues, and wrote these up on the board. Issues ranged from food to pollution, gentrification and consumerism.

whiteboard issues

The first assignment was set: to investigate an ‘urban wasteland’ or peripheral zone where the ‘natural’ and artificial combine. We looked at photos from last year’s investigation of an abandoned boat yard in Woodstock, attempting to ‘read’ what we saw. We also visited the website for ‘Wasteland Twinning‘, which has a methods section that students could draw on for creative ways of investigating their site.

Students will work over Thursday, Friday and the weekend, and bring creative documentation of their investigations to the rest of the class on Monday at 2pm.

Boat yard

A brief introduction to the course. We broke early to go to Candice Breitz’s presentation at Michaelis.