As we are breaking up for Easter, we decided that it was essential to meet as a group a few times this week in order to make sure that we are all on the same wave length with our research and ideas.
(Studio Manifold did say that the key to collaboration was tea and cake!)
our overall mantra "to come up with design solutions to highlight and draw attention to the unnoticed, retraining the way people view their city"
REINVENTION OF 'DESIGN FESTIVAL': unconventional approach. creating a design festival to help people in Manchester fall in love with their city again.
COLOUR THE CITY: colour maps. paint/yarn bombing. stop Manchester from being 'grey'. highlighting colour in the city- graffiti, street signs, window displays.
COLLABORATION: makers and thinkers combined. workshops.
nice to see that everything becomes linked ie manifestos, guest lectures, last year's unit x
HACKING THE CITY: taking control of the city. car parks. cause an intervention. ie take over a car park at night time. 'remembering forgotten treasures'.
ABANDONED SPACES: forgotten space. unused. waste land.
NOTICING: viewing the city in a new light. make people n o t i c e. retraining your senses, look up and down instead of ahead all of the time.
WEEDS: what's worse, weeds being in a space, or nothing at all being in a space? Guerilla Gardening approach.
LOGO: the dandelion symbol appeared to be a group favourite for the branding for our 'design festival'. Looking at the dandelion as a weed, yet it is a beautiful flower. simple. recognisable. changing from dandelion to seed heads, alike to 'making a change'.
VISUALS: physical outputs. showing progression. drawings. sampling. notes. presentation to panel. physical sense to festival eg maps. tickets. packaging.
KEY CONCEPTS: nature. green. transport. weeds. accessibility. disused spaces. 'forgotten'. simplicity. negatives into positives. physicality. interaction. small gestures. conversation.
I feel that after this week I have come away from the group meetings looking at ideas and research in a different light. The collaboration process is one that appeals to myself greatly. I enjoy communicating and brain-storming as a group/ smaller sub-groups in order to express our own opinions, strengths and practices, but also to learn from one another and take inspiration from each other's ideas/ thought processes. Making friends and networking is also a positive aspect of this unit, and something that I enjoy doing in general in the Art School. I find these qualities to be life-skills that are fundemental in the art practice, therefore starting to work on these skills for the duration of our unit is essential for our futures.