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Reflection

1. Please assess yourself on this lab trimester 

LAB for me was a very different experience from any other class that we've had since starting this school. In the beginning I felt really lost because it was for the first time that I could choose for myself what I wanted to work on and how I would do it. I found it very difficult to start, to understand what fascinates me and why, but after getting over the initial shock I was really happy to find a subject that I was interested in and to do something about it. 

 Working with fishing nets was both a pleasure and a struggle. I was visually attracted to their structure and wanted to make them myself but didn’t really know what to do with them after. I think in the beginning I hesitated a lot and this showed in my work. I was trying different techniques and threads but I wasn't looking deeper than that. What helped me have new input was always the images that I was finding. Even though I was progressing slowly with making, my mind was constantly racing and what I found interesting was that the net making process was also a meditative moment in which most of my ideas were coming. It was when I finally had the impulse of working on a bigger scale that we also started the collaborations. In a way this fitted at the right moment and this is how I started working with Anete and Romain.

 At the beginning of our collaboration there was a bit of a struggle to find a meaning for what we were doing but I was very happy when we could connect it to the story of a fishermen village and start making from there. I am happy that in LAB I learned how to connect my work to someone else’s work for a "greater purpose". I would have never been able to do what I did with Anete by myself, I would have probably doubted a lot of times and for sure would have had a completely different result. 

When we had the lab lunch and I worked with Luiza I felt that there were no more boundaries between my vision and hers, that we were both committed to the same thing and having something great together at the end became much more important than our individual input or opinions. I believe that the same thing happened in the collaboration with Anete. We both learned how to let go and to trust each other. I could say that the best lesson that I learned in LAB was to trust myself more and also to be able to trust the people that I am working with by letting go and having fun.

2. What has this LAB trimester brought you?( professionally and personally)  

Lab really is the only class that I never complained about. When I have to work for my department its nice, but there is always a moment that I feel like I am working for someone, that working for myself is not enough, that I need to convince teachers of my ideas. I worked in LAB with pleasure, and often I did it because I needed a break from other work that I had.

 Before coming to this school I was working for myself, I had an idea and then I would just try to do it and the notion or right or wrong didn't really exist. Coming here I felt pushed into a pattern and slowly lost myself. Having LAB as a class helped me remember the way I used to work and made me want to do more.

3. What specifically have you learned from the collaboration? 

 I generally like to spend a lot of time working on details. I have a lot of patience, and for some reason I tend to spend hours and hours on a small part of a project but then don't have the time to finish it. Working with Anete made me understand that very beautiful things can come also from a faster way of working. 

I could say that from our collaboration I learned how to combine a very detailed and time consuming way of working with a more faster one but that would have the same quality.

4. Ask your collab partner about your strong points and what you still need to learn

“Patricia is a person full of calm and a really good listener, as well. I think that is the reason why we worked well together. She always starts with a story, so it makes some kind of sense of starting doing something and jumping already into all hands in with materials. That I think is the opposite of me, because I feel like taking story just as inspiring starting point and then by working and trying things out I maybe lead to another story or way of thinking and working. And that’s alright. Letting yourself go with the flow, but catching it in the right moment and staying focused on one path at one point. Leading back to Patricia. Another strong point of her is that she’s responsible and neat worker. Always taking good care of her work, paying attention on details and explanation why she has done certain things. I would say a good analytical thinker. It was also fun to experience collaboration with her - easy way of letting things happen. I’m happy on what we’re working for the presentation, because in the beginning I didn’t expect this at all to become the fantastic jelly fish underwater fisherman village experience.”

- reflection of me from Anete

“Working this trimester with Anete came very naturally. We started working together even before the collaborations when she was making experiments with crystals and I gave her some small nets to try and grow crystals on. Anete is a fast worker. She knows what she wants and is very clear in her vision but is never imposing. When she talks about where she is coming from I can really imagine the place that she is describing, in the forest surrounded by nature and being at peace. I think that this really reflects in her personality and way of seeing things. Her work is always in beautiful colors, clear and often shows fragility. Anete has an eye for details and is very careful with how she is presenting everything. I am happy that we had the opportunity of working together because I think we each were able to  let go of what we would have done by ourselves and we went a little crazy and even surprised eachother with what we made. I could say that we really had fun with creating the super jelly fantasy fishermen village/ underwater maybe”

- reflection of Anete from me

5. What are you most proud of this trimester? Why? Anything you’re not proud of?

 I think that I am the most proud of our collaboration of this trimester. I am happy for the process that we had and our result shows something that neither one of us would have made if we would have done it by ourselves. We haven't finished everything yet but I think both Anete and I are really excited to see how everything will turn out and this "uncertainty" and surprise are something that keep us going. 

6. What needs to change to make LAB2 better for the next students? What is good? 

I think the only thing that needs to change in LAB is the fact that it should be for a whole year and not only for one trimester. I think that the lectures were always a great input and the collabrations were a symbol of how we can learn so much from each other. I think you are great teachers that know how to make us question our work and the decisions that we take, and give us the courage of taking steps further. I also want to thank you for remembering all of our names, I think its seriously amazing.

7. What are you missing in the academy in general?

I think that what we should  have more in the academy is kind of “open classes” where people can talk about issues happening in the world around us. I think its a shame that we all come from such different places but we don’t know too much about the issues happening in those areas. It could involve as well teachers or guests, and it could be a class in itself, but it should be more about communication. We are becoming really individualistic, and even group work sometimes turns into something that we rush just to finish/to have an end result. The departments in general are focused a lot on making, and it would be nice to have a “class” ( i don t really know how it should be called) on thinking and communication. 

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we had a productive day today

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we already started working on different elements #staytuned

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it was a beautiful rainy day, wish all days could be like this one

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bought some props this weekend

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Fishing net knitting, Bac Lieu, Vietnam | National Geographic I think its very interesting that I saved this photo on my computer in the beginning of lab but I never showed it. It made me think of the atmospheric effect that nets can have, it looks almost surreal. During the course I kind of shifted in a different direction, but I believe that through our collaboration we are going back towards it and that makes me happy because in the beginning I didn’t know how to approach it but I feel that now it all makes sense

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Fishermen in Hoi An. Vietnam

In the beginning of my project I was also very inspired by the fishermen in Vietnam and the nets and baskets that they use for fishing. I love the way that the boat is seen through the net

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Ama- Nina Poppe

we started collecting objects by looking at this photograph and analyzing the elements that create the atmosphere/ the next step will be to form our textiles and nets on them

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Ama- Nina Poppe

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This week Anete and I discussed about our collaboration and on what we would like to work on together. We were both very inspired by fishermen villages and we wanted to recreate this kind of atmosphere through our materials and techniques, in an installation.  We were particularly inspired by the book of Nina Poppe that portrays the community of ama divers in Japan and started to collect objects and materials that we can shape. We will try to form objects by using the heatgun and knot nets in certain structures in order to re-create our own perspective upon the fishermen village

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This week was a bit crazy because we had to deliver the assignment for art history about “Our Relationship With Robots”.  I worked with Iosif, Clotilde, Sanita and Anete and we focused on how robots are portrayed in popular culture. Our result was a tumblr page where we each presented the subject that we were interested in within this general theme and Iosif and I discussed about why are robots always portrayed with a human face and given a voice in movies and how is this affecting the way we perceive them/relate to them

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