DEGREES UNEDITED

Using Degrees unedited to stand out from the crowd by working together in the group your institution readily provides.

Working as a singular artist and contributing your experience collectively

Do you see yourself as an individual self-promoter or a team player? Different people work in different ways, especially as the notion of being an artist is increasingly varied. However, after graduating you will no doubt realise that the experience of sharing a studio with peers as well as preparing for a show together is highly valuable: working to one another's strengths alongside resources within your institution will iron out the weaknesses of going solo.

You may see the value of a blog being something of a solitary experience, in which to find yourself through your own words. But have you also considered the value of a group blog, reflecting your immediate shared environment?

Strength in numbers

Degree shows are tricky affairs whether they are group exhibitions tied together to harmonious affect, or a collection of secular representation acting towards a formulaic art fair environment. Whichever route is chosen, blogging as a collective could set you aside as individuals within your immediate educational and group environment. Furthermore, making a stand as a uniform collective with different aspects, mediums and interests on offer, is an effective and outward facing work method.

By simulating and stimulating your studio environment as it grows towards degree show finality, a group blog takes hold of each individual and is internally reciprocal, producing a more organic conference between your ideas, working methods and developed skills. What's more is that the blog is a sustainable record of your peer group's efforts and can be tailored alongside other forms of online promotion and advertisement. So working in this way now will eventuate in a good professional outlook post-degree, progressing beyond your BA certification by making a valuable start to your artist CV.

A forward facing example

A great example of the group-blog format is that of Wirral Metropolitan College's 2009 project 'Mapping the West'. Led by the BA Fine Art tutor Michelle Rowley, the blog covered students' residency activities at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, USA.

"For two weeks, from the 25th April to the 8th of May 2009, BYU will be hosting ten of our students and two members of staff. We will be sharing our experience and delivering a master class in book arts production with the intention of producing an exhibition of artist's books based on our responses to the map of the Escalante region of southern Utah."

According to Michelle, encountering and producing a group blog as a tutor interjected positively into how the students perceived their experience: the blog continues now as a reference point for a learning process within the BA model created at Wirral Met, as well as an outward facing example of progressive higher education in the Fine Art sector. So your blog would be a learning curve, a learning resource and a professional reference point, covering up to and beyond your collective degree show experience.

'Project blog' and project management

You could either set someone aside with a registered user name and password, for them to act in project managing behind the scenes, or have a shared registration with a-n so you can all post whenever you feel the need.

Why not be the member of your team that suggests and sees this through to the end? As you enter the new year of 2010, the onslaught of deadlines will begin to match with your own working methods: its time to think about how what you do with your time now will benefit you more so in the future.

In developing your degree show forms of project management come in to play; fundraising, advertisement, marketing, publication costs, technical logistics to name a few. Setting aside the 'project blog' as something that is updated perhaps weekly is a good way of keeping your developments in check as well as working on exposure for your show.

Links

Wirral Metrapolitan College: group blog. Read on »

Not sure if blogging is for you? Get some answers »

Not sure what to blog?
Two 2009 graduates in conversation with Richard Taylor, review their Degrees unedited experience over the last year.
Dan Green | Carol Ramsay »

What next?
2009 Degrees unedited users and graduates from the past. Carol Ramsay, Julie Dodd and Rosalind Davis give insight to their careers so far and advice for 2010 Degrees readers and unedited contributers. Read on »

Towards artist-led activity? Read how other peer groups have created networks for working structures in "Against the grain". Read on »

Grab yourself a review...
Making connections, developing working partnerships and using Degrees unedited to generate peer-review and reciprocate criticality.
To Comment is to be invited to review »

First published: a-n.co.uk December 2009