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Writing in Creative Practice: Collage, Reflection and Writing

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March 4, 2013
Workshops
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On 12th April the University of the West of Scotland (Ayr Campus) will host the first Scotland-based workshop in the Writing in Creative Practice series, which is run in conjunction with Writing PAD and partly funded by the Higher Education Academy.

Titled Collage, Reflection and Writing, this workshop looks at collage’s potential as a method of inquiry through creative practice which seamlessly merges the making and the textual. We will explore the versatility collage offers as it allows one to find the words to express subjective experience through reflexivity and its (collage’s) intrinsic multiple interpretations of the ‘image’. We will take a look (and possibly have a go) at collage as a method of inquiry, reflective bookmaking, poetic inquiry and poem houses, as well as discussing ways of introducing students to structuring academic texts through collage.

Conceived as a hands-on day with lots of activities and discussion, this workshop will give participants the opportunity to explore collage in both a theoretical and practical way, but particularly as a way of engaging students in a reflective and analytical process that can prepare and support their writing tasks.

For more information on previous workshops in the Writing in Creative Practice series, please check the HEA events archive or https://tactileacademia.wordpress.com/?s=writing+in+creative+practice.

 

The attendance of this workshop is free of charge to all those interested in the workshop topic, with preference being given to staff working in HE institutions and HE in FE colleges from across the UK. Places will be allocated on a first come, first served basis. Lunch and refreshments will be provided, but travel expenses will not be covered. However, the HEA is currently running a funding scheme to support travel crossing national borders to attend events, which could be applied for independently.

For more information or to book a place, please get in touch with Dr Alke Gröppel-Wegener (tactileacademia@gmail.com) with ‘WiCP Ayr’ in the subject line.

 

Our current draft programme (subject to change)

11:00 registration and refreshments

11.30 welcome

11.45 Thinking through Collaging: Reflective bookmaking and poetic inquiry (Sarah Williamson)

13.00: Lunch

13.45: Collage as subjective experience: Transitioning, Relinquishing, Becoming (Alison Bell)

14.45: Collaging in three dimensions: the Poem House (Brigid Collins)

15.45: refreshments

16.00: Collaging the Context: Visual Ways of Collating a Literature Review (Alke Gröppel-Wegener)

16.30: Discussion

17.00: end

 

Making the workshop work

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January 10, 2013
stuff to check out, Workshops
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Just to let you all know that the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice has just published a short article by Pat Francis and myself where we share tips of how to put on a good (writing) workshop. This collaboration has come out of the Writing in Creative Practice events we have been working on together, which have been well received by participants, so if you are interested in putting on workshops like those yourself, whether for staff development or for student, this might be helpful.

A tip which isn’t included because it occurred to me after we sent this off (as a bonus for the readers of Tactile Academia):

Sort out the documentation beforehand

Just like it is important to gather feedback from your participants, it is important to be able to document the workshop. The most common form of doing that is probably taking photographs. If you are doing the workshops as part of your normal teaching routine this might not be as important, although good documentation can certainly help you demonstrate your good practice in an appraisal or interview situation for example. If you are doing the workshops as staff development or for an external funder this documentation becomes really important, as institutions like to show off what they have done/funded.

Whether you are running sessions yourself or ‘just’ organising, it can sometimes be difficult to remember to take photographs. So, nominate somebody to do it for you, maybe your institution has an official photographer who can pop in or you can get a photography student for the duration for a few quid (include this in your budget) and the work experience. Take the time to think about what you want the photographs to show in advance and discuss this with your photographer (or have a list if you are doing it yourself so that you don’t forget in the heat of the moment) – do you want shots of people arriving, materials, of the speakers, or work in progress, of certain activities and/or finished artefacts? The more you think about it beforehand, the more useful the photographs will be for you afterwards.

The article can be found in Volumen 5 Number 2 of the Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, pp. 291-300

Getting Your Head Around Academic Writing

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September 23, 2011
Overview
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In my own experience of teaching academic writing to undergraduate students in a number of creative practice disciplines (i.e. students who have a ‘practical’ component that is studio based) there seems to be a certain reluctance by the students to invest into writing in the same way as they do into subject specific skills.

This is actualy something I researched into further as part of my docotral thesis, which was all about the role of writing in undergraduate design education in the U. One of the findings was that students do not seem to see writing as a skill that needs to be practiced, but rather something almost instantenous: you write it and then it is done, so then you hand it in. The idea of re-writing bits, editing others out, going out to do a bit more research, overall all the preparation work and the honing of this as a skill – all things the students would do if the outcome is something studio based, whether thrown pot or animated film – is one that does not seem to occur to them, because they see it as removed from their practice.

As part of my PhD I introduced some assignments to students of Three Dimensional Design at Manchester Metropolitan University that were aiming to link their practice to written tasks, and were located in the studio rather than on the Contextual Studies/History of Art and Design side. These were not academic essays, but rather were meant to accumulate into a reflection on their practice, actual and aspirantional. Some details can be found in this case study written for the Writing PAD network.

Recently I have been thinking about exploring the idea of making in order to ‘get your head around’ more academic processes/research/writing a bit more – especially in the context of making artist’s books. More details about this project as it develops.

Thinking about this has made me realised that I have used little strategies like that in my own work (as a student and since then) to order thoughts or turn content into something more tangible (will probably post some examples on this blog in future categorised as ‘Alternative Presentations’).