Collaboration unit - report
My personal project is interested specifically in imagery of mountains in the winter at night. For me, mountains in this way symbolize states of being and the human mind. As Macfarlane (2009, P.19) wrote: What we call a mountain is thus in fact a collaboration of the physical forms of the world with the imagination of humans – a mountain of the mind. For example, an image of a mountain at winter night creates stillness, it’s dark, silent and cold but it has a presence. This, for me, causes me to think about the relationship I have with mountains. They are so large and I seem small in comparison. The imagery causes me to reflect upon aspects of my life. This idea emerged from a habit of walking around the city at night. Lippuner and Brugger has described landscapes as ' a metaphor of our perception and memory.' (2015, p.45). The imagery allows me to think about my life and helps me to continue working when I feel unable. For me, mountains remain unconquerable because they are permanent and free; they do not belong to anyone. Like American artist Georgia O'Keeffe, (1976, p.100) said: To find the feeling of infinity on the horizon line or just over the next hill. So instead of interviewing mountaineers or climbers, I want to make a connection between normal people’s life and mountains, exploring mountains in that specific environment and their reflection in human mind. It sounds only about mountains, but there is a large part about humans.
1.What you have found out about your subject as a group?
During the collaboration unit, I was in the ‘nature’ group, because my theme is about mountains and the emotion they evoked. I found Yuqing’s theme shared a lot of same elements with mine. Her personal project is about the ‘botany of desire’: using collage to represent four kinds of plant’s desire. During our group discussion, I discovered her research was based on the idea that plants have feelings and can communicate with humans. Her exploration into the relationship between humans and natural world was based on the viewpoint of nature (plants). In other words, through producing anthropomorphic plants, she emphasizes plant’s feelings about human world. On the contrary, my subject is also about nature. However, I want to explore it through the perspective of humans. This means, it does not matter where the mountain is or whether the person has been to a mountain or not, the most important thing is their feelings towards the mountain: whether through an image or just imagining the scene of mountains in the winter night. Although to some degree, I can undertake research without visiting mountains, I believe it is important to undertake some primary research in this way. This will help me to understand my relationship with mountains, explore their environment and produce photographs to work from. Also, the project requires Interviews with a selection of subjects in order to gather peoples’ views and opinions about such imagery. From this point of view, we are able to explore the relationship between nature and humans in a different way.
Linda Hill (2014) mentioned in her speech about creativity that Innovation is a journey. It's a type of collaborative problem solving, usually among people who have different expertise and different points of view. It was inspirational to see a colleague process and research as it was like seeing the reverse version of my research. At the same time, this expanded my research, I can research in the same aspect but from a human side.
2.The experiences of working collaboratively
As for the collaboration, at first I found it very hard to find someone to collaborate with. I was given a lot of suggestions during the group discussion, like mountaineers, landscape painters, poets, but I thought in this way my collaboration would be limited. Since my research is based on the relationship between mountains as a symbol, it would be more suitable if I could find someone to do a more in-depth collaboration. Coincidentally, I met Gleb, a current Foundation student studying in Berlin. While in conversation I realised how Gleb’s personal history was perfect for my project. We began to collaborate considering two aspects using mountains as a symbol. One is about photographing his body, as I want to make an analogy between human body lines and the contour of mountains. As David (2015) comments on Harald Sohlberg’s painting about mountains: ‘With their purplish cast and highly textured brushwork, they appear quite present. They roll and curve, almost breathing like living animals’. Second, is about filming a video of him narrating his story and his thoughts about mountains in the winter night (as I want to through this video making people look back to their grow up experiences and combining the video with the photos to evoke their emotion towards mountains in the winter night). Gleb was cooperative in these two processes but I found two main problems during this collaboration. One concerns time, especially the time for the video, because I want to shoot it in different places when it’s after sunset and the sky is in deep blue, but during those days. Berlin was constantly raining so it was hard to film outside and there was no such deep blue when it was raining. Because I want to shoot at that specific time, it was difficult for us find an available time as Gleb had to go to college. Then I realised it was very essential for us to set a timetable for all our shooting, in this way, we can work efficiently.
Another problem was we sometimes having different opinion on the angle of shooting, the distance between him and the camera…which was not easy to coordinate, because I’m a very stubborn person and so is he. It is good to be offered different opinions to open your mind, but when you two think oppositely then it is very hard to cooperate or make someone compromise. In this situation, I chose to do a double version which means I did some shooting twice. One my way, another one in his way. Through this solution we were both pleased.
3.How this piece of research might inform your own practice during your personal project?
For me, collaborative research is a starting point. On the one hand, I have stretched my thinking through working with other people. Discussions with Plant project and Gleb has helped me to gather more materials for my project: Since I got the idea for my project during my walking at night, I only thought about taking photos of people and nature at that time, ideologically, I know nothing about mountains and their relationship with humans. After I have started to interview people, see people’s work about mountains, I gradually built a mind map for my project. Now I can not only deepen my research from the nature side (visit mountains, photograph mountains and read books about them) but also from collecting people’s stories. What’s more, the accumulation of information during the collaboration unit makes my standpoint more compelling: in my further research, all I have to do is find a bridge to connect the feature of mountains and the stories of humans.
On the other hand, I will present my personal project mainly in two formats: one in publication, another in video so I can still use the materials I made during the collaboration unit. I have tried many ways to create the juxtaposed images during the process of making the zine, for example, through collage, putting one image in another image, which makes it easier for viewers to see the connection between mountains and human. Or in a subtler way, just put two images together, letting viewers make the visual connection themselves, or through a reel of series images making the connection more sensible. Although I can only use one way to make the zine, I can use more ways to develop my final outcome, especially the publication. Through the experiences of making a zine, I’m able to know the content of my publication better, and thus choose the most suitable way to make my publication. As for my video, I think I will continue interviewing people, collect more stories and make them into a short film.
At last, through collaboration unit, the most important thing I have learnt is that working collaboratively is essential for art work. I used to work independently, I would look for artists whose work is related to my project, but instead of interviewing them, talking to them, I prefer to read the articles about their work. Because working on personal project is a very personal process, I’m more likely to dig into myself, discover the internal part which has not been discovered. The good part about this is that you can develop a better self after the process, and know yourself better, like a cocoon becomes a butterfly. It’s easier for you to develop your own art style as well. The bad part is sometimes you just stuck in yourself and trapped in your own mind. This is why working with others is important, especially when you are in an art university, people around you are all creative. Collision of thoughts can inspire new ideas and make your work more comprehensive. So during my personal project research, I’ll do more collaboration with people from different background.
Bibliography
Macfarlane, R. (2009). Mountains of the mind. 1st ed. London: Granta Books, p.19.
Lippuner, R. and Brugger, I. (2015). Landscape in my mind. Landscape photography today / Landschaftsfotografie heute. Von Hamish Fulton bis Andreas Gursky / Hamish Fulton to Andreas Gursky. 1st ed. Nürnberg: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, p.45.
O'Keeffe, G. (1976). Georgia O'Keeffe. 1st ed. New York: The Viking Press, p.100.
Hill, L. (2014) How to manage for collective creativity. Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/linda_hill_how_to_manage_for_collective_creativity (Accessed: 08 March 2017).
Brett, D. and profile, V. (2015). Harald Sohlberg, Winter Night in the Mountains. [online] Davidsartoftheday.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://davidsartoftheday.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/harald-sohlberg-winter-night-in.html [Accessed 8 Mar. 2017].
