Unit 1 - Drawing Reflections
London Metropolitan Archives
With Rudy Loewe Lorentz
I really enjoy Rudy's sharing class. In actuality, I witnessed his exhibition in front of the class. His artwork has some pretty intriguing colour and arrangement choices.
However, when I attended his sharing class on Monday, I felt and realised what he was actually trying to say. The most fascinating part of the sharing class was when he described to us how he conducted his research and gave us the URLs of survey-ready websites where he completed it. There are categories for both text and image data. Because I attempted to get certain resources from the school library but was unable to, these archives websites helped me come up with a creative strategy to conduct primary research.
Rudy taught us how to do research while also teaching us how to build our own stories based on the information available and how to use already existing pieces to try to reproduce and create new ones. I particularly enjoy the age-appropriate poster information he used in the development of the piece. I took some of its constituent parts and created some of my own.
Thoughts on Archives
The files I received concern LGBT posters that appeared in London in the 1980s. (I don't have photographs because the information hasn't been disclosed.)
I developed a draught of the tale, which is about a homosexual youngster who was mistreated at school and died, and merged the gay clinic's emblem from the poster. Because when I first saw these materials, I assumed that homosexual culture in London paid care to the physical and emotional health of gay people, but my draught mirrored China's lack of interest in and disregard for LGBT identities.
Visited London Metropolitan Archives
In the next 2 weeks, Rudy took us to the Metropolitan Archives. Everything in the archives is so retro and fresh to me. It was the first time I saw a file storage room with a rotating shaft, learned about the division of different files, and consulted some first-hand materials of text and pictures. Before, the first-hand information on some websites we searched was separated from the LCD screen, but now it is a real thing that can be touched, which makes more thinking and questions about the theme of the project burst out.
Rudy brought us to the Capital Archives in the following two weeks. I find everything in the archives to be both classic and modern. I learnt about the separation of various files, saw a file storage room with a spinning shaft for the first time, and examined some first-hand text and image resources. Previously, the first-hand information on some of the websites we examined was isolated from the LCD screen, but now that it is a tangible object that can be handled, new thoughts and inquiries concerning the project's topic emerge.