Garden of Loneliness

Garden of loneliness,

Isolation that once felt like roses blooming in the spring sun,

now feels like the thorn that pricks thy thumb,

Rebirth our society like the Iris each spring

change our collective consciousness so that we not only root foundations of change but dig the dirt that is building this confinement of rational thought.

Crunch, shatter and spread awareness of the importance of our ecological thought,

Planting the seed of change

So that we can grow together not apart

Shine you light on our stems of thought and water this garden from here on out

As without seeds we shall stay stagnant and without the sun we shall not grow

water shall nourish our brains

so that we shall once again feel like roses blooming in the spring sun and no longer feel the thorn that pricks thy thumb

this garden of loneliness isn’t too bad when creative thoughts can flourish and grow

you see to live in light you need the seed and to have the seed eco-phenomenological change must be.

Art school is in a state of flux. A virus sprouted onto us like a weed within soil,

Disruption

Disturbance

Change

Or?

An opportunity to change the way in which we teach and learn but also a new prospect to grow these routes of change to embed within the schools for the future and betterment of both educator and student. Strengthening methodology through creative play, disrupting paths of normality to enable create flow without restrictions of everyday. A tranquillity Not found when everyday life disturbances distract our train of thought which only engross are consciousness. When we can stop, we can listen, we can think, and we can breathe deeper than we'd ever before. It's a time to celebrate creativity, to think outside the box developing practices in a deeper more connective way. Not only with the earth itself who has been strengthened by our weakness but also to collaborate with the earth and respond to the natural rhizomes of life.

Coronavirus brought a chance to change the way in which we consider how we can teach creatively. As we walk through this forest of change, we observe each root and Stem and how nature has begun to thrive through our sickness. When a system is forced to change it gives an opportunity for growth, to enable us to sprout new perspectives. To slow our life and encourage contemplation, reflection and observation.

During this time of crisis Helen found freedom in her garden, walking in the forest behind her house and the mundane acts of living. She made time for herself to recharge her very burnt out batteries and to enable herself to connect with nature on a deeper level. Exploring landscapes as the distinct individual they are, utilising mechanisms around her, as an extension of herself to reflect her own direct experience in this time of crisis. Considering Charlotte Prodger’s ways of thinking and her ability to portray landscape, language, technology and time. Her self-determination and subjectivity that she portrayed throughout her work through the lens of the landscape. The intertwining relationship between body, landscape and technology. Connectivity felt through the lens from the body and portrayed in the landscape. An emergence of bodily experience and phenomenological understanding speculatively shown through the lens to the viewer.

Perhaps this state of fluidity is actually a new state of freedom intertwining our surrounding ecology into our everyday, so that we can recharge our consciousness to the environment around us. Learning through landscape and lens, not only in the sense of the present moment but to uproot new spaces for new ways of learning.

Connectivity like never before with smartphones a plenty and laptops uniting us through apps like zoom, teams and skype, we have never been more connected. The rhizomes of nature imitated by the stems of the internet connecting us together yet feeling apart. The more blessed of us get closer to nature whilst others are restricted to the 4 walls they exist within. One hour of freedom to connect with the wider landscape utilised for exercise and escape.

Are we exercising our minds or our bodies?

or

both?

Why is it that we only now recognise this to be an important action of everyday?

Do we have to have a pandemic to recognise the importance of the landscape?

They advise us to get creative and fulfil our day with creative play, is it only times of crisis that we are aware of the importance of fulfilling and stimulating our brains?

How can we navigate this new freedom within the world we had built up before the pandemic?

How can we begin to effectively and ethically create space that enables us to have that form of freedom within an educational environment?

We need to explore the effectiveness of our ‘normal’ routines pre-pandemic, connecting the dots on what was effective and what systems need uprooting. So that we can consider our path back to an ecologically effective and mentally stimulating educational environment. To enable us to effectively educate art.

Observing art school of the ‘normal’ world pre-pandemic. There is a sense of comfort to the natural rhythm of routine, however with the shift that has happened, that routine now seems stagnant. We need to refresh the structure of the art school model. When reflecting on the previous assemblies that we have in place one can contemplate on the rigid civil political institutes that are in place as a modem and model for exploration. Rigid walls, sharp corners, white walls and structuralizing of the institute creates an ecosystem of imprisonment. A cold rigid space, one of flatness. Flatness as described in the book ‘Institutional attitudes instituting art in a flat world’ by pascal gielen

“Today’s networked society offers us many wondrous possibilities of information, communication, mobility, and flexibility. It also has special latent side effect: it makes the world flat. Time honoured hierarchies , traditions, elites, canons, and forms of ‘grandeur’ are subject to eroding movements that have a tendency to give gravity towards mediocracy.” (Geielen, 2013, pg2)

Flatness within the society has not only offered us these bountiful stems of connection and growth but has had the butterfly effect of erosion societally, phenomenologically and psychologically.

Imagine you’re walking through a forest and you see a flat, hard yet beautiful fallen tree branch. From the outside it seems beautiful, perhaps it has ivy and moss climbing around it creating a beautiful pattern. You sit and contemplate the branches beauty in its decay. Yet the branch is hollow internally eaten by wood mites that abuse its fallen structure, you would think that this is a tale of defeat and loss. Although there is a branch somewhere that is hollow, decaying and being internally eaten. There is a beauty in its decay and a natural compostation occurring. Giving back to the natural stem of life, so that close by the tree that once held that branch up high can grow new branches. The art school of today is that branch. It has structures of beauty that are there to impress and entwine around it creating the appearance of togetherness. Yet when you explore the internals of the art school you begin to realise that over the years there have been mites slowly nibbling at the system hungry for more. Flatness, the branch is flat to the ground as it has fallen, the art school is flat to the ground and it had fallen. The systems of the old no longer able to sustain growth and height, only being taken away from its place more and more by the mites. As we have come to understand this is the natural compostation of life, one system decaying so that another can grow. We need to understand that we need to let this compostation of the old ways happen, so that we can grow stronger more reliable structures for the future and betterment of the art school.

We have a rigid structure in place at the moment that is creating an unhealthy environment for both educator and student. When considering an example of this I look at Helen’s time at Turves green school, an all-girls school on the outskirts of Birmingham. Day one she entered the classroom and was given the task of sitting, observing and participating whilst the teacher taught a lesson. who admittedly treated her and her fellow students similarly to the pupils in the class. The teacher goes on to show them a PowerPoint on different artists. Who have either a painterly or drawing style to them, however they almost seemed randomly pulled from a hat? They were all given the task of identifying qualities within these artists work on self-portraiture. Now when Helen considered this, she would be considering not only the ways in which they created the work but how they were emotionally and psychologically engaging with the piece. Understandably the girls within the school weren’t at that level of study yet. However, they were assigned to simply pick out qualities of the physical work not even considering the deeper meaning. This class was all do to with aiding the girls understanding of self-portraiture and image. Not only were the girls completely unengaged but were also extremely self-conscious when talking about these topics.

Why were they made to stay within the boundaries of the tables within the space? and why were they confined to merely looking at the artist’s work?

Helen believed that they should have been given the opportunity not only look and explore the artistic quality of the portraits but also be given the opportunity to delve deeper than that. Engaging the students further through utilizing the space. Making room for a safe space for self-expression and opinion without judgement. Helen believed this could have happened if the teacher hadn’t just simply fixated on one PowerPoint and set the girls off on their own but had created stations of engagement. Utilising the plant life within the classroom and opening up the space up for engagement. Connecting the self-image deeper than mere drawing and painting yet understanding the importance of understanding the fundamental first steps of art.

How Helen would have done it:

Stage 1: set up multiple areas within the classroom utilising the entire rooms capabilities to its maximum, with an array of different workshop spaces.

Stage 2: place a timer on the whiteboard so that the girls don’t get too fixated on one topic and have the ability to grow

Stage 3: ensure each area is different for example; one could be our connection to nature through the use of the plants within the space, another could be a performative challenge performing the self-portraiture of each artist given to them. Another could focus on how the artists applied their portraits to their canvases and with what medium but could delve deeper too enquiring on a deeper level thing such as texture as metaphor and colour theory.

Stage 5: ensure that you are tentative as a teacher not only enabling the girls to be engaged by creating a space for that but also engaging yourself ensuring that they feel they can speak up. Keep things relevant to the current climate so they can have a deeper connection to the topic.

Helen’s time at Turves green school not only taught us that the system is flat within the way in which we teach today but it also taught us the importance space and how flat the space is currently, yet when changed its abilities to enable growth. We can learn so much more when we can connect to things on a deeper level. This is what is missing from art school as a whole; the ability to open up spaces and engage nature more within the classroom. Not only environmentally aiding in productivity and calm but learning how we can change our direct experiences within the classroom through eco-phenomenology and examining the rhizomes of nature. So that we can create a new model for art school that connects us on a deeper level.

I quote:

“ We humans participate in beauty as open systems in ongoing process, coevolving with all of existence. Beauty offers us conscious awareness and resonance with deeper life patterns. We sense our interconnection and the “bounded infinities” of potentialities related to chaotic “strange attractors.” A study of aesthetic preference not only supports preference for the fractal forms of nature but suggests, tentatively, that creative persons prefer forms of even higher “dimensionality.” Beauty can open up our vision in an endangered world—while yielding intimacy and delight, not isolation and fear.” (Ruth Richards, 2001.)

Ruth Richards poetically describes how we can change the way we educate today, learning from this collective experience that the coronavirus has shown us. That ‘beauty can open up our vision in the endangered world-whilst yielding intimacy and delight, not isolation and fear’ – Richards 2001. This sense of reconnection enabling us to experience how beauty can open up our vision in the endangered world that we have created is pertinent to growth and change. More importantly it creates space for intimacy and delight rather than isolation and fear, which we have all experienced during this pandemic. Let it be a lesson for us on how we can grow these roots of change and transform this experience from here on out.

We come back to the questions:

How can we navigate this new freedom within the world we had built up before the pandemic?

How can we begin to effectively and ethically create space that enables us to have that form of freedom within an educational environment?

When considering a root back to a better path, we could begin to consider how flat the world is and how we go about making it round again.

I quote:

“If we submit to the hypnotic power of such expressions, suddenly we find ourselves entirely in the roundness of this being, we live in the roundness of life, like a Walnut that becomes round in its shell. A philosopher, painter, poet and an inventor a fables have given us documents of pure phenomenology. It is up to us now to use them in order to learn how to gather being together in its centre. It is our task, too, to sensitise the document by multiplying its variations.” (Bachelard, 1958. Pg 248)

It’s letting ourselves submit to the natural rhizome of life and submit to the hypnotic power of expression and nature we can once again feel the connectedness that is necessary in our daily encounters. When considering getting closer connected to nature we think of rhizomes and the text that comes to mind is ‘Growing Rhizomes and Collapsing Walls: Postmodern Paradigms for Design Education’ by MAHESH SENAGALA. Who explains the importance of the systems and structures of architectural education;

“The system and structure of architectural education is a resultant of two sets of forces. On one side, we have the inherent characteristics and peculiarities of architectural profession that drive its academic component and remain the same at any given point of time. I will call these factors intrinsic factors. On the other side, we have numerous contextual and environmental (cultural, technological, sociopolitical) factors whose essence is change.” ( Senagala, 1998)

It is this change that we need to implement into today. Begin with considering collapsible walls and open spaces. Reflecting the importance of our connection to the natural world, bringing in nature to the space. Considering plant walls – houseplant station? Perhaps we could begin to implement walks to encourage better mental health but also creative play not just in the new open spaces of classrooms/studios but also within nature itself. Taking from our hourly walk a day. I think it’s extremely important to apply open structures within the architecture of the school for the overall phenomenological direct experiences of the pupils but also consider an openness within the social structures too. The emergence of old and new. Reflecting the histories and keeping the archives but celebrating the new sense of liberation by having less hierarchy but more empathy. Opening the art school model to be the healthiest version it could possibly be. Allowing for more advanced exploration without restriction. So that the teachers/lecturers have a new sense of freedom and aren’t shackled down by the institutionalisation of the old ways. Encouraging an openness in space for working alongside students and teachers so that the hierarchical divide doesn’t impact the art schools for the worst but enlightens the experience for all. Comfort spaces perhaps made of natural resources could give anyone needing escape from the educational spaces. Taking from our collective experiences within the post pandemic world to build better structures. Responding to the natural rhizomes of life.

“It is by the flesh of the world that in the last analysis one can understand the lived body”

Merleau-Ponty perfectly evaluates the essence of life and the methodology that we should all take forward into the future after this pandemic is over. He evaluates the relationship between the world, others and body-subject intertwined. Contemplating interaction of all three and the ambiguous dialog that follows creating a web of multiple which speak to the body directly. We must not give up hope but continue to do the mundane acts of life to sustain ourselves but also to contemplate on the importance of nature and how it can benefit us for the future of the survival of the art school model.

Rebirth our society like the Iris each spring

change our collective consciousness so that we not only root foundations of change but dig the dirt that is building this confinement of rational thought.

Crunch, shatter and spread awareness of the importance of our ecological thought,

Planting the seed of change So that we can grow together not apart,

Shine you light on our stems of thought and work this art school from here on out

As without creativity we shall stay stagnant and without the school we shall not grow.

Work shall nourish our brains

So that we shall once again feel like creatives blooming in the spring sun and no longer feel the flatness that ruined our fun

This time of loneliness hasn’t been too bad when creative thoughts can flourish and grow

you see to live in light you need the seed and to have the seed eco-phenomenological change must be.