When I started this course, I felt like an imposter who had conned my way into the life of an artist with just a handful of digital sketches. A year later now, I find that the fact that I am an artist is the very core of my identity. It has always been there, even though I did not dare to recognise it as such. The artist in me has always looked out for me and given me a hand whenever I have needed it. It was the artist in me that got me out of the worst phase I have ever experienced some years ago. I have finally been able to acknowledge and give shape to the artist in the last work I have made – the artist who nurtures, and magically makes things out of nothing, or transfigures pain and sadness into something more beautiful, and wholesome.
Over the course of the last year, I have often thought about what it means to be an artist, and by extension – what is art. We will not answer these grand questions in a year or even in a lifetime. In the beginning, I thought art is a thought process. Somewhere along the way, I thought art is discovering oneself anew everyday. Now, I'm more inclined to think that above all, art is the thing that holds people – be they the artist, or the people immersing themselves in art.
Proposal for Unit 3
Having grounded myself thematically throughout Unit 1 and Unit 2, in Unit 3, I plan to focus more on developing the experience of my works in a gallery space.
Given that my practice has mostly existed digitally, when I first arrived at Camberwell, the gallery felt somewhat obsolete to me. I may have also been resentful of them as exclusionary spaces, given that I did not really have access to art worlds growing up. Later when I was writing about art at the online publication, The Wire, I only ever met with curators who looked down on me for not being 'arts educated'. The shows and gallery visits we did in Unit 2 helped me to revaluate my position with regard to gallery spaces.
In March 2022, when we were installing for 'Dialogues', I wasn't sure that my work even belonged in a gallery. I found my installations boring and unwieldy. But, when I saw how innovatively my classmates were showing work, I began to ease out of my reluctance. It dawned on me that the gallery is about the experience of the work and not the work itself per se. It's a gateway into the world of the work.
Jennet's tour of East London also helped to persuade me to be gentler to gallery spaces. We mostly visited small galleries tucked away in makeshift yards or someone's living space, etc. This really opened me up to the idea that a gallery could be anywhere and I need not think of them just in terms of exclusionary spaces. Like most things, they can be appropriated away from rarified cultures.
I now see the potential for galleries to be theatrical spaces where the work inhabits the space, rather than the space making way for the work. This is mainly what I plan to experiment with in Unit 3, for both the shows in July and November.