Ba2b has proven to be yet another learning curve for me, conjuring up a variety of new experiences that have challenged me and my creative practice, all with varying degrees of success. A weak part of my creative practice is the editing and development. The significance of these components in order to create a strong foundation for my studio practice was brought to my attention through the previous unit’s feedback. Due to my personal practice often being visual based, by ordinary, I often end up prioritising and focusing more on the visual impact of my work and not enough on its contextual reasoning and the ideology in which supports it, resulting in my outcomes not being as conceptually strong as they are visually. As a significant goal of Ba2b was for us to determine what subject we would like to explore further within our report and therefore start the researching the process in preparation for the summer coupled with wanted to gain more confidence and strength in terms of my editing down kills as well as my development skills, I have decided to utilise this unit as an opportunity to work on my editing skills as well as my developmental skills.

 

My personal interest proved to be a double edged sword and even though my interest have made the researching  and analysing process of the project very efficient and enjoyable, they also doubled as a comfort zone. Resulting in me quickly being immersed into the researching process, often going on tangents and not focusing enough on the design as well as the development aspect and thus, slowly reverting back to my old way of working. It was only after my presentation that I was informed by the tutor that I have researched and gathered enough information but were lacking in terms of actually analysing the information gathered through the framework of design and thus, recommended me look back and reference Jack Self as well as other critical theorists like John Berger in order to act as a guide. Therefore, through using Jack Self’s article on how one should perceive architecture as one of my keys texts, I have constantly referred back to the four criteria presented within the text in order to keep me on track, ensuring that design is always on the forefront of my research. Therefore, after receiving the feedback for my presentation, I proceeded to revisit and re-read through the case studies and academic papers I have analysed prior and pick out points that I felt were strictly design based and in terms of any visual research, analysed them through framework of Jack Self.

 

Furthermore, by analysing ‘Why look at Animals’ as well as ‘In Praise of the Zoo’ by Alain de Cotton, recommend by the tutor terms critical theories, the two texts’ depiction of the zoo differed significantly, providing me a chance to compare and contrast them. Moreover, through analysing the materials, I was able to gain an insight to the way artists and other professionals in the creative field perceive zoos in which, I was then able to compare with and in some cases, support the information already gathered through the surveys that I have conducted. Similarly, I never would have thought to turn to critical theorists when researching about Zoo Design but by referencing and analysing these texts, I was able to acquire a new level of depth for the ideas and reasoning to which I can develop my research from. Therefore, I will be looking at more critical theories for in the future in order to be able to provide my research with even more theories. 

 

Prior to the presentation, I have contacted a few professors located over in both India and America and hence, with this feedback in mind, was able to filter through the new information from the various research papers gathered, only taking note and analysing parts of the paper that I deemed relevant as well as look more for papers which are zoo design or enclosure design specific. Due to having solely based my research on academic and/or research papers and not enough on visual resources, I have decided to travel down to ZSL London Zoo in order to observe how all of the information I have gathered up to this point in works when applied in a zoo setting. I have found this trip to be of significant help to my research. In Particular, The Tiger Territory and The Land of the Lions. Through observing and analysing the design and the way in which visitors interact with the design has allowed me to recall and link pieces of information and observations from separate papers and analyse them within one context. By observing the enclosures, the enclosures have also highlighted certain aspects that I may have overlooked and therefore should look further into. Furthermore, observing and recording the inhabitants relative to the enclosure design have provided me with primary visual research i.e photographs and film in which I later can then compare with the behaviours of the tigers within the research reports as well as the films and photograph taken at my work place.

 

Although editing down of the information gathered have proven to be quite difficult in terms of making sure that the information were relevant, it was during the process of writing my proposal that my ability to edit down was challenge. With the feedback from the previous unit in mind, I have felt a need to provide ample reasoning as well as a case study behind every individual criteria proposed in the essay in order to be able to prove that all arguments carried forward within the proposal was researched base. Thus, landing myself with more information than I could possibly fit into the 1000 words limit. Due to the proposal plan itself being over a thousand words, I have had to revisit the plan as well as their sources multiple times, filtering out quotes and any information that I felt were not of enough relevance to the argument I am trying to make, leaving only quotes I strictly deemed relevant in order to ensure that my essay is still rich in reasoning and the arguments taken forward in the essay remains as well informed whilst still remaining relevant. 

 

Lastly, I was able develop my editing and development skills even further through group work. Due to every member having differing personal creative practices, we all had different relationships towards the prompt and group practice therefore often resulting in a contrast of opinions. Thus, often I find myself having to be quite firm and persistent in order to make sure the underlying concept and ideology remains in the forefront when deciding rather than what we felt were visually strong. In order to make sure that our final outcome was as conceptually as well as visually strong as it can potentially be. Similarly, I was also able to challenge my editing skills even further when I joined the curating team. Enabling, myself with the challenge of editing under a limited period of time. Although it was quite daunting to have to edit out other student’s work in order to ensure that the Process Table is visually strong, I had to persevered and by the end, learnt be quite firm in order to place the work on the process table in an order than allows them to be as visually impactful as possible.