This digital object has been developed from the University of Barcelona in Fine Arts Degree context, most specifically, in Contemporary Visual Arts Subject.
Summary
At the beginning of the course, we learned some concepts about capitalism, images, visual culture, decolonizing strategies, etc, with the explanations of the teacher. He made us search some examples, and share them in an online campus, to create a community space of information. Although, I think that during the whole course, we did not make the most of this tool; maybe we are not used enough to use it, or maybe we were not committed enough.
Before we started our research project about the desire, for me participating actively in class was something difficult, there were not a large number of interventions of classmates, and the class was not active. Fortunately, when we started to work in small groups to talk about desire, all of us had to express our opinion, and then share with other groups our progress and ideas and this made us improve our participation in class. Even though, I believe that the project would have grown more if we had really shared between the groups.
The process of investigation about the desire was quite difficult sometimes. Every group worked in a specific question about desire, and was formed by people who chose freely work there. It means that you don’t know how are going to be the mates. In the group, we had to regulate everything, from dealing with people that was not appearing at the meetings to create our own guidelines. We knew that we had to answer our question, but in some occasion, we had a confused idea about what we had to do and when this had to be done, we felt lost, and sometimes we were worried about it. However, being absolutely autonomous working let us the opportunity to decide how we wanted to work, and which questions develop.
From my point of view, this way of learning is far from the typical structured course in items where you have to do a test at the end of the term, where you put down all that you have memorized and then you forget it. Learning by yourself about what you really keen on, has more impact and make you learn and remember.
The course made me reconsider a large amount of ideas and positions that I had fixed, mostly about what I am doing at university, what I say when I paint or sculpt, and I think it will be positive to think over this, to try to improve. I have also learned about the context where I live, about the history and the stories, and now I feel that I am more conscious about reality.
Finally, it has been a challenge for me to do a video about all that I have learned, how and which questions it put to me because I dislike making and editing videos, but I also find it one of the easiest ways to share my experience in a dynamic way. I expect it will be useful and a good summary of the term.
By: Sara Ruiz Moreno