Lecture: Karen McQuaid

Karen MaQuaid gave us a talk about her learning from experience through her career as a curator. I like the quotes showing on slides, it summarises her experience learning from mistake. I think no matter what job we will be doing, we may have the same as Karan did, keeping learning and gaining experience.

Through her talk, I learnt what role as a curator would be, also trying to trust people. Team work is really hard when you are not familiar your collaborators, but communication is important when having different opinions, how to balance that issue and find the best way, I am pretty sure it would always be a task for me.

Typo workshop

           

In this workshop, we learnt about the basic of typography, understanding the relationship of text and text culture. We went through type classification, type families, caps and mixing types to know using them functionally. Matt gave us some examples of type would be used in publication and artwork display which I thought even we are not graphic specialism, with foundation of type knowledge which helps us to link type into images easily, plus type designer would know how to find a proper type font for our works. After this workshop, I feel much more confident to play with images and texts. And I would try placing type families on my zine to see how it looks like against visual media.

Reference: http://thinkingwithtype.com/

Zine workshop

                         

In this 2-day workshop we explored zine culture and we were given a brief content to make a zine. The task was collecting images and text from social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Putting those materials in a playful way as well as experimenting paper folding. Besides, I demonstrated the process of cat café book to second year, which took me few minutes to rethink how to make this postcard-sized book. On the second session, carrying on making zines, we would use our gathered visual materials and texts to create a zine no matter was A5 or any size smaller than A5. I had had finished collecting images and texts with the idea of being lazy. Apart from elements from social media, I also used some thoughts of being lazy. In order to make it as a playful zine. I came up with the idea of creating window-liked zine with internal pages when experimented different paper folding. 

                         

When you open it, you would see the content I gathered. The zine was made by hand rather than using InDesign software. After finished sticking visual materials into final size paper, I photocopied them which images turned out soft with some lines on paper, however, that’s how zine looks like as a self-published and experimental low-fi magazine.

Japanese Stab Bindings & Wrap-around Case

               

In this workshop, we learnt how to make three handmade books by using Japanese sewing techniques: the 4-hole binding, the noble binding and the tortoise-shell binding. Additionally, we made a traditional bookcloth covered wraparound case that folds up to enclose the books.

Japanese stab binding is a great method as you could design any pattern you like. It can be simple, can be intricate. The sewing is a beautiful process bringing up delicate result. Learning three methods of binding inspired me to work on creating playful and unique stab binding. As for the idea of wrap-around case which could protect small handmade books and I think it could be combine two elements of book and case. A case could design as a cover directly so that I wouldn’t make another cover for book. This workshop allowed me to explore different ideas of book making and I have got loads of inspiration from it.

Small Publishers Fair

                                

I went to the Small Publishers Fair in London. They had got artist books and few were literature. The space was narrow and it was busy which hardly moving around. Sellers were talking to visitors, one lady she was not friendly at me. When I wanted to look through her books, then she stopped me and said if I could wait for a while then she turned over to continue her conversation with a guy. I was standing there at least 10 minutes. She back to me and showed the content of book. Because her works were fragile, she wouldn’t let anyone to touch them. At that moment, I would like to push myself to talk to people, then I asked her what’s the paper. She went like I am asking her stupid question why not I check it myself. Well, she is a true artist. She possibly knew I wouldn’t buy her works so she wouldn’t pay lots of attention on me. However, the atmosphere was different than the one I went for volunteer. It looked like sharing experience might not the priority for publishers.

Bath and Bristol Small Publishers' Gathering

                                         

I signed up for volunteering the Bath and Bristol Small Publishers' Gathering. The task for student volunteer involved liaising with publishers, welcoming the public at the doors; handing out brochures; covering book tables, giving general advice, e.g. location of toilets/exits. Also, we went out telling tourists the fair activity. But it seemed that they all had their plan so they were not interested in this event which we found that didn’t work well. So we turned to place these catalogues into bookstore, café and tourist information if people would like to come in.

It was a long day even they opened to public in the afternoon but they had talks in the morning and discussed trend of publication which was interesting to know their thought from different discipline. Basically, those publishers displayed literature, poems and press and this is value for me to see different publication and talk to sellers.  

Exhibition: Platform for Emerging Arts 18

Exhibition: Platform for Emerging Arts 18

Platform for Emerging Arts 18 is a mixed-media exhibition showcasing the work of a diverse and exciting group of skilled national and international emerging artists, who have been selected for their promise and skill by curators Adriana Cerne and Lindsay Moran.