At the film workshop hosted by Dr Anat Ben-David, instead of choosing materials with a pre-proposed concept before the workshop, she asked us to found materials during the workshop without knowing the concept, in order to observe how ‘information’ transports from one medium to another tracing ‘narratives’

Firstly, we were asked to collect and gather any materials in 30 minutes, words, sentences, phrases, paragraphs, images that you like or you hate or you don’t understand, or anything that grabs your attention.

I went to a park near the school, where I do cycling every morning but have never stopped to have a look carefully.

I’m a flower lover, especially love the exuberant vitality in these delicate and charming blossoms, which inspired me so much. In the park, I found lots of falling rose petals in different colors, white, rose hermosa, rose red, reddish violet, some were still fresh while others were sere.

What’s more, I found some pigeon feathers in the grass, transiting from white to light grey, they are so soft, yet strong enough to protect the bird in the wind.

When we came back classroom, we were asked to present what we have collected quickly. Present these petals,  feathers, and dead leaves? Okay, I put them on a big white paper and put on a chair, so people could come to see what I have collected. That was what I thought and did.

Anat came and asked me “can I put them on the floor? ” “Sure,” I said, I didn’t care where they were presented.  Anat held the white paper highly, standing in the middle of the front room, and gently shook the paper and let the petals and feathers floating to the floor, then she left, without saying anything. 

This behavior made me fall into silence. Why I didn’t think about presenting them in this way? What else could I do to present?

After presenting, Anat asked us to prepare a new presentation with a better sense form, for example, editing words, sounds, and images.

We had 2 hours lunch break, I decided to use this 2 hours to create a short stop-motion collage film with materials I have collected. I’m trying to make collage art recently, but have never made a stop-motion film before, but would love to try.

I selected some leaves,  petals, and cuttings from old books, and put them on a London map book. I took a photo of each brush or each object I made on the map book.

I also chose a painting about London then put feathers, petals, leaves, and cutting images.

After taking these photos, I use a stop-motion app on my phone to edit and make a 40s video.

Including the material collection time, it’s totally 2.5 hours to finish the work,  then I presented it in the afternoon workshop.

This workshop pushed me to notice and gather any materials without “knowing” or “judging” or “with a strong clear purpose”, and create them into an artwork, what’s more, to think about the creative way or presentation,how to present them in different forms, how to interact with audience.

Mowen 

4th Sep 2018
Royal College of Art, London