In the past 5 days, I didn’t make any artworks but think and research, even in my dreams.
This morning, after breakfast I went to sleep again, and in my dream, yes I dreamed about homework again, I dreamed of a big netting which covered my head, my body, my paintings, the houses, the sky, everything, nobody can escape from this big netting.
At the end of the lecture by Jessica, who just finished her Master study on contemporary art practice program at RCA, the advice she gave to us was that “Don’t be forced on your own language but find your language in different ways. After the first semester at RCA, the artworks I presented was totally different from my previous paintings, I started to explore different materials to create my art, I never felt that I lost my own style since the final vision was the still the same, but in different mediums. ”
It’s my first time to experience tutorial program in U.K. and totally different with China spoon-feeding education model but similar to the previous mentorship programs I had in different organizations. Instead of following the teacher talking about something and students need to write down and recite everything but don’t understand the reasons behind, the tutorial is giving me additional instruction during the process when I do a project and helping me to learn by doing.
The first week at Royal College of Art, we were asked to do a PechaKucha presentation to introduce ourselves and our artworks. I have done lots of presentations to talk about my stories before in different conferences, and have written lots of articles about myself and my artworks too. But it’s my first time to know Pecha Kucha and have only 10 slides to let people know about me, and for each slide I only have 20 seconds.
I was living in Iran for one year, in Tehran, on the snow mountain. That was the year 1395, in Persian Calendar. During the Persian New Year holiday, I took a notebook and several markers and started my first painting trip, from Tehran, to Anzali, Isfahan, Naein and Shiraz.
MOWEN 