Manifesto
Manifesto
Aim - Synchronisation of our daily lives
1. Communicate in English (not in mother tongue)
2. Go out by 11:00
3. Reflect on the day
17/02
Day 1
We arrived to Bordeaux at around 13:00 and it felt different. The air was warm like how freshly oven baked bread feels like. Sand colour buildings with the sun shining through the gaps of the apartments. I felt a little more motivated to work as my partners were also working at the same time. And I think they thought the same way. I realised that our way of thinking does not differ that much: we think of an idea, then develop it with research. When I was previously working in a group, one of them had to do a considerate amount of research before coming up with a convincing idea. I am more of person who comes up with an idea having a specific vision in mind. That is why I used to dislike when people would give me suggestions to modify slightly my ideas. Surprisingly, when I got into Foundation, I was willing to get feedback from my classmates and my tutors and apply them to my work. But I do remain quite attached to my initial ideas.
I realised that everyone has their own pace of work. For example, Eva works extremely late at night and gets most of her work done in the morning after. As for Youlin and me, we feel a little more motivated to work the evening rather than the morning or at noon. But I think working in the same space pushes us to work at the same time and enables us to help each other out.
17/02
19/02
Day 3
We decided to wander around the city of Bordeaux since it was the last day. We went to the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Bordeaux and got to see their main collection. Although small, there was a variety of paintings/sculptures and I think it was helpful that they ordered the rooms by time period: the more you advance, the more you approach the present time. I realised how important it is to plan the gallery space and contextualise your works. The XVII century works had a red wall as a lot of them had war or royalty as themes. Whereas the Cubist works, they were presented on a white wall as there were numerous contrasting colours in one painting. I got to discover new artists today and see numerous styles which was rather instructional to me. There was a painter which had several of his works exposed, including sketches/unfinished works. It was interesting to see how other artists develop their works in their own way and I realised that development work is a universal process.
When the clock struck 14:00, we visited the Cathédrale Saint André, the (allegedly) best church in Bordeaux with two Michelin stars. The exterior looked quite similar to Notre-Dame de Paris except the latter is bigger in scale. The inside was chilly and I could hear the choir sing very faintly in the background. I think compassion is a common theme in religious text and I thought that exploring compassion not only in Buddhism but also in Christianity would be interesting. Since Judaism and Christianity share the Ancient Testament, I realised that I could include numerous Biblical story references.
18/02
Day 2
We decided to go to Chateau Haut-Brion, one of the top wine makers in the world. Eva wanted to explore the vineyard atmosphere and Youlin and I were willing to see it. When we got off the bus, I smelled a faint odour fo grapes. The vineyard was right in front of the road but no grapes were on the trees as it was not the season. I think it is incredible how I could smell grapes even though there were no fruits. We walked down to the chateau through the vineyard and it smelled like waffles (not sure why). As my theme is compassion, I wanted to see the latter could be applied to nature. If we can feel compassion towards nature, especially nowadays when climate change is a hot topic. I realised by passing through the columns of wine trees that there was so much care and attention given to each tree. The wood support for the tree as well as the soil distribution was equally done. All the wine trees were equidistant to each other and I could see far away that there was a man looking after one of the trees. I felt that the individuals who worked at the Chateau took extreme precaution and care to the wine trees and I could tell that if someone broke one branch, they would pursue you to the end of the world. I think human beings are capable of being attacked to plants and I would like to represent that in one my works, they can feel compassion towards a plant. Unfortunately, we did not get to visit the Chateau itself as we needed reservation but it was nice to see a different landscape. I could not believe that a vineyard was only 10 minutes away from the centre of Bordeaux.