24.09.2014 - Meet an Expert @ LCC

Around Easter time I went to London College of Communication to take part in a symposium event discussing graphic design in education, its current status within key stage 3 up to level 3 and what we felt as teachers, tutors and lecturers we have to develop and deliver in order to make a success out of the subject. Part of that event was team working designing what we considered "the perfect lesson" that identified the key components of learning. 

At the event and part of my team was MA student Maria Morote, She had started her MA in Graphic design that January and was at the event just to discuss her idea of graphic design and a postgraduate student and ideally like us all to make connections. During the event I had an opportunity to discuss with Maria her current MA status, the topic she was researching into and for someone who wants to complete an MA themselves, find out what the process was like. That connection has stayed with us and Maria and I discussed that we would keep in  contact and that I would be more than happy to support her MA in any way as her subject at that point was "tattoos, the ideas behind, the mark making processes, and the underlining subject of them". 

Well Maria contacted me last week and asked me that at this stage of her MA she was asked to source an expert, someone who she considered could look at her current body of work, reflect and interrogate her and have a real in-depth and informal discussion about how this project could now take off. I was privileged to be asked as an expert to come to LCC and meet up with her and really take a look at what the project was and where it was going. We discussed 101 ideas of where practical solutions and initial experiments could start to take her research out of a page, looking at the work she had produced to date, using herself in many cases as a subject with tattoos, scars and other marks made on the skin. Have a look at Maria's blog has she reflects and documents hers MA daily.

The project has got some real potential now and me and Maria will be keeping our contact going whilst she begins to explore some of what I questioned and recommended. Part of our deal was that Maria is now going to come to South Essex College as a guest speaker and discuss with my FAD students the context of completing a BA and moving onto an MA, especially with her background "coming from France" she has lots of beneficial information and creativity to pass on.