We are a group of about sixty students, resident in seventeen countries spanning twelve different disciplines. Although united by a common passion for the arts, we see our cultural and artistic diversity as one of our key strengths. There is a core group that facilitates the group’s activities.
If you are a student based in or connected to the European continent - excluding the UK (see specific OCA groups) - and would like to become part of our growing community either register or contact a core team member (Brindusa@519010, Inger@514976, Peter@516385 , and Stefan@513593). We would love to welcome you.
Looking back
As we come slowly to the end of another academic year, with students looking forward to a well-deserved break, we thought it worth looking back at our activities and what we are planning for the next academic year.
In the second half of the year our overarching theme was Presenting Your Work and we had a series of monthly Crits and talks that explored different aspects of this.
In February and May we had “work in progress” crit sessions led by OCA Photography tutor Jayne Taylor. These sessions are excellent for not only providing different perspectives on work, introducing new ideas but also in providing a means for students to practice structured feedback.
The crits were useful in learning how others see your work and to see the themes on which the others are working.
Sonia,Painting, Germany
In March, tutor Michele Whiting ran a longer session: Aesthetics of presentation - what can we know and what can we not know? Here we learned a lot about different ideas on presentation; using these we then reviewed student work. Moreover, in the session we created a manifesto for presentation that helped create a common view.
It has been great to see what other students do and make. It has also been great to actually ''meet'' my fellow students. I am a level 1 student and I have been able to learn a lot from the sessions.
Baiba,Creative Arts, Latvia
Aligned with the March session, in April Diana Ali led a very engaging session entitled Curating your work: how to have a dialogue between multiple works. In this session we looked at how to show a series, a collection and multiple works within a space. We explored how works speak to each other so they form a narrative.
The two themes for OCA EU meetings this year have been really, really good.
Emma, Photography, Switzerland
In June, in our last session of our academic year, we had a very stimulating talk from 3rd year photography student Sarah-Jane Field, telling us about her ideas on presentation in her final project work Why is there an astronaut in a field of flowers?
Looking forward
Although we had a very successful year, we all had the feeling that we needed to review our ways-of-working and see how we could enhance our activities. Through a questionnaire and online discussion we decided that that, in addition to regular Crits and talks, we should introduce three new activities that would bring us closer together as a group and help support one another:
- Regular monthly coffee sessions as a means of encouraging informal interaction. Find out more by clicking on the pdf below.
- Group Collaborations, where small groups work on group projects
- Virtual Exhibition for the end of the academic year
Members of the group are already working on the group collaboration and exhibition facilitated by the core group. We are looking forward to an exciting and stimulating year and welcome new members who would like to take part.
Your thoughts / Get involved
We would like to hear from you, especially with regard to topics for talks, speaker suggestions and any questions you have about your studies. What has been good and you would like to see more of? What are we missing?
If you would like to help us run the group, we would love to have you on board. We are always looking for help in communication, planning, organising, supporting etc., as well as potentially organising face-to-face visits in European countries – hopefully soon.
Warmly,
Brindusa@519010, Inger@514976, Peter@516385 , and Stefan@513593
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