Thinking about Assessment

Sept 13th:

I'm using this earlier post from July to update on my assessment plans so far.  With just a few weeks before the November submission deadline I am pretty much on track to be ready. I chose a black portfolio box for my 16x12 Body of Work prints that I feel displays my photographs in a professional manner; on top of those I devised a card pull-out in order to display my magazine and small Target Practice exhibition hand-out. By the time I'd done all this I realised that I'd forgotten to include my methodology and artist's statement. These are already included in the bound assignment 5 folder but I think they should also be read and interpreted as part of the BoW presentation. I think I will try to find a black A4 envelope and include it on the pull-out tray, maybe underneath the magazine.

This means of presentation will provide a number of ways to approach the body of work in line with the notion of the polysemous photograph. The BoW images could be viewed in a self-contained context, without external reference to other texts; with the artist's statement, indicating my intent when making the work and my creative influences; with the small exhibition hand-out card, that includes the relay-texts that accompany each image thereby creating a resonance between the images and the words to add another level of meaning; with the magazine, that provides additional research garnered and analysed during the development stage of the BoW; or with the methodological diagram, that describes my artist's process from the research stage to the making of props and working through the creative/developmental stages to final outcome.

So to summarise the assessment submission for Body of Work will include the five bound assignment folders with tutor reports, my essay notes, supplied images and sketchbook drawings and plans for each assignment. A bound learning log, the portfolio box as detailed above, and the online learning log (blog).

Here is a short video I made of the submission:


Body of Work presentation submission from ammoniteM on Vimeo.


July 15th:

For November assessment I need to think about how to show my body of work to best advantage. I'd initially decided on producing a set of large prints in a portfolio box; included would be a small handout card that contains my artist's statement and some background reading on Josef Kohout.

A second booklet containing the numbered text that accompanies my images is at present unfinished. I'm not sure how to produce this one. This 'text' booklet has a single piece of numbered text for each image and consists of a number of pages. It could be incorporated into the handout card in some way but that would bulk out and destroy its simplicity. It is designed to look like a Christmas card and references the postcard sent by Josef to his lover, Fred, that condemned him to four years in a concentration camp.

Handout card

After my final feedback session with my tutor, Keith we discussed the possibility of clarifying my artistic process for the assessment examiner. As Keith pointed out a lot of time and research goes into my process with regards to making props and thinking about how they will work and what I'm trying to say in my images. It is a shame if this process is lost or not clearly understood in the final portfolio. Keith has sent me a methodological diagram that will help me to design something similar that will show my process in visual form and can be included with the body of work. I think this is a really good idea as I very much enjoy looking other's artist's creative processes when I see workbooks at exhibitions.

At the same time I'd sent off and received a sample pack of different format paper magazines from an online company. I was thinking that I would like to produce my body of work in a magazine format and could include the discussed methodological diagram and maybe even the 'text' booklet as well. By producing the body of work in an additional paper format I can disseminate the important hidden history information without feeling uncomfortable about putting Holocaust work into a fancy handmade book which wouldn't feel ethical to me.

Sample pack

My next step is to start designing the magazine format so I can see how well it works and what to include.