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Master of Fine Art International Practice

University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester
(formerly Kent Institute of Design - KIAD)
Canterbury Campus Fine Arts Student: Laury Dizengremel

Project


The prevalent advice from (formerly KIAD) University College for the Creative Arts Masters Degree course leader and tutors was and is to keep an "open-minded approach to the project", to let it evolve - even to ensure it did/does evolve!

Naturally my project has developped, changed, expanded, contracted and expanded again during the course. The entries below reflect some of the records kept of these myriad changes, though of course there were many more - and more are yet to come!

Original Description of MFA Project
6 October 2004


INITIAL IDEA FOR MASTER DEGREE PROJECT / RESEARCH / EXHIBITION / THESIS
Laury Dizengremel

Note: For a later and now more accurate description, see Essay One


Title: "The Power of Fragments"

Proposed thesis topic / areas of research:
An exploration of the power of fragments especially sculpture / 3D fragments and their impact upon the viewer. What message does a fragment bear: how far can a sculpture or fragment thereof be broken down and still convey a sense of the sculptural shape it originally belonged to? Message versus no-message or communication versus no-communication (can a fragment of a sculpture be devoid of significance and still be considered "sculpture" or "art" when no message or communication is involved?); how fragments evoke the whole; can fragments of sculpture be the ultimate understatement of sculptural art?; how fragments can be used to create an entirely new (and possibly irrelevant) whole; the practical, economical and environmental aspects of creating new sculpture with sculpture fragments (recycling); the cultural significances and importance of archaeological findings; the relationship between sculpture fragments and architectural fragments; incorporating sculpture fragments into architecture; how fragments illustrate the importance of negative versus positive space.

Also - see the "Artist Statement" in my portfolio. I'm very keen to work on giving sculpture portraiture a contemporary feel - I see heads/busts as "fragments of a body, a likeness, a personality."

Note: In terms of materials - I am very familiar with clay and the entire clay to bronze process. I would like therefore to concentrate on alternative materials and especially coloured concrete for any artworks I create within the scope of my areas of research

Possible artworks for project/exhibition:
"Fragments of an Orange" - orange segment
"Fragments of an Inanimate Object" - boat fragment
"Fragments of a Torso" triptych of increasingly smaller fragments of a torso
"FRAGMENTS, Fragments, fragments" multimedia composition with repeat of a 3D fragment plus fragments of poetry plus fragments of music
"Transcending Gender" a multi-gender relief panel (intermingled men and women)
"Transformations" a multi-age relief panel (showing fragments of faces of the same person at different ages)
"People of the World" a multi-ethnic relief "Faces" 3D column of face fragments (multi-age, multi-gender and multi-ethnic)
"Fragments of a Torso" triptych of increasingly smaller fragments of a torso
"In Pieces" make a sculpture, then break it and put it back together again (monumental reconstruction of a broken sculpture)

See resume and portfolio for info on how I have developed this knowledge and understanding of my subject. With regards the "fragments" questions / concepts - these are far from new but I aim to explore the area in a unique manner.
How my interest relates to the work of others: An Israeli woman sculptor I know works in direct metal very successfully in Tel Aviv, on various room fragment sculptures (bed and rolled up mattress) and other high-impact pieces such as a poignant torn collar relief (Jews tear their collar off when a loved one dies).

I saw a fantastic tribute to those who fell from the towers on 9/11 in Italy in a sculpture park two years ago - a sculpture of a raft upon a lake with a bunch of scattered shirts on the surface if the raft itself and one of them falling further off of it. What are shirts but fragments of apparel?

The piece was highly charged with emotion and you "got it" immediately, even though so understated. Artists too numerous to mention have focused on words / fragments of text within their 2D and 3D works.

The entire design industry has been affected by the torn/ fragmented "look" (ripped jeans, frayed clothing, cropped apparel).

Architecture is rife with fragments.

Archaeologists often have only fragments with which to work their theories of history.

Forensic science is all about fragments.

The movie "Blow Up" concentrated on fragments of portions of photographic evidence.

NOTE: For a further description of the project, quite different to this very early one, see the introductory paragraphs of Essay One


Research Methodology Chart for MFA Project
October 2005


Action Plan 1
18 January 2005

Kent Institute of Art & Design MFA (1st year)
ACTION PLAN FOR "AWAY RESEARCH"
for the period 18 January 2005 1 Feb - 15 October 2005
Laury Dizengremel

Purpose of this plan: To provide a brief summary / outline of the investigations, line(s) of approach, formats envisaged, travel plans, means of contact I have decided to use/organized/or still need to set up in the context of the "away - remote site" period of the MFA (1st year).

General area of investigation:
As initially covered in Research Methodology Chart (see above), further refined in 1st Essay.

Also, in brief: Looking at and photographing / recording any and all elements required to achieve a non-racist, "portrayal of humankind" (featuring heads selected from many different ethnic/geographical groups around the world) which I will later use during the production phase of the MFA, to make sculpture, but also installations, video, and remaining open to the use of other media. Sub-lines of investigation: - earlier or other current attempts at portraying humankind - portrayals/portraiture/2D and 3D compositions - different sculpture media - installation concepts - photography display techniques and media - video scripting and shooting techniques

"Formats" envisaged for use during research period:
In each location, amongst people of different ages and gender:
1. Using a rigorous quasi "anthropological" approach, selecting a subject, agreeing with that subject on a pose for his/her head, then taking digital photographs of his/her head from the same eye-level height, same distance from the following angles: " full front, " frontal quarter view from each side, " full profile from each side, " rear three quarter view from each side, " plus one from below (up nostrils angle) " and where possible one from above.
2. Taking a minimum of 20, and in some cases 22, accurate head measurements in centimetres, using either plastic (if airlines will accept in hand luggage) or metal callipers and a special measurement sheet
3. Taking "free feeling" photos of same subject (before or after the preceding photos have been taken)
4. Taking an additional photo of the same subject with either name or nationality written across forehead (after the first two lot have been taken) - also a shot with the world "person" or the word "body" or the words "I am so much more than a body" (or adding those using photoshop later if……)
5. Asking the subject questions (using interpreter where necessary) to fill completely fill out my "Subject data sheet" so I have all the pertinent information I want to gather (name in their own language, name phonetically transcribed into English, age, gender, place of birth, nationality, plus their answers to the following questions:

- How do you define "HUMAN KIND" ? (What is your definition of HUMANKIND?)
- Do you completely, partially agree or disagree with the statement : "Humankind includes all the people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, gender, skin colour, eye colour, religious or political beliefs?" If yes, do you want to add anything to the statement? If no, why not?
- Do you feel a whole lot of faces placed together in a single composition showing completely different ages and features could constitute a portrayal of humankind?
- If you decided to be an artist making a FIGURATIVE THREE DIMENSIONAL or TWO DIMENSIONAL REPRESENTATION of HUMAN KIND, what do you imagine your art piece might include or look like?

NOTE: Also - in the context of the MFA INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE, I want to investigate in each country the current scene for sculptors (private work, commission work, gallery representation, career paths) - I plan to do this by contacting art schools and professional sculptors in each country.

Travel plans: I would like to "think big", "global", "truly international" and therefore cover as much as is financially possible of humankind's playing ground (planet earth). So in addition to the many places I am already going to be going to (in the course of my continuing private and public commissions) I want to make an "around the world" tour, making as many stop-overs as possible.

I am currently putting together a budget taking into account all the expenses. Things are made easier for me by the fact I've had a very international upbringing and lived on different continents, plus have worked in several international sculpture events, thus forging bonds with people and particularly artists and more specifically sculptors all over the world.

Possible tour stop-overs and remote sites:

1. Colombo and Galle, Sri Lanka (will aid volunteer efforts for at least two weeks while working on the project looking for specifically Indian/Sri Lankan natives - currently have two nephews from Canada there who are volunteering)
2. Jakarta, Indonesia (may also be involved in tsunami victim relief efforts while working on the project, there is a large mix of people there ethnically including Malay, Chinese and native Indonesians - have a sculptor friend there, Dolorosa Sinaga)
3. Chittagong, Bangladesh (have a sculptor friend there, head of the sculpture department of the Art University, Prof. Alak Roy)
4. Beijing, Chongqing, Chengdu in China (sculptors friends or other contacts in all these places)
5. Lhasa in Tibet
6. Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA (have already contacted people from a small Cherokee tribe and have access to a large art studio there)
7. At least one other site in USA to be decided (to visit completely different tribes)
8. Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada (to do a public work late September/early October for the city of Westbank, and to visit native North American tribes)
9. Washington D.C. will do some library research and Virginia USA (many people of African origin - both from Western and Eastern Africa - also have a commission lined up there for a State Department official)
10. Darwin, Australia (have a contact within an aboriginal reservation which can be visited only by invitation or special request and will see native aborigines there)
11. Auckland, New Zealand (staying with a band of natives from the Islands of Tokelau and Tuvalu)
12. Nairobi, Africa (my French cousin is a designer working in sisal and lives there)
13. Athens, Greece (will select Mediterranean types - have a very good Greek sculptor friend there, Antonis Myrodias)
14. Santiago de Chili and Buenos Aires Argentina - in search of native South American people (again, staying with sculptor friends in both countries)
15. Varmdo, Sweden (for typical Nordic types) - have three Swedish sculptor friends: Roland Persson, Veronica Brovall and Lars Kleem)
16. Saint Saens, Normandy, France (will select Norman types there and my father lives there and also my sculptor friend J.M. de Pas)

Other possible remote sites: Tegucicalpa, Honduras, central American people plus maybe Taipei, Taiwan Easter Island (no contact as yet)

Contact details while gone / Reporting methods suggested:
....@.... (private e-mail address omitted here for the web...) will be my contact e-mail while gone for RECEIPT of e-mails. I may also use for SENDING images back the address sculptures@sculpture-design.com . I will keep in close contact with my course leader (at the frequency Richard suggests), by e-mail. Also occasionally by telephone (by prior arrangement over e-mail so as not to waste international phone call costs!)


Back to top Back to top
  1. Original Description of MFA Project
  2. Research Methodology Chart for MFA Project
  3. Action Plan 1 -
  4. Action Plan 2 -
  5. Final Description of MFA Project
  1. Essay One 10 January 2005
  2. Essay Two 7 March 2005
  3. Critical Evaluation 1 8 April 2005
  4. Critical Evaluation 2
  5. Critical Evaluation 3
  6. PG Dips - Research Paper for Viva
  7. Artist Statement for MFA Final Show Sept. 2006
  1. Sculpture
  2. Photography
  3. Video
  4. Installation
  1. Personal bibliography
  2. Travel links
  3. Artist and art websites
  1. Curriculum Vitae
  2. List of professional commissions executed, works purchased and works exhibited during course period Sept. 2004 to Sept. 2006
  3. List of professional engagements (symposia, lectures, etc.) during course period Sept. 2004 to Sept. 2006

E-mail: sculptures@sculpture-design.com

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