How to integrate PRACTICAL, CONCEPTUAL and TECHNICAL?——Diagrams and Curiosity, talk and workshop

In today's session, Bridget teaches us an in-depth look at how to effectively blend the conceptual, the technical, and the practical to better aid in the depth of a project. In particular, she emphasised the importance of systematically recording key information during the creative process, including the title of the work, its author, when it was created, its dimensions, the materials used, the tools used to make it, and the photographer of the photograph of the work.

Bridget introduces a variety of analytical tools and methods to help us gain a deeper understanding and assessment of our work, these include:
1. mind maps: for capturing and connecting ideas to help us understand the relationship between concepts and techniques.
2. Tables: to systematically organise and compare key information across different pieces of work to assess the consistency and effectiveness of practice.
3. Cross-analysis: to analyse the cross-influence between the concept, technical implementation and practical outcomes of the work.
4、Circles/Loops：Visual tools for looping feedback to assess and improve the creative process.

Bridget asked us to analyse an image from our own work or research context in detail, asking questions including:
What is the title of the work?
Who created it?
When was it created?
What is the size of the work?
What materials were used?
What tools were used to make it?
Who took photographs of it?

I started to use these tools to plan my creative process and they enabled me to look at my work from different perspectives and identify areas for improvement. We then need to relate this to our own practice, checking that these practicalities answer these questions, assessing the appropriateness of the techniques used, and how these techniques and methods help us to better express the core concepts.

Through today's lesson, I realised that the creation of a complete artwork is not only a process of practice, but also a process of in-depth understanding of concepts and precise application of techniques.Bridget's teaching has made me realise that through systematic recording and analysing, we are able to see the strengths and weaknesses of our artworks more clearly, as well as the direction of improvement in the future. This integrated conceptual, technical and practical approach will guide me in my future art creations, better connecting my creative intentions with the audience's feelings, and at the same time allowing my works to reach new heights in terms of technique and expression.