I continue to find group feedback a challenging part of my practice, particularly when the work is still unresolved. Much of my work begins from memory, personal experience and emotional response, and at an early stage I often need time to understand what the work is becoming before I feel ready to place it within a larger discussion. I have realised, however, that this hesitation is not about avoiding criticism. I am interested in criticism when it creates a genuine exchange and helps move the work somewhere I could not have reached alone.
For this reason, I often find one-to-one conversations or smaller discussions more productive. They allow an idea to be questioned, explained and reconsidered rather than simply judged. The most useful feedback for me is not necessarily whether somebody likes or dislikes a piece of work, but what they notice within it, what they misunderstand, what they question, or what they see that I had not recognised myself. Those responses can reveal both the strengths of the work and the places where my intention may not be communicating as clearly as I assumed.
My tutor’s feedback has encouraged me to think more seriously about how I can allow my practice to exist in conversation with other people beyond our tutorials. At Stage 3, I understand that remaining entirely within my own interpretation would eventually limit the development of the work. I therefore want to approach this gradually, through smaller peer discussions, sharing sessions and conversations with people both inside and outside OCA, rather than treating feedback simply as something that happens at a formal group event.
I am also becoming interested in the distance that appears between intention and reception. Once a work is shown to somebody else, I no longer completely control how it is understood. Another person may find an association, emotion or question that I never intended. Rather than seeing that difference as a problem, I am beginning to recognise it as useful information about how the work functions beyond my own experience.
This seems particularly relevant to the direction my practice is currently taking. I am trying to leave more space within the work rather than explaining every symbol or meaning. If I want the viewer or reader to enter the work with their own experiences, then listening to how other people actually encounter it becomes part of understanding whether that openness is working.
For me, the challenge is therefore not simply to become more comfortable with group feedback. It is to find forms of dialogue that are genuinely useful to the development of the work, while also learning when to explain my intentions and when to remain quiet and allow the work to speak for itself.
