Page 106 of The Examiner

Gela Nathaniel

Why?

Jem Badhuri

To show Mum and Nani. They’d love to see us all beavering away. Especially famous artist Alyson Lang, busy making her art.

Gela Nathaniel

I can’t let you have images of other students. Privacy issues, etc.

Jem Badhuri

I thought they were for the prospectus and don’t include faces?

Gela Nathaniel

OK, well, I’ll forward a selection.

MMAM(FTP) Coursework Module: Assignment Five Tutor’s Report, 22 April 2024

Brief: Think of something in your own past that is now gone, lost or over, and explore it with an abstract or impressionistic piece. This is a free assignment designed to keep you thinking creatively while engaged in the more mundane tasks of construction and manufacture.

Overview: In the students’ work for Assignment Five I hope to see their emotional engagement with themes of loss, memory and nostalgia while they are superficially preoccupied with the dry, mechanical tasks at hand. They are free to work in any medium, so I expect all will revert to their favoured patterns. I will be looking for, and marking them on, the heart of whatever piece they devise.

Jemisha Badhuri

For her lost item, Jem chose her father. He is in fact very much alive, but she imagined he had passed away and the result was most extraordinary. For someone who has so far skirted around deep emotions, Jem went the extra mile for this assignment. In her introduction she said, ‘I usually love my imagination and the awesome places it can take me, but when it conjures up feelings of my dad dying, I wish I could just switch it off. Because that place is worse than hollow and empty. It feels like I’ve had my own heart torn away.’ Her soundscape was beautiful and haunting. She had recorded a series of domestic sounds, a soft male voice, talking and chuckling. It very much evoked a sense of family, warmth and home. This faded to a lonely silence, something Jem has created in her soundscapes before. Not silence exactly, but a quiet, contemplative void edged with tiny personal sounds: breathing, sighing, the scratch of a pen on paper, the tap of fingers on a smartphone. Jem is a master of sound. Grade: A

Patrick Bright

Choosing to create a pencil sketch on paper, Patrick introduced his piece as a general expression of loss that he’s experienced during his life. It’s the most detailed work I’ve ever seen from him. A male figure with its head bowed is strongly drawn on its left side, but the pencil strokes become fainter and the image fragmented as it stretches across the paper, giving the impression that with each loss something of one’s inner strength and resilience is eroded, the spirit is worn thin and floats away from the core being. As if what Patrick grieves for most is his loss of self. Strangely, one could place the sketch alongside Jem’s soundscape for a very effective installation. Grade: A

Jonathan Danners

Jonathan’s photography project, mounted on PowerPoint, depicted a series of images designed to represent the women he has lost in his life. His mother and sister have both passed away. Photographs include discarded flowers, smashed wine glasses and smeared lipstick. It made for uncomfortable viewing, but more because the images seemed to mourn the loss of a romantic relationship rather than the heart of a family. Still his presentation, which included a musical score, was entertaining and demonstrated how far Jonathan has come since his first disastrous assignment when his paper cube on a stick met a fiery end. Grade: A–

Alyson Lang

Working in digital animation for Assignment Four must have fired Alyson’s enthusiasm for this medium, because she chose it to illustrate the loss of a beloved pet dog. The simple cartoon followed a stick-figure person and their stick-figure dog, from puppyhood through to old age, when the owner becomes the now-paralysed dog’s carer. Strangely, when the dog dies, the owner has the animal stuffed and placed at their feet by the fire, in a macabre re-creation of their relationship. A bittersweet happiness is restored, and the film ends on a note of beautiful ambiguity as the bereaved owner settles into a state of denial that his or her faithful companion has gone. Much food for thought. Grade: A

Ludya Parak

Ludya also chose a simple animation, very similar to Alyson’s. Her focus was on the loss of self after motherhood. A mother bird has a nest of chicks. As soon as they hatch, her mate flies away, leaving her with a demanding brood who eventually pluck her feathers out to keep themselves warm, but still scream at her to find food. Unable to fly, she is obliged to hunt in the undergrowth, where she is killed by a fox. The fox is scared away by the fledglings, who all fly down and feast on their mother’s body. A grim story, but evocative and I’m sure many will identify with it. Grade: A

Cameron Wesley

Despite his long-term illness, Cameron worked hard to complete Assignment Five. He delivered a watercolour on canvas that showed a road winding and stretching into the distance. While Cameron was too poorly to attend the assessment class and introduce his work to the group, in an email he explained that this road demonstrates the soul’s journey after loss – not the soul left on earth, but the soul who has died. Cameron imagines that they too feel the anguish of separation and must face their continued existence without their loved ones on earth. He has not thus far submitted anything in his favoured medium of paint, so it was a pleasure and privilege to see this interesting and emotional piece. Grade: A

Doodle message group MMAM(FTP), 23 April 2024:

Jem Badhuri

I’m a ‘master of sound’! I can’t believe we’ve all got A grades.

Patrick Bright

Your soundscape and presentation were the best work you’ve done, Jem. If ever a top mark was thoroughly deserved, it was that.