Author: Ama Niang

I’ve been continuing to work on the structure design for the summer exhibition. This is the design that they agreed to go with. It’s modular, lightweight, and easy to rearrange. I need to make a model so that they can get a better understanding of it in a 3D space. It will be made out of wood, made up of four disassemble-able modules that can come together to form a semi-circle.

This is everything that’s happened since my last update before I turn on holiday mode.

New Changes

We emailed some nearby libraries to see if we could hold our exhibition there if they had a suitable place. We heard back from Peckham library and they said they would like to host our exhibition. Unfortunately when we visited the space we saw that it wasn’t suitable for us as we wouldn’t be able to exhibit many pieces.

I had applied to the Arts Council England for a grant and was waiting to hear back from them. They emailed me their decision this morning, we did not get the grant, this is a bit stressful but there not anything I can do about that.

We went in Monday for the first aid training. I learnt a lot of new things I didn’t know before, it was very interesting and eye opening. I am now a certified first aider!

Christmas Work Breakfast

We had our Christmas party we went for a team breakfast which was very nice and exchanged our secret Santa gifts. It was a nice bonding moment with the team.

Pecha Kucha

I was really looking forward to the Pecha Kucha and hearing what everyone else was doing and getting up to. Unfortunately, I had been very sick before the Pecha Kucha and was still very ill on the day (Since this is a personal medical issue I won’t go into much detail but I had to go to the hospital the following week for a medical intervention and did not receive very positive news). I did want to be able to stay longer and meet everyone in the course, speak about the ideas we all had for our SIP hopefully make connections and maybe even friendships, however I was struggling and in a lot of pain so I did have to make the decision to go home.

Update concluded, Happy holidays and a happy new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was interesting to hear about IP and the laws around. As well as the ways that you can protect your work and ideas. I don’t think IP will directly affect me in terms of work on my placement as I know I will be credited for my help with the exhibition design.

I don’t see my self ever using AI, simply because of all it’s negative effects. I was able to do things before AI, so I don’t have a valid reason to add to other humans suffering just for my own convenience. Though there never is a valid reason to ignore your own privilege and the suffering of others, not using AI is one of the easiest things you can chose not to do to not contribute to it more. Everyday we make choices or engage with systems that help perpetuate the suffering of others, especially the global south. Most of it is ultimately inevitable due to the capitalistic society we live in, some of it is a sort of necessary need for connivence due to the structures of society (phones and devices), however AI isn’t at that stage yet. Unfortunately it will get there because there are far more people who prioritise their convenience over suffering they don’t see or feel, this isn’t an attack on people who do use AI because I can understand that it is a result of multiple societal issues mainly capitalism. But rather a statement about the way that empathy seems to only be used when we think about certain situations or certain people. Who can we justify suffering, who deserves our empathy, and when does convenience and our wants become more important then suffering?

I would just like to acknowledge that within a capitalist society people will always suffer for the sake of convivence, productivity, and money. The reason why these systems stay in place and work so well is because we are all suffering under capitalism(obviously the extent of suffering varies), people need shelter, food, warmth, water etc. and that costs money. Ultimately people need money, capitalism uses this need and it allows the system to control the people and make people complicit. It’s very unlikely we will see class solidarity within our life time or even the next generations life time, capitalism wants to keep people busy and stop them thinking. How can you oppose a harmful ideology if you no longer have time to the ability to think (hours passing by on TikTok, AI and the contribution it is having and will continue to have to the decline in cognitive thinking).

Just my, not fully formed or fully fleshed out/researched, opinion!

Some links to articles I found relevant to what I discussed above:

(Always take sources with a pinch of salt, bias affects all articles/ publications even the ones you agree with)

Cognitive Thinking

Cyclical Capitalism

AI Risks

How time became money: clocks, capitalism and wealth

Productivity and Capitalism

Another birthday this week so we decorated our boss’s desk, America themed because she’s American. I brought a cake, it got a bit messed up in transport, but it tasted really nice!

We went to the Fleet Street Christmas lights turning on event, the founder of NSI was in charge of it. SNOOPY!!!!!!!! We got to see Snoopy, no idea why he was there but yay Snoopy. Fake snow, free hot chocolate, and I got a gingerbread yum.

Honestly best way to end my year, seeing Snoopy. You don’t understand how happy I was to see Snoopy.

Last week I felt as though I would like to be given more responsibilities at work and that I wanted some more creative tasks. I spoke about it with my tutor and we agreed that I should have a conversation with my placement provider.

This Monday I asked my placement provider if we could talk about this when she had some free time and so we did. She asked me what I wanted to talk about, and so we had the conversation about me wanting to know what’s next in the placement:

-Is there any extra work(preferably a mix with creative)

-The annual competition exhibition (who would be in charge of that), having the lead would be something really great for my portfolio and CV, it would allow me to have hands on experience working as an exhibition designer.

The result, I was given creative tasks, things to think about with the exhibition, the opportunity to learn the behind the scenes like grant applications etc.

I am super happy I asked and super happy with the outcome!!

A Longer Now is about an expanded time frame , the next 10,000s years. The point is that with this long time frame we will think long-term and will feel responsibility for those in the distant future. This would encourage us to think about how our actions affect this planet and human life.

Picture from: https://longnow.org/

Seven Generation Stewardship

‘Seven generation stewardship is a concept that urges the current generation of humans to live and work for the benefit of the seventh generation into the future. It is believed to have originated with the Great Law of the Iroquois – which holds appropriate to think seven generations ahead and decide whether the decisions they make today would benefit their descendants.’ Wiki

Both these concepts make me think about how different would things be if we had a more considerate approach to the planet and the condition we are leaving it in for future humans. However I don’t believe that the reason we should care for earth is because we want to continue human existence. Rather because we understand the importance in respecting the ground we walk on, the streams that we use to sustain us, and the other life we share this planet with.

Continuing my work with competition entries, outreach, and exhibition SIP. Not really much of an update to give, it’s a routine now so the same thing every work day. I feel like asking for more work repeatedly isn’t the best idea. I don’t want to ask for too much because I can understand that there’s only x amount of work to go around however I can’t help but feel like I’m not really being used efficiently.

I’ve started working on exhibition branding which has been fun. Just a lot of uncertainty right now.

I don’t have a clear answer to how I intend to be a good ancestor or my own set of ecosophy principles. So I’ll write my take aways from this session.

I found the legacy mindset really interesting, the idea of a longer now and seven generations stewardship particularly.

I also was interested in the biosphere.

I plan to do research into these words, see if there are any works or research articles I can find on these topics. I am thinking this could work somehow for me in terms of a second SIP focus.