Ok so I've written up the 1000 word review and pasted it below. As I discovered, 1000 words is not very much and it only amounts to a few sentences each. So it's great that we've also got the blog to illustrate the process we've undergone! There's a lot of good stuff written on this blog....

If anyone has any major probs with this, please post here asap because Lina needs to print it out for the wall :) I read the U7 guidelines and I think it answers all the points as well as it can. I went for the second option of writing, which is the transcription of a conversation. Only I used all the conversations we've had with the blog entries etc. I haven't changed anyone's words, just cut and paste all the bits and pieces to fit into a structure that has some themes / categories.

Jess - I don't know your surname, so email Lina if you want it put at the top!
Tomo - thanks for the Bourriaud quote! I put it at the end because I think it sums up a lot - hope everyone agrees that this is appropriate.

So as follows:

STAGE II – UNIT 7 EXHIBITION REVIEW

             After a long time of waiting in anxious expectation - out popped a mouse!

Taken from conversations from 25^th January to 20^th February 2012.

Contributors: Lina Laraki, Tomofumi Yamasaki, Madeleine Ruggi,  Jessica, Yasmin Maksousa, Chang Liu, Yu Long Wang, Cecilie Thulin and Shefali Choudhury.

Initial conversations revolved around the nature of working together as a group, where it was difficult to pinpoint immediate common interests or practices. This resulted in starting a blog, with which to carry on the dialogue outside the studio. It also took the critical process behind making an exhibition out to a different audience on the internet, rather than assuming the audience can only interact with a finished presentation in a gallery. We also met on several occasions to discuss the critical themes behind our work.

How do you Start?

The nature of coming together to make a single exhibition consisting of separate work was a recurring theme. And this is reflected in the final exhibition, which is a chance for us to adapt our personal practices to a different way of working.

We all contributed photographs of our current practice to the blog.

On the Exhibition Title

Jessica: These are some photographs I took about a year ago, on a walk in Czech Republic. They relate to the mirror image worlds we were talking about. (Tuesday 7^th February 2012)

Shefali: The idea of the mirror image as well as domestic images kept cropping up in the ideas we've had for work. And we're also still all interested in the idea of transition, from one room to another, as well as the absurd. (Wed 8^th February 2012)

Cecilie: I’m very interested in domestic space and have previously used patterns to create wallpaper installations. I’m thinking of doing the same with these new patterns and creating a domestic space within the studio space. (Sunday 12^th February 2012).

Yasmin: Anticipation that grows out of expectations: As the person walks from one room to the next they will be expecting to see something different, or to understand the context of the clock and table. The audience may even search for it as they enter the second room. The book/box relates to the mouse - the audience has anticipated an interesting outcome, searched for it, only to discover the small, only slightly surprising thing to learn is that there was nothing to expect in the first instance. (Thursday 16^th February 2012).

The following excerpts are transcripts of a conversation on Wednesday 16^th of February 2012, discussing various themes arising from our collaboration:

Lina, Chang, Cecilie, Jessica, Yu Long and Shefali. 

Repetition and Reproduction…

L: I was thinking of filming the balloon and then projecting it. Maybe filming the balloon in the first space and then projecting it. In the second space I could have the balloon and the projection of the room.

…of the domestic space …

YL: I’m taking one part of the wall and photocopying it and then using Photoshop on that. Creating one, two, three layers.

Ch: I’m copying the house I live in, transferring it to the studio. This is the door of my room in paper but I’m using a variety of materials.  I moulded paper on to the walls with water and afterwards it dried and took on the shape of the walls.

J to S: Would you present your work on the floor?

S: Maybe but maybe on a table as it is meant for people to play with as it’s a sculpture of a toy. But maybe on the floor like children’s toys are. I like the idea of having work on the floor in this exhibition space, rather than being elevated, as it stops it from looking so earnest. 

Mirror Images: 

L to S: Why is there a difference between your two pieces?

S: I couldn’t remember and I had been thinking about it yesterday. I couldn’t understand their relationship to each other and it was bothering me.

J: We were talking about mirror worlds and Alice Through the Looking Glass. I think that was where the idea of having two rooms the same came from. They would be almost the same but with a tiny difference here and there, a bit like those ‘spot the difference’ pictures.

S: Things would be in the same places?

J: Yes so when it is installed, it does look a little bit like a mirror image.

L: That was the surprise (for the audience), that the rooms look the same.

Working With and Exhibition Space in Two Rooms

Madeleine: The use of two rooms and making them replicas of each other reminds me of Benjamin and his idea of reproductions – which is the room that is replicating the other? Which is the first room we ‘build’ and copy from?

We are relying on the memory of the viewer, of what they see initially and then notice again in the second room. People will choose different pieces of our art that they are interested in to recognise later in the second room.

The Nature of Working as a Collective and What this means for the Exhibition Space and the Audience:

Lina and Shefali: Reflecting on the nature of our show as a group curation we decided not to have individual name labels for our work. The finished show is designed just to be one experience for the audience - and very different to a show that is conceived as a collection of work from different artists. Presenting it in this way we’re trying to address the idea of the nature of an artist’s collective, which has an innately different hierarchy to a show with one curator. (Monday 20^th February 2012).

Tomo: We started from differences and we have been trying to find the way our works can co-exist in the same space. Is this collective or not? In this collectiveness, there is a multitude of possibilities. We think that this chaos and complexity can open up the potential space and can be crystalized into one solid exhibition that the individual alone cannot achieve. (Saturday 18^th February 2012).

From Altermodern by Nicholas Bourriaud:

"It seems to me that that the fundamental question that exhibitions ought to be repeatedly asking concerns the interpretation of forms: What is the message they convey today? What is the narrative that drives them? We have an ethical duty not to let signs and images vanish into the abyss of indifference or commercial oblivion, to find words to animate them as something other than products destined for financial speculation or mere amusement." 

Shefali