I did the free writing exercise after I had spent a lot of time mapping, thinking and rethinking one of my initial ideas – How to build trust/ lessen apprehension in the community related to public art/ design for social change projects. I don’t think I came up with anything new with the free writing exercise. I think I repeated the same ideas and concepts I had on my map. Maybe I could do the exercise again after I do some more research and get new information about the topic, and definitely before I map it. I think mapping the information made me rationalize the process and compartmentalize every bit of information. I could not loosen up after that to write freely and allow for new ideas to come up.
Here is my free writing. I decided to write instead of type to “free” myself, but it did not help much. I will try it again. Please excuse my English.
Good Morning Marina,
I’m sitting here at my desk, smiling and thinking to myself, “Man, she is wearing my mind out!” (I am kidding.)
You did a lot of work with this, with your 3 different mind map versions and the broaden version of your free writing exercise. But in return, I’d like to ask you, why couldn’t your mind maps be part of your free writing? I ask this because I look at free writing as a place I collect my inspiration. (i.e. thoughts, mind maps, lists, questions, story beginnings, visual notes)
Overall, I enjoyed looking at your process. Thanks for sharing everything with me (and the class). I can tell you have a lot of determination inside yourself to discover your thesis topic.
Keep Going! I look forward to your next shared piece!
Jamie
Hello Marina,
This is a very intriguing topic. I believe that your free writing submission covers the significant points in your research exploration. There are a series of factors that will determine the success of a public art/design for social change project.
My experience in the design arena is that you are most successful when you get all participants invested in a project. You identify that in the diagrams (mind maps) that you made. You showed all of the participants and you determined how they could best become invested in a project.
One designer to explore for this subject is Michael Osborne who worked in San Francisco. He has created public arts projects and he used unique tactics to get acceptance from all factions/members of his community. In the “Heart” project that is featured the initiative culminates with a public auction of the components of the project.
Take a look at this San Francisco Chronicle article, “Taking heart from the arts/New public art project set for S.F.”
Here is the link:
http://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Taking-heart-from-the-arts-New-public-art-2823121.php
~ Keely