Ethnography Draft
The Grimshaw Gudewicz Art Gallery at BCC is currently exhibiting artwork from Joan Backes and Todd Moore. My sound design class had gone to see the art exhibit last Friday. So I took advantage of the situation and observed this interaction. The presentation was a bit cold with muted colors. Backes work consisted of the frames of a typical and simple structure of a home. While Moore’s paintings were of New England’s rocky coast. The gallery walls are white and so is the ceiling. The combination of the white space and dull colors begins a drab experience for the viewer.
My classmates walked around inspecting the work. As far as I could tell no one really seemed stimulated by any of it. People walked through these house structure’s uninterested. Some of them viewed the display’s in a linear fashion while others shuffled around in a non-linear movement’s. Most of them whispered amongst each other in disbelief. The student’s were very bored with this examination intended to inspire out mid-term paper. The class also was very confused to what our instructor meant through this exercise. It was very clear to me that it was just a tool motivate us as individuals to write about our sound design process. This went over most of their heads.
We are talking about individual’s that are young. The age range is about 17 – 22 years old. This class in particular I find and especially this day to be very judgmental and critical of others work. The arrogance is rampant in these student’s. I haven’t felt this way of my other classes but this is a tough crowd to say the least. It’s almost as if they think they’re better than the next person. It’s so unsettling to me. I really can’t relate on any level with these kid’s. But I tried to not be a part of this observational act I didn’t engage in their remarks. I just kept watching them and analyzing the framework and painting’s.
The material used for the different frames varied. Backes uses aluminum, polar, oak, and plexi. Moore’s materials mainly are the universal canvas but a few piece’s are painted onto birch. This gives those specific painting’s more texture then than the rest. Even though his color choices are bland there is subtle treasure’s hidden in his landscape pictures. There is awakening yellows and dreamy blues which is gratifying as I notice them. The permanence of our rocky shores is not the message. Moore interprets the weakness of his own observational skills. As for Backes house frames they are so ordinary. There is not much to it unless you have a great imagination.
The experience like I said before was pretty much negative. Everyone seemed to agree that this wasn’t what they expected from a sound design class. Plus this exhibit did not speak to these young adult’s. They definetely didn’t care for what the subject matter is in these piece’s. People sighed as they passed another rock painting or another basic house structure. They were not impressed with the art or the exercise itself that our instructor Mary Edward’s planned on this day. Edward’s intentions I understood and saw it as a tool or even a guideline. Her instructions were simple. Go to the gallery read the artist’s statement and understand their motivation behind their work. We could write a paper on the actual exhibit or use the whole experience as a reference. But most of them didn’t get it. It seemed to go over their head’s. Eventually the whole class was on the same page.
I came to the conclusion that these young kid’s have no interest in this type of work. I think it doesn’t help that the subject matter wasn’t something they could relate to or are not interested in. They voiced their opinion’s on how this class isn’t going fast enough for the technical side of sound design. But the fact is that everyone in the class is not on the same level. Some of them play instrument’s others just know the programs. Then there is people like me who it’s all new to them. Edward’s is adapting to the diversity in our group.
The class trip to the gallery is what these kid’s would call an epic fail. I didn’t share with my classmates how boring I found the visual. This was not the point. I was there to see how people interacted with the whole situation. The whisper’s echoed throughout the gallery but you couldn’t define what was being said. Unless you were a few feet away from the person. I have to say that a part of me hoped that our Professor didn’t hear them. At one point she went back upstairs to the class without us. A few student’s left right after her. But they didn’t go to class. One young man just left and didn’t return to class. The others just hung out in the parking lot until they realized most of us returned to class. I was one of the last student’s to go back to the room. For the obvious reason’s that I continued this assignment.
This is a good choice of subject, and you have some good details about the artwork itself. I also like the inclusion of photos here! This seems to be going in several different directions though–in addition to the observation of the students (that’s the ethnography part) you also seem to almost reviewing the show as well as commenting on your instructor’s teaching methods. Paragraph 2 i the place I can most clearly see direct observation of students–that sort of direct observation should be the core of your ethnography. I’d like to see more of that, with some “close-ups” of particular students–can you recreate that from memory (in combination with imagination)? Can you recreate some dialogue? Was anyone taking notes, or taking photos? (That’s some people’s version of going to a gallery these days, to move from artwork to artwork looking thorugh lens of camera-phone.)
You can then go ahead and make some general comments (about arrogance, for example), but you need to make sure that those generalities are grounded in specific observations (which serve as your evidence). In the case of arrogance, some specific dialogue would work more convincingly to back up your claim, with the specific observations coming first, then the summary judgment.
The first para. seems to jump from the students to a quick review of the show (which seems out of place in an ethnography). I’d suggest slowing down at the beginning to give more of an introduction of the class, maybe some info from the classroom about these students in first para. It’s maybe significant that this is a community college class?? Then I’d take a second para. to describe the space–explain the location of the gallery within the campus and the art building.
It’s hard with this sort of one-time observation to capture details. If you find it difficult to flesh out observations of students from memory, you may want to incorporate some description from class as well.
Watch out for plural vs possessive as you proofread (i.e., when you need an apostrophe and where it should go). I think I gave you a link on your memoir–let me know if you need more help.