Sense of belonging printing workshop

Guest lecturer - Melise Djemal

This guest artist challenges understandings of British identities, using print-making workshops to celebrate the counter narratives and hybrid identities of students.

Critical incidents - An event which marks a significant turning point or change for someone. Incidents that teachers deal with in everyday teaching become critical through reflection and then analysis

[Added to Glossary].

“Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation.”

(Hall, 2016: 225)

Website: https://arteduculture.co.uk/Melise-Djemal

'Since 2014, the increasing pressures on schools to actively promote the fundamental British Values have challenged the roles of schools as sites for identity formation and British culture. As a British born Turkish Cypriot, I question what it means to ‘be’ British and how this becoming takes form through layers and sediments of personal and cultural encounters.'

'Through the use of layered prints, consisting of family photographs and personal documents, I present my various personal and cultural references that have constructed who I am as a multi-cultured child raised in London. My practice and self-analysis aims to highlight the intersecting and sometimes opposing discourses of British identity, revealing that Britishness is not a singular thing, but constituted by multiple intersections, layers and smudges.'

Roland Barthes identifies two

Studium - represents the collective and shared interpretation. Studium is a Latin word meaning "study," "zeal,".

Punctum - An incidental but personally poignant detail or interpretation.

Research Title:

Sediments: an exploration of the British values and culture through counter narratives

Culture

Stable cultures require things to stay in their appointed place

Hybridity

Refers, to the mixing of different parts. Cultures can be mixed and create new cultures.

Power

More than just exerting control, but shaping knowledge.

Sediments - calls the mind to the idea of layering over time, we can see the age of mountains by examining the sediments and layers. Through which we can ascertain information about the times, environments and conditions that influenced the earth around them.

Methodology

Practice led research. - allows you to realise knowledge, rather than stating/ arguing its existence.

Uses art practice to: - Reveal the structures of social relations

- Gives deeper insights into the ways of being

Master and Counter narratives

Master narratives - Dominating narrative in society

Counter narratives - The individual versions or personal experiences of events which oppose the culturally expected ones.

Print making

Distorting narratives through printing

This is important to the practice of

Layering shows hybridity.

Reversal shows counter narratives

Etching press - an efficient way of distributing information, the first printed bible was reproduced this way. - pressing two things together and resulting in something hybrid and new.

Printmaking and collage are closely related. The layering process has strong links to collage. composing layers and elements, curates intertextual meanings between the information fragments.

How reliable is personal and social memory. Repeating and reciting the stories of the counter narrative concretes the story's influence on and solidity within the life of the storyteller.

Fundamental Biritsh Values: master narrative in British schools.

Britain as a collage of counter narratives: intrinsic tapestry of different cultures.

Advice on application to a classroom.

- The aim of the research is to encourage its application to the classroom

- Don't ask kids to reflect on their most traumatic experiences

- Bring in your fondest memory

- Find something tangible

- Ask students to reflect on the positive and material aspects of their culture

Print workshop

Process:

0 - Choose and print images in black and white with high contrast

1 - Cut images out of the paper, use a exact-o-knife to cut out refined shapes

2 - Lay them in water, to soak for 2-3 minutes

3 - Dab ink onto the printed side of the images

4 - Arrange the images on the paper, face down. And then process them through the etching press.

Outcome: