INTERDEPENDENT STUDIES 2019: A COLLABORATIVE EXPERIMENT TO SELF STUDY TOGETHER
Reflection by Nelson (collaborator)
Initially when I was invited by Ju-lyn to take part in the collaborative experiment I was skeptical about joining as I was worried that my timetable would not be suitable for any collaborations of sorts. Eventually after a brief introduction to what Interdependent studies was about, I realised that this collaboration was not about an end goal and provided the freedom of spontaneity with the option of not doing it alone which I was open to.
This collaboration was not a very new concept to me as in the past when I was studying for my O level exams, I used to study with groups of friends who would be sitting together but studying on totally different subjects. The difference is that there was an external reason for us to come together back in secondary school but for this collaboration the only reason we had was that all of us were interested in building knowledge.
I feel that creating such an environment gave me an incentive towards studying mainly because at every session each of us read different books which were probably from totally different subjects or subject matters, all of us managed to find some relations to each individual's readings which ultimately led to us having conversations (may or may not have been interesting to everybody). I believe that each of us gained knowledge from reading and also each other or at least I did. At the end of each session, I felt like the knowledge I acquired was not wasted or lost because of the “sharing sessions” we had which gave a sense of purpose to what we were doing.
In the beginning, I had a few topics in mind which I wanted to start reading on before the collaboration started which I selected books from. These books were selected to introduce me to what I was interested in but eventually evolved to something else. Before the collaboration started I was interested in mechanics and machinery as I was facing problems/issues with some machinery which I owned and wanted to understand them better.
I started off reading and watching videos about them online before the collaboration began and decided to see if there was any link to them and art which was my major in higher education (Fine Arts). There wasn’t only a link but also a huge collaboration between art and machinery. Reading about it made me come across the common phrase; “pros and cons” which I came across in almost everything I read, not only as a phrase but also as statements and suggestions which led me to philosophy. To be more accurate, “understanding philosophy” as philosophy could be described as opinions and we encounter opinions often in our day to day lives.
At the end of the day, I cannot come to any conclusion because everything I read and learnt was not directed towards an end. For the collaboration itself, I believe that it was too short and that the collaboration should not end as quickly as it did or at least the studying should continue for me and maybe even for a few others who think they would want to. I also believe that it is important for artists to always develop their knowledge as without new knowledge an artists work is limited/constricted to narrow ideas which makes them boring and irrelevant at the end which I wish I had realised when I was pursuing my diploma.
This thought about artists and knowledge motivated me to do something about producing artworks just like how this collaboration has led most or hopefully all of us to do something about gaining knowledge. I truly believe that Interdependent studies does not end with a group sharing but with us using this acquired knowledge and inspiration to move forward with what we have been doing and also could be doing in the future.
Which brings me to suggest...
