Critique Notes for January 20th: Rebecca Shelly

A presentation of in-progress painting and sculpture about the seed vault in Norway.

Some questions that were asked:
“What is the relationship between icebergs and seed vaults?”
“How can your work exist somewhere between ambiguous and didactic?”
“Why is this work painting?”
“How can you make all of the intricacies of this complex seed situation apparent to a viewer? Do you want to?”
“Will there be accompanying texts? Hidden texts?”
“What is the material connection between icebergs and cardboard?”
“What do you want the experience to be?”

Things to check out:
“Buildings of Disaster”
“Beautiful Evidence” and “Envisioning Information” by Edward Tufte
“Global Networks” the work of Marc Lombardi
“All the People in the World” by Stan’s Cafe

Observations:

I like seeing the weird relationships between the countries.
The situation as you have talked about it today isn’t legibly translated in the work.
I think its abstracted too much
I don’t see iceberg, or countries when I look at the work
I like the way the country’s size correlates to seed donation numbers.
I don’t see countries when they are divorced from the map
The ‘list’ drawing is great! can you put that in?

Suggestions:
Find a system that is more legible, so that a viewer can grasp the situation
embody the apocalyptic feeling of extinction
the map is important, can you put countries flat, on the ground, arrange them by size?
more direct information
seed capsule
can you use resin or glass or ice itself?
let the viewer put things together themselves, you don’t have to tie up all the ends in a didactic way
you could just present the systems and information to a viewer and let them find their own way.