Scholarship – 2007 Sculpture Examples of Candidate Work

This submission pursues a focused and sustained sculptural investigation, utilising conventions pertaining to both sculpture and installation practice. Purposeful in the selection of media and material, the portfolio circumnavigates traditional practices alongside contemporary approaches to explore a series of episodes (sculptural inquiry), following a logic that builds on characteristics of previous works. There is a knowingness here in the selection of a topic pertinent to the candidate, allowing them to explore familiar territory, one in which they can find a sense of ownership and point-of-view. The coding of the installation space through colour and form reinforces the sculptural proposition at hand, and underlines the intention of the candidate, to consider the question of "how European Colonisation effected Tongan culture, and how it could possibly end up". Artist models are relevant to the study. References, traditional and contemporary support the practice as outlined in the workbook, but there is also a cognisance evident in the work produced that adheres to contemporary approaches to art-making and thinking. There is a real sense of the candidate (ownership) in this work, constructed through the storytelling thread in the work and in the handmade and expressive qualities of material and form. Visual metaphor plays a large part in the playing out of the identified question, and is articulately managed through careful selection of subject, media, material, form, and space. There is a confidence in the making of objects and their placement/ arrangement in relation to other objects and the space they inhabit. The use of text is effectively integrated as a sculptural element into the conversation.

Outstanding Scholarship This submission places politics and the invented 'Humandarin movement' as its central proposition. The overall approach is performative, utilising props and pseudo-events as sculptural devices to explore a vast range of ideas and situation. Using the paraphernalia and campaign systems of political parties, humour is used to pivot this sculptural investigation forward. An ongoing investigatory approach ensures the work has a sense of conviction and seriousness, albeit consistently imaginative and entertaining. Given that this work operates from a position of proposition, the making is appropriate to concept and material; media and process are all suggestive of prop-like conduct. There is an inventive quality to the sculptural elements, reflective of the nature of proposition - e.g. the use of mandarin as a central motif on all published matter and objects. There is an assertion that the candidate wants to make politics 'fun', and from the beginning of board one, the event and surrounding artefacts are employed as the primary mode of practice in all aspects; manufacture, production and output. The workbook provides evidence of analysis of the various stages presented on the portfolio, and constantly presents other solutions for each stage of the 'campaign'. There is a strong commitment and sense of ownership evident in this work. A high level of ambition and invention is demonstrated through the extensive range of staged works, and in the drawings spread throughout the workbook pages. Artistic reference is understood. There is a great deal of thinking that is actively unpacked in both the portfolio and the workbook. The pace at which works are built, staged and then regenerated into new outputs is a key development strategy in this complex and broad ranging body of work.