Week Twelve Reflections on the process of creating our market

• A critical reflection on your team's creative and professional practice throughout the project. 

Ruth: I feel that we did quite well given that this was our first time creating an exhibit like this. We worked effectively as a team, especially given none of us knew each other before this project. We were professional and kind to each other especially when it came different ideas and opinions which is where conflict usually arrises. However we were rather unorganised to begin with when it came to issues like health and safety and all the formal requirements that we weren't familiar with, I felt we excelled when it came to the creative practice side. We were steady with our idea generation and we were consistently changing and creating new and better market stall ideas and iterations throughout the lead up to our final market.

Stephanie: Throughout this project we came up with many ideas of what we could do for this topic the main ones were filling balloons with paint which could be a ways of creating an artwork and to get people emotions. This idea we had for a while but decided on it being to difficult and messy and we wanted to do something that hadn't already been done. For our final concept we ended up on the idea of origami this idea allowed people to gain a new skill and for us to get a piece of art out of it in the hopes that they would put it onto our wall. It allowed us to do one on ones with people showing them all the steps on how to make a paper crane and also seeing what their emotion to our chosen emotional colour Red was. This meant we were about to understand the marketee more and get inside their head a little. within this we gave people the opportunity to challenge themselves with different sized paper to test their skills. Many chose larger. This concept work well I feel as the outcome artwork was effective and although we chose something difficult to make it helped people have more of an appreciation for it.

David: In terms of creativity we thought of multiple market ideas that we wanted to put into practice, ideas such as; balloons filled with paint and then popping them with darts, which would then create this abstract piece of art. Plate smashing, which would relieve the pent up stress and frustration that students would have on the second to last week of semester. Making origami was our last idea, we wanted to teach people how to make origami cranes, the effect that we wanted this to have on our market visitors was a sense of accomplishment, after they had finished folding the paper crane they would feel accomplished. The balloons filled with paint and plate smashing were turned down because markets in earlier years had already done something similar to both of those ideas, so we just focused on origami making and how we could improve our chosen stall idea, this was done by using various sized squares of paper, the smaller the piece of paper the harder it was to fold the paper crane.

Flore: I think we have worked really well as a creative and inventive group. We came up with multiple concepts for our market and our final choice was origami, paper crane making. Our group looked strongly at the means of immaterial labours to make sure we would really give the market goers the full experience of receiving and giving a service. Our concept for making origami, was to work one on one with a market goers. they would sit down opposite us and before we start making paper cranes we gave them time to draw/write down a memory in relation to our group colour red. From there we taught them how to fold the paper step by step. Origami can be frustrating and tedious at times but once they are fully complete, you have a sense of accomplishment. after making the Origami cranes we asked the student to contribute there crane and be showcased with all the other cranes being made at the market. this was the markets goers way of giving us a service as it became a collaborative art work. this market also included crane makings for those who already know how to make a crane and who would be willing to try smaller sized paper.

• In what areas did you work well and how might you have improved your practice? 

Ruth: I felt that we did really well with the efficiency of our communication, we had a Facebook group chat and we used this regularly as we progressed through the project. This way we were always all up to date with what was happening and we never had any issues with people not showing up without everyone knowing why beforehand.

Stephanie: It was good because we were all able to get our ideas out there. I feel as though we were all quite open minded and didn't discriminate anybodies ideas. We were on to it with getting things done and didn't go a week that we hadn't done nothing. We talked a lot about what to do and how to get it done. I feel as though we could have met up more in person with the group but this didn't effect things to much.

David: In my opinion communication, in terms of communicating with each other over the course of the 12 week course, coming up with ideas on what sort of stall we wanted to have for our market and how we could potentially improve our stall idea. Each member generating and sharing their ideas for the market was met with encouraging words, this was really good because the atmosphere created from this was that where people were welcome to share their thoughts and feelings with each other.

Flore: I think I communicated well with the other group members and shared my thought when I believed I have a valid opinion to make that would benefit in our market. I also tried to participate in all aspects of group makings and decisions to be a equal group member.

• Was your prototyping and iteration process sufficient to evolve a well informed and resolved offering that considered all aspects of the event and audience engagement? 

Ruth: Our first prototype market was super unrefined and a little bit of a shambles, which actually worked in our favour as it highlighted what we needed to fix. We made huge leaps in development between all our prototypes and our final, and this was mostly down to the feedback we reflected on ourselves and also from other teams opinions and ideas of where we can improve. Without these prototypes I doubt our market would've been a fraction of the success it was, and so I think a lot of this can be attributed to the sufficiency of our iteration process.

Stephanie: from going between our prototype market and the final one we were able to learn how to engage the people more and made it do that we were the only one to look to for making the cranes as before they focused more on the sheet of instructions. For our second prototype market we had more success and got good feedback on the design side of our stall and little things to do that could make it even better. We were better able to engage with the audience as they were us.

David: I believe the prototype market that we ran in week 6 really helped us evolve our origami idea, because during the prototype market we had instruction sheets out on how to fold paper cranes, and our market visitors were just staring at the instruction sheet instead of focusing on us teaching them. However after the prototype market we were given feedback on having more of a one on one experience, therefore we decided to take away the instruction sheet, instead focusing on showing each fold step by step to the market goers.

Flore: I think that our prototype market in week 6 was a really good and we got some constructed feedback about our origami market, which helped us evolved  to having a successful market. At the time we were still learning how to interact with the audience to teach them how to make paper cranes. We had instructions on pieces of paper and then us to also guide them. for that market we learnt that we should be the sole voices on how to make them and work with people one on one so they really get the full experience. 

• How well did you communicate within and across teams? 

Ruth: Our communication within our team was really good, however we were pretty bad when it came to communicating across teams in comparison. However I feel that this is inevitable when it comes to communication in larger groups. We had a Facebook group which everyone in our market was apart of, and for the most part this worked really well, however if we were to do this again I think it would've been really helpful to make it clear who each group leader was right from the start (e.g. week 1/2) instead of so late into the semester like we did. This would've made it so much easier as sometimes we wanted to talk to another group, but at first we didn't know who their leader was to do this.

Stephanie: I feel that our team communicated things well. If something needed to be done someone would do it and we were up to date with things. We mostly communicated through a facebook group chat which was very helpful and a great way of sorting things out for us as we all lived in different areas so this was the easiest way. I think that overall the market the groups weren't that great at communicating. There were some forms that we hadn't heard of that we needed to sign but nobody had told us about it which wasn't that helpful. Our group rep Ruth was great and allowed us to contact between all the groups if we had any queries.

David: The communication within our team was really good, we would message each other in group chat whenever we weren't in class or had missed that weeks session to catch up on what we missed. If we had questions to ask each other, we would have the problems solved within the same day that the questions were asked. In terms of communication with other groups, our groups representative (Ruth) usually talked to the other groups rep or one of the markets leaders' if we had any concerns or problems.

Flore: Our communication was really good within a team. We either would talk in person in class and when we met up outside of class or, we would communicate over a Facebook group chat. Our social media group chat was very useful for communicating as we all had different and busy schedules. Also when communicating through our chat, we where able to solve complications straight away instead of waiting for the next time we would see each other in person. Our group member Ruth would also join other members of different groups from Immaterial Labours on behalf our group to discuss the market overall.

• How did you respond to challenges?

Ruth: I felt that as a group we responded really well to challenges, we were all supportive of each other, and so when one of us was unsure about something or what we needed to do ect... it was really easy for us to rely on each other for help and work through it as a team.

Stephanie: Over the whole process of the market I didn't have to many challenges. the only thing that i would say I struggled with was fixing problems with people's origami. when people did it wrong or missed a step i felt like me describing to them that they did it wrong I could have been done better. I needed a bit more patience as some people took longer then others and some people didn't get it as fast as others. It was quite a difficult choice of origami to choose compared ot other items we could have made.

David: I found the most challenging aspect of the market was when we were setting up we would have to wait for the ladder so that we could hang our market decorations up, however there were only a couple of ladders available for everyone to use, therefore a queue was formed for the ladder, we waited around half an hour to an hour before Josh went to block 10 to grab another ladder for us.

Flore: What I found challenging was making conversation with the market goers. I find it difficult to talk to strangers but as the market went on my confidence built up. It was intimidating tell people how to fold there paper crane and if there weren't doing it right to them "no thats wrong" as i didn't want to offend anyone. I think having done this in a group also encouraged me to be more talkative.

• What did you learn from this project that you can take forward into future practice?

Ruth: I leant the importance of communication and time management. I already knew these were important, however when working in groups they become even more so, as any mistakes you make will effect everyone else and not just yourself. I've learnt that it's so much easier to get onto things and stay organised as a group from the start, spending longer trying to keep everyone caught up rather than just having a few people super organised at the top and some at the bottom with no clue what's going on.

Stephanie: I learnt what it was like to work in a larger group. I found this good as there were many voices which was quite good when thinking of ideas and doing the work. It meant that many hands made light work. Everybody in my team was so lovely and I feel for a bunch of strangers that just met through this project we worked really well together and there were no issues between any of us. We were all open ears.

David: Working in a group helped me in terms of opening up more towards strangers that I have never met before this paper, this also made it easier for the group to work as we all shared our thoughts and ideas on which direction to take our stall.

Flore: I learnt that in a group project it is important to be communicating and be making conversations in person or on social media to your group. This allows everyone to share there ideas and voice there concerns or confusion about anything.