Podcast Transcript: Lab Session 1 Reflections — Jim Joel Nyakaana

I was kind of stuck in one medium, photography — I was more inclined towards books since I like reading books and the like, so concept development really helped me in — “how do I break out of my usual circle into other circles?. Interacting with different people, I like Lobady’s way of “how do we break out of our usual ways of thinking to accommodate other ways of thinking?”. That stayed with me in my mind a lot because it helped me realise that probably that is another medium. Exploring with other mediums helps you to reach out to another audience you may have not have reached out to if you stayed in one medium.
Sometimes you might be in a state, in a place or an environment when a concept comes up. Not that you thought about it but you start building from there, not going back to read. Then after that process probably you can go and read about it, but what happens when you are in an environment then something comes, something either visually. To Lobadys, his senses are so attuned to music, when he starts moving he could go to people moving in the streets then he notices a movement he never thought the body could make then from that he builds a whole theatrical production, just from that movement, he thinks of the music and everything and puts everything together. He starts with what he sees or like the moment, he is into the moment and how it inspires him to start up something.

It is always good to bring your concept out to people, people you trust. Even in the exercises that is what we were doing, you bring out your concept and people understand it. You have your maps, you have brought out everything, but the people understand your concept. Probably sometimes taking them to where the story is or where your mind is, like physically taking them there, it kind of helps you build the concept further. There is a confidence to play and experiment, I was struggling with that a lot. That is probably a good thing with mixing different ages and different practices. I like the way Odur and Aloka, to them they play, they practice, they play, they practice and I liked that freedom to think like a child again and first forget about your responsibilities for a while but practice within and then experiment, I think that was my biggest fear, to experiment, and in experimenting within the nine months it has taught me to to be free to experiment and find what would work, what doesn’t work, what you can pick up and what you can keep. That has been my biggest take away in the nine months.