The focus of my project has been constantly changing since I started it due to the reason that I am working on a subject that is changing in the present time. In the beginning, I thought this was a serious distraction for my project because I couldn’t stick on one path. There were always things that popped up during my working process and led my attention to a different way. I tried to bring myself back to the original path, however, it was difficult for me to find a spot and continue from where I left. I decided to let the current thought drive my work. After a while, I realized that although it seems like I adopted new approaches each time I found something new, the direction of where my project is heading didn’t change. The changes are more likely the adjustments that enrich the project from different ways.
During the whole fellowship experience, I find that frequently reflecting on what I did and why I did that significantly affect my project and my practice. When working on a project individually in a small group, it is hard to tell if my intentions in the work are effective because of the lack of audiences. This makes self-reflection more crucial because I need to find answers to my own questions myself. Journaling helps me to examine the process. It clearly shows how I built up the result from the beginning. Sometimes when I reflected on my practice, I found inspirations from it that I didn’t notice before.
Looking back to the past few months, I felt lucky to be able to stay being motivated by this fellowship when there are so many uncertainties that happened around me. I’ve never spent over half of the year working on a single project before. It allowed me to stick with one work in a long period to fully develop the project and experience self-assurance as well as disappointments during the process. Even though we are approaching the end of the fellowship, I find that there are still many ideas derived from this process that I could expand and develop for future projects. I hope that I could use this experience as a threshold for more adventures.
