Two Fingers to General Negativity

So, after the opening of the Surplus and Creativity: Design and the Readymade opening the other night, I was informed that a member of staff from a local tertiary educational institution referred to the exhibition as 'being like a first year project'.

Now I am the first to admit that there is a variety in quality of execution of work within the show - but I thought this was a bit strong - verging on moronic!

It seems that designers, and many others (go and look on the dezeen website) seem to have a constant negative view on anything and everything.

There is some absolutely great work in the exhibition, including Holly McQuillans zero waste work - which just the shear engineering is breath-taking - never mind the complexity of print placement etc

It amazes me that someone in education has a knee-jerk reaction about something - and behaves like I used to when I was in my first year at university; calling everything 'crap' as I didn't have the depth of knowledge, skill, understanding or intellect to appreciate how hard, emotional and courageous completing any design project and placing it in the public domain can be.

Now I am all for critique, I have a big mouth which leaves me open to criticism and vindictiveness, and am now quite thick skinned, but what I object to is any moron (mainly on the internet) with an uneducated opinion who throw's it around thinking (a) it means anything and (b) they are in the right.

The Foldable Skateboard that I did for 'Carry On' earlier this year has been all over the internet - with many people (mainly skateboarders and FYI I have skateboarded for over 20 years) completely ripping it apart, saying 'its dangerous', 'a waste of time', 'would never work' etc.

What they don't seem to read is 'its an art concept'. It was never meant to be functional - but a narrative of a story of a group of skateboards, that coming back from Barcelona had to break their skateboards in half, as Iberian Airways refused to let them aboard with 'dangers weapons'. How nice it would have been for them to fold their skateboards up, and take them on board - hence 'Two-Fold'.

What I am trying to say, is 'think before you speak'. If you are going to critique something, make sure you understand it, understand the surrounding context and back story, and maybe give a perspecive on how you think it could be better. Then link to some of your own work so people can judge your authority.

Its much easier to be negative than to try and explore, understand and empathise with people who actually have the guts to put work out there.