Dissertation Day

On Wednesday morning we had a nice little change from lectures and instead all the design studies students arrived in mono – Dundee Universities student night club. The morning after one of the biggest student nights out in Dundee I was expecting a pretty unpleasant smell and some empty glasses to be sitting about, but I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived to see a table full of cakes and tea and coffee instead! Alas, we were not there to party it up at 9am – instead it was a dissertation workshop day.

some of our group enjoying the sweet treats (jbaldwin twit pic/yfrog photo)

Over the past few weeks many of us have been thinking about and discussing our dissertation topics. On Tuesday our design studies group met up to discuss our latest ideas and topics. We each helped each other create and develop a mind map to prepare us for the dissertation work shop.

Yesterday was an opportunity to further develop our ideas and make the topic into a more specific question for investigation. We had to work together in our groups to investigate our research topic and broaden our thinking a bit. It was really good to be able to bounce ideas off each other and to be able to come up with some more specific questions that we may want to research and investigate. We had to think about what information we will need, sources we should start exploring and any experiments we may wish to undertake to get research.

At the minute the topic I am thinking of researching and developing into my dissertation is Exhibition Design. After yesterday I am currently thinking of looking into the impact Exhibitions have on the community and the culture of a place. With the V&A Exhibition Centre coming to Dundee I am particularly interested in this. I also attended a lecture to hear Dr Kylie Message talk about the way in which “new museums can shape public culture, reflect global economics and local politics, and play an increasingly important role in urban regeneration schemes.” I found this really interesting as to how museums and exhibitions have such a role in bringing the public and community together and making them and others more interested in their culture. Something that really struck me in her lecture was how she described exhibition centres and museums as being cult your all – culture for all.

My plan for the next few weeks and months is to try and see more and more exhibitons, museums and cultural places and see the impact these are having on the community to try and further my thinking into my topic. Watch this space for some of my thoughts, lots of photos and hopefully some conclusions.

http://vandaatdundee.com/your-future/your-say/

http://yfrog.com/mu46gij

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Dundee/article/6338/dr-kylie-message-s-dundee-waterfront-v-and-a-project-advice.html

http://rsh.anu.edu.au/people/profile_system/public.php?id=53