Working Within And Without A Studio Haffendi Anuar
This past year has been such a complex learning experience. At the time of writing, it has been a little more than a year since the arrival of the first Covid-19 case in the United Kingdom and the subsequent implementation of a nationwide lockdown by the government on 23 March 2020.1 I had recently relocated to Oxford for graduate studies at Oxford University in the fall of 2019, desiring to take a break from professional practice and to focus on research and playful making. I picked up sewing as a process of drawing and experimented with constructing anthropomorphised structures using kain pelikat (‘Pangkor ’, 2020). I decided on the university as I wanted to place my work in varying contexts and modes of thinking. I was also attracted to the intensity of the programme and the wonderful tutors. I was on track to complete the Master of Fine Art (MFA) at the Ruskin School of Art and was in the final semester, termed Trinity in the Oxford calendar, when the first restrictions were enacted. In line with the government’s assessment to curb the swift rising cases, non-essential retail, offices and educational institutions were closed, and in a short period of time I lost access to the valuable studio, project space and workshops, among others. Each MFA student at the Ruskin was assigned to a white-walled partitioned space measuring 5 square metres within the larger MFA space. Here, two rows of individual studios open like wings from a central social space, equipped with a sofa and lockers. I then finished the programme in my college bedroom, with lessons conducted over Microsoft Teams. I remember this period to
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