I was given the opportunity to critique undergraduates in their first review of the year, along with another student on my course. This was something that I had never done, so I decided to take the opportunity experience crits from the other side for a change! The studio was Magical Thinking: Architecture of Borders, or Reaching Beyond, which is run by Mohamad Hafeda, and the students were a mixture of 2nd and 3rd (final) year students.
I found the project brief to be very compelling, focused around the issue of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic Ireland and Brexit. Their site was Derry, right next to the border, and clearly very charged with the two sides of unionism and republicanism. As well as reading the brief, I also followed up some of the references, which helped give me an understanding of the situation before seeing the student's work. In particular, the videos Brexit: A Cry from the Irish Border and Brexit breakdown: fear and anger on the Irish border were fantastic sources for hearing how local Irish people feel about Brexit, their thoughts and concerns.
I found partaking in a review in the role of a critic to be really enjoyable and valuable. It was great to get to input on projects at a stage where there are lots of ideas and potential for the projects to develop in many different possible directions. It was also good to be able to offer a student perspective to complement the different perspective of a tutor, knowing what it is like to be at that stage in a university project.
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