Reflection Paper On Cockatoo Island

On the 12th-14th of May, first year students of the UTS Design faculty stayed on Cockatoo Island to do field work in groups. Our assignment was to create three maps of specific features of the island in a non literal way. The brief was very open which was both easy because we did not have to follow rules, yet difficult because it was too broad. My group consisted of five members decided two weeks before the camp, Rosie and Eliza from interior design, Roy from industrial design, Yael from fashion design and myself from visual communication. We were all unsure of how this particular grouping would fare when working together.

Shortly after receiving the brief, my group decided on our three words to be sound, decay and memory since we had already explored the island on our own for an hour on our own. After the decision, we explored the island individually again with the words in mind.I explored the bottom level of the island near the bar while my other group members headed for the top level and other sides of the island. I personally had ideas for decay but not for memory or sound, however sound was simple enough to understand. I used charcoal that I had brought to make rubbings on weathered rocks and rusted surfaces in my journal for decay and drew spirals of different weights and densities for sound. After an hour and a half, we regrouped and shared our findings. Everyone seemed to focus on the one word they resonated most with and as a result had more findings for it. After discussing our findings, we finalised that we would use sound waves made out of wire for our sound map and charcoal rubbings on fabric for decay. I was at first skeptical about doing charcoal rubbings on fabric because I have never done it before but I later r...

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...uckily Eliza and Yael liked talking to people and decided to do more of the talking. We rehearsed and timed our presentation until we were happy with it.

Overall, I was very happy with my group’s performance in group work and in the final presentation. We worked very well together and I could see we all listened to each other when we presented any ideas whether it was good or bad. I was also quite happy with my own performance. I know I worked well in what I could and contributed as much as I could. I think I could have improved by speaking more and being more clear with my ideas. I found I was very quiet when my group members were talking a lot however I made up for it by being sensitive to the actual map models and working hard to complete them. This experience has been very rewarding as I got to experience university group work outside a classroom environment.