Blanca Garcia Paja

Profession

MRes Art: Moving Image alum

College

Central Saint Martins

Person Type

Alumni

Biography

Blanca is from Spain and is a writer, researcher, and super-8 filmmaker. She graduated from MRes Art: Moving Image at Central Saint Martins.

Interview

Why did you choose to study MRes Art: Moving Image at Central Saint Martins (CSM)?

Prior to the course, I had been curating screenings and writing about artists’ moving image works for a few years, and I was interested in continuing my studies in a field that matched my research interests more closely. However, my academic background was not in Film or Fine Art; I had studied Literary Theory and Comparative Literature. MRes Art: Moving Image stood out as the most attractive option, not only due to the amazing resources offered but also thanks to Central Saint Martins’ historical links to groundbreaking experimental film and video work and research.

What have you been working on since graduating?

After graduating, I planned to take a short break before applying for PhD programmes, but two unexpected factors extended this period. Most obviously, the pandemic hindered any sort of long-term project but, more positively, I also started getting more interest from curators and festivals to show my film work. This has encouraged me to focus on my super-8 practice, something I had only considered as secondary to my research before. My films have now been shown internationally across Europe and the USA, and I’ve come to link this practice with the theoretical approaches I explored during the MRes —mainly, an interest in reversal film’s indexicality, and the interactions between visual and verbal poetics on screen— which I will soon be developing as a doctoral project.

What was the most interesting project you worked on during your time on the course?

I found all the work done during the Methodologies and Methods units extremely stimulating, as it pushed me to shift perspectives from a more conventional academic background into experimental writing approaches. This fed into my final dissertation, that explored verbal disruption and feminist poetics in artists’ moving image while the research itself performed different strategies of positioning, affecting, disassembling and reassembling of its propositions. It was an exhilarating experience of embodied research which has informed my writing ever since.

What important piece of advice would you give to students thinking of studying this course?

As with any research-led course, I would recommend having identified an area of interest within the field of moving image that you are passionate about enough to drive your projects. This will constantly change during the course, and the more you expose yourself to different works, texts, and approaches, the more you will be surprised by how your interests change, but having a vague first focus really helps in navigating the vastness of possibilities during those first units.

What was the highlight of your Central Saint Martins experience?

Bonding with other MRes students within and across pathways was really special. Throughout the course you are encouraged to support and challenge each other’s work; we created a web of support that not only enriched our research intellectually and creatively but made friendship a core part of the experience.

What is the most important thing you learnt on the course?

I lost any fear of experimenting and pushing methodological boundaries thanks to the course. Before, I probably had an implicit belief that comprehensive, high-quality research could only be accomplished via standardised academic approaches, whereas now I fully believe that exploratory and daring methods are more exciting and effective in arts and humanities research. Not only as a researcher, but also as a library worker, these methodological challenges have reshaped my approach to critical librarianship and allow me to understand UAL students' relationship with their sources of knowledge from a different, and privileged, first-hand experience perspective.

Links

View Blanca's website

Explore Blanca's film work

Blanca Garcia Paja

Biography

Interview

Links

Central Saint Martins

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