Critique as Gift is an ongoing research project exploring new ways of practicing critique by collaborators Laura Bucci and Katherine Diemert.
About the Project
Traditionally, to offer our work up for critique asks us to be vulnerable, and as the critic, to operate from a space of extremes. Drawing from our personal experiences as undergraduate and recent graduate students and from the position of the post-secondary teacher (Katherine, MFA 2025) and socially engaged art facilitator (Laura, MAAE 2025) we reflect on our research on doing critique as creative process and generous offering.
In preparation for a conference workshop we began to play and envision new ways of ‘doing critique.’ These meetings were informed by research from Terry Barrett’s (2019) framework, Leslie Dick’s (2018) “soft talk” approach, and Jorge Lucero’s (2023) “teacher posture” concept. Rather than an event of social/peer judgement we begin to envision reciprocity between students, makers, and facilitators. We contend that by developing strategies through the use of everyday objects, prepositions as tools, and embodied techniques we begin to turn to new and unexpected ways of doing critique.
See more of our work on our website, critiqueasgift.wordpress.com
We feel that this business of ‘doing creative hypothesis’ is a complicated one and that our strategies serve as inspiration, and are perhaps thought-provoking. We invite you to think-through with us what we really need from critique and how critique could be offered as a gift.
Get in Touch:
You can reach us at critiqueasgift@gmail.com
Who we Are
Laura is an Italian Canadian social practice artist with a BFA (1992) and an MA in Art Education (NSCAD, 2025). Her current research interests lean into the social sciences, specifically in examining what helps us relate in different environments. She was born in Toronto and grew up in Italy and Malta. She lived in Vancouver for about forty years and now lives in Halifax. Her projects often involve gathering people.
Katherine is an artist and teacher based in Halifax. She completed a BA Honors Illustration at Sheridan College in 2015, and an MFA at NSCAD University in 2025. Katherine makes interactive mixed media work exploring our relationship with natural and digital environments. In both studio and classroom, she is interested in material experiments, poetic technology and collaboration through alternative pedagogy.
