Fritha Powell
University of Auckland
After too long of a break, Show Us Your Thesis is back at the University of Auckland! First up is Fritha Powell, who gave us some fantastic insight into her process, how it’s developed, and some words of wisdom for future thesis-goers.
SANNZ: Hi Fritha! What’s your thesis all about?
Fritha: My thesis is about a very reflective process of how I draw and approach architectural drawing. It’s important to state that this wasn’t a design thesis, it clings to architecture but exists as an interdisciplinary document. It hovers around the spatiality available in drawing and the action of inhabitation of that which is constructed on the page. As the thesis develops it becomes about the action of drawing without a page. Rather the creation of an installation made from fabric and projection becomes an inhabitable drawing. Throughout the whole process I was keeping track of the lines I was drawing as a conversation of generated between the line in architecture and the line outside of architecture, as I began to draw from poetry, song, film and art.
SANNZ: Who is your supervisor? Was there a reason you wanted to work with them in particular?
Fritha: My supervisor is Marian Macken, who wouldn’t want to work with her?!
SANNZ: True! So where did the process start for you?
Fritha: Where I started was the collection of women’s architectural drawings around New Zealand, it is about noting this lineage but in a student proposition overlaying myself and swaying away from the normative.
The making, writing and construction is incredibly feminine and personal. Threads of making become knotted as loose strays and frayed pieces were tied together to form this thesis. It was always going to be making-rich as I was drawing before even picking up a book; the making has informed the entire direction of the thesis.
SANNZ: Did you have a rough idea about the scope of your thesis going into it?
Fritha: I knew a few things before I began, did I know the scope NO, and I still think my scope is changing. I think one of the first things I knew coming into this year is that I wasn’t interested in a building or following a similar layout to previous design briefs, don’t ask me why. I also knew that the aspect of the design process I enjoy the most was always the beginning doing I guess the conceptual drawings or model makings before launching into the architecture and my favourite papers were always my GEN papers based entirely on drawing. I guess I spent a year doing that…
SANNZ: Can you give us an overview of your methodology? Has it changed significantly over the course of your thesis year?
Fritha: Since completing my thesis, even the thought of sitting down putting pen, well, pencil: my preferred choice, to paper and simply drawing sends my brain into over-thinking mode. Thesis has pulled apart, shifted, altered, matured, dissected everything I thought I knew about drawing. It’s funny I began resistant to the computer; I find the most enjoyment working away from the digital but ended up spending weeks on an animation and projection which was completely foreign. I even dabbled into completing a series of digital drawings. Thesis is unbelievable; Marian and I laughed a lot when digital drawings were mentioned.
SANNZ: Amazing, so do you find now that you’ve completely challenged and unpacked drawing media through this process you still favour it? If you were to do it all again do you think you’d find yourself turning to digital media earlier on?
Fritha: If I was to do it all again I think I’d do a completely different thesis! Things are always changing. That doesn’t really answer that question does it. No probably not, I think a part of me was aware that the thesis I choose to pursue was enriched with methodologies of working that won’t be used as much in practice.
SANNZ: Now that you’re just about finished, what comes next?
Fritha: Not this question! I was secretly hoping that I could make it through this interview without having to construct an answer, simply because I just don’t know. All I do know is that after five-and-a-half years of study I have a very neglected bank account which needs some T.L.C. The easy answer is of course architecture, but this for me brings about a sense of unease, which I don’t solely blame on my thesis but I think it has a large part to play.
In all honesty, completing this thesis, especially in the form of an exhibition, was perhaps one of the most pleasurable times I have had during my time at Architecture School. Does this mean a career in curation? Or branching out… who knows. I even talked about further study… my bank account says otherwise. What thesis year has given me is acknowledgement that I have a huge area of interest outside of architecture, if nothing else it will be a responsibility of mine to keep this interest alive and fuelled.
SANNZ: Lastly, what advice would you give to those of us who are embarking on our own thesis journeys soon (or not so soon)?
Fritha: Be fluid. You’ll come in hot (some of us do) with a set idea, thinking you know your work, know how you work, can see your final presentation complete. You’ll be wrong. I honestly think, having talked to several thesis students, that thesis is this forever-changing academic pursuit. Where my thesis began is miles away from where I have finished; it’s still changing and I’m six weeks away from completion. Even now I look at the work I produced at the beginning and the work I produced towards the end and the change is phenomenal, I don’t recognise it as my own.
I just had to go with the flow along the way and trust in the result. We have heard it all before but everything really will be ok.
Keep your other interests alive. I was always running and swimming through Uni and as well as keeping me sane other interests are as equally valuable. Look after yourself, be interesting, in all aspects.
Have fun, do what you love to do, do it fucking well and laugh lots.
Images of work provided by Fritha Powell
Interview by Tane Pamatatau-Marques
Fritha photographed by Valentina Espinoza Caćeres
