Critique here is slower and more formal than I am used to. Work goes up, everyone looks at it in silence for a genuinely long time, and then the discussion starts with description rather than judgement.
What gets said first
Not whether it works. What is actually there — materials, scale, what the edges are doing. By the time anyone offers an opinion, the room has agreed on what it is looking at, which turns out to prevent most of the arguments I am used to having.
Describing the work before judging it sounds like a delay. It is the part that makes the judgement worth hearing.
My first critique was uncomfortable. My second was the most useful hour of the semester so far.
