LO1 - CONTEXT
context summary
During the process of brainstorming for this project and starting to develop ideas and refinement of my concept, I have gone from wanting to create something that challenges people's subconscious biases to creating an A-I generated Tinder-like app (or programme) that asked people to make assumptions of other people; to focusing on reactions and paradox's of society; to discrimination against people with disabilities.
However, throughout gathering contextual and artistic references, I have concluded that something that encompasses, to a certain degree, all of these possible ideas would be to create a piece of work that triggers the audience's subconscious into consciousness as this feels interesting to explore; while making something that is interactive and relatable. My aim is therefore to try and encapsulate the above paradoxes through a piece that is both interactive and relatable to the audience - and myself.
project proposal
*view revised project concept on Evaluation and Reflection page.
After being given the brief of ‘Fin De Siécle’ and firstly feeling very overwhelmed by the broad range of possibilities, I have started to try and refine what I want to work on by initially writing down a wide range of words that come to mind for me, when thinking about our world now and the end of an era.
I am taking my own interpretation of the phrase Fin De Siécle by exploring human relations within the concept of the end of the 20th Century and exploring the possibility that our abilities to interact with each other have been impacted enormously; partially due to the lockdowns and corona virus, but also the impact of social media and the culture of TikTok stars and easy fame, with everything now being done online rather than in person - banking, work, posting letters, online doctors etc - thinking how these examples might be responsible for deteriorating social skills.
On reflection, I sense society could be experiencing unspoken feelings of increasing personal 'invisibility'. I therefore want to create an argument between the possibly negative connotations of invisibility, focussing instead on a more positive perspective: “I don’t know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.” (Banksy, date unknown).
My own experiences have fuelled this idea, for example when people judge me and appear to be suspicious and unkind towards me when I use my disability blue badge to park in car parks, given I don't 'look' disabled when I get out of the car. This is something that is very emotive for me, as I feel we are so uneducated in 'invisible disability'. Instead, we choose to judge, label and expect dishonesty from people.
I am starting to gather references and inspirations for this topic, from artist to authors, academic literature and disabled comics. I initially started looking at Glenn Martin Taylor who uses the practice Kintsugi, using broken and unbroken items. For me, his work felt as though it had a strong connection to disabled and able-bodied, surface and reality and a sense of playful cynicism that is also something of a theme throughout my own work.
I am also researching Rosie Jones, who is a famous comedian with Cerebral Palsy, as not only do I find her funny, but also strong and empowering, as her disability hasn’t stopped her from doing what she wants to do. I think, if anything, her life experiences have probably given her a head start within her career as, not only from my life but also in her life, it is commonly felt that “people always feel awkward about disability so I always have jokes in my back pocket” (Jones, 2018).
Throughout this project I will continue to research contextual frameworks, as I think, my initial idea is too big to start refining without exploring more conceptual references. I plan to read the book “I Am Not A Label” (Burnell, 2020) to educate myself in artists, athletes and thinker’s own lived experiences that have been challenging. I hope to consider my own emotional responses and use primary research methods to consider how my peers feel about these themes too.
bibliography
Burnell, C. (2020) I am not a label: 34 artists, thinkers, athletes and activists with disabilities from past and present. Quarto Publishing Group UK. 
A quote by banksy (no date) Goodreads. Goodreads. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/998442-i-don-t-know-why-people-are-so-keen-to-put (Accessed: February 22, 2023). 
Rosie Jones: 'people feel awkward about disability so I always have jokes in my back pocket' (2018) The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/aug/17/rosie-jones-awkward-disability-jokes-edinburgh (Accessed: February 24, 2023). 
review
During my progress on this Foundation course, I am learning how excited and passionate I am to create art that feels authentic to my own artistic style. During this diploma I am also realising the power of combining my own lived experience with others'. For example, before starting this course I had never met anyone similar to my age who had arthritis and I now know two people who also have this illness. Finally I feel I can share and learn from others the reality of this illness.
I have experienced a very empowering sense of freedom to push limits and learn how to use different mediums and methods available to me. I am learning how to speak fluently with my art and create connections between my work and the audience, which was something I really wanted to achieve when starting this course. Understandably there will always be more to learn about the relationships between art, it’s creators and it's audience and this is something I’m looking forward to expanding on.
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It would be fair to say that I am really enjoying developing the skill and learning the method of screen printing and what feels like endless possibilities that come with this technique. I have realised during my past projects that there is a theme that runs throughout them all, whereby I’m learning that this is me, sharing my frustrations with society's judgments of people, items, situations without knowing what’s going on ‘behind closed doors’. Although we commonly reference exclusion, there still seems to be a barrier between embracing inclusion and this is something that I am loving challenging.
I’m looking forward to continuing to learn different techniques and skills to continue understanding the link between form and content and adding meaning and expression to my work and further create wider connections with audiences.
evaluation
I will be presenting my project proposal soon, including the references I have started to gather and themes that seem to be emerging, I look forward to the feedback and focusing on the audience reactions to see what themes seem to resonate the best, as I believe this will assist me in refining my ideas and linking my initial ideas with my visual language and interactive motivations to develop my work.
Throughout this educational process I am realising that I am motivated by creating art that people can ‘connect’ with, as I have often felt disconnected to art and unable to create my own story that feels connected to the work I’m seeing, while also being thought provoking with a light-heartedness which is the start of my artistic thumbprint throughout my work.
initial mind-maps and assossiation words
Once getting the title and theme for our final major project 'Fin De Siècle' I didn't have a clear idea come to mind for a direction to head in, so I made a start by just writing down some inspiration/association words to see if something started jumping out to me, and something that Pav (course leader) had said to use during class: "Find new ways to do things" really stuck in my head and inspired me to make something clever with this project and hopefully make not only myself think twice but also the audience.
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After creating a map of initial inspiration words, I then took a dictionary and started researching synonyms for the words that were jumping out at me the most, to further my contextual research and hope to inspire me further.
I then started to take the words that were inspiring me and turn them into topics/themes that I could use for my project.
Using references and experiences from my own life and also my peers, while also being conscious and confident with my learning that in this creative process, understanding the link between form and content and the creative elements of linking conceptual thinking is what I think makes art engaging and creating something within those parameters creates an end piece that has my authentic and artistic thumbprint which is developing throughout this diploma.
When thinking of Fin De Siècle in terms of an end of a century and the end of times/things as we have known them, I'm realising that I want to take on a sociological outlook throughout this project.
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bibliography
Wilde, J. and Wilde, R. (2015) Process - a new foundation in art and Design. Laurence King Publishing. ISBN: 9781780677286
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first presentation
After creating a presentation to present to the class and tutors, I collected some initial ideas and artistic references and I knew that what I wanted to achieve with this presentation was a conversation with the peers and tutors about what felt relatable to them and get some primary research.
Title page.
After starting off by writing down words that were coming to my head when thinking of a topic, what I started to realise was that the sub-conscious experience I was referencing while thinking for inspiration was all the times that I've gotten dirty looks when using my disabled blue badge to park
During the first couple of weeks of this assignment, while I was feeling slightly stuck and blocked as to which direction I wanted to take, I wanted to step way from the words and try to create something artistic to help my blocked mind.
Title page.
At the end of my presentation, I asked the class what (if anything) jumped out at them as interesting or engaging and then I also went back to 'Inspiration words...' (second slide) and asked people if they could select 1-3 words that they felt relatable to them to further my primary research but also aid me in finding more inspiration and focus.
After collecting everyone's answers I then made a Word Cloud with the data.
Once I had collated all of these elements and contextual ideas and references, I was slowly, slowly developing the idea of creating an installation that challenges society's judgements, expectations, differences and deceptions while also reminding people that we are one race, we live on one planet, we breathe the same air and we might need to learn how to appreciate and share kindness subconsciously.