MaNiFesTo
We love sharing our thoughts, feelings and ideas with one another. In our three day intensive sleepover, we plan to share everything ! Our personal thoughts, creative ideas, food, hopes and dreams, secrets, cultural habits, etc. but crucially, each others’ company.
We believe that - especially coming from quite a competitive art and design environment, where it is challenging to freely and openly share ideas, considering how protective people become over their artistic intentions - it is important to let go of this idea that sharing your creative ideas risks others copying.
Therefore, we are committed to breaking down these barriers surrounding the fear of plagiarism in the world of design. We plan to share our opinions, also, about our plans for part 3, experimenting with potential methods and bouncing suggestions off of one another.
Sharing is (self-) caring …
The importance of self care:
Over the intense course of the Foundation Diploma, I feel that I have neglected self-caring for myself, due to it feeling like slacking. Being busy, constantly creating, working, organising everything I have to do, it is easy to forget to prioritise myself. It could be interesting to take this commune project period as a time to care for ourselves, and observe how it influences and changes the way we process ideas, freely create, and personally reflect on our time on the course so far.
Self-care practices we could include as part of the commune:
- Eat healthily and mindfully, together, sharing meals and recipes
- Keeping track of our accomplishments so far
- Expressing gratitude
- Creating a cozy and comfortable communal space
- Creating work together, building our bonds
- Sleeping well
- Moving - be it walking my dog, or doing some yoga
- Listen to music
- Pursuing creative outlets - drawing, writing, journaling, painting, sewing, baking, cooking, working on things that inspire us
- Helping one another
- Peaceful breathing
- Spend time outside
Especially as Victoria and I are thinking of looking into crime/scandals, and darker themes, it would be interesting to set rules such as going on a nighttime walk, immersing ourselves in uncomfortable, perhaps mildly dangerous situations in the night, to experience first hand some of the emotions of the people affected by our chosen themes (mine being knife crime in London). We want to challenge ourselves, personally, over the course of the “long ass sleepover”
sLoGan PosTerS [teSts]
ROSE FINN-KELCEY - Power for the People
This huge fabric banner is at the entrance to Firstsite Colchester, and is taken from a collection of work by Rose Finn-Kelcey, called Power to the People. The minimal design, typeface and colouring is striking, especially in this modern gallery environment, it seems rather appropriate. What I have taken from this piece, is the importance of designing with size and scale in mind - the work is not technically extravagantly designed, but the nature of it being so large draws the attention of, undoubtedly, everyone. Is this touching on interactivity? How can size and scale affect the way in which people interact with a piece of art and design? I want to continue to think about this in relation to my own part three project.
DaY TwO and ThRee
Evening walks
Cooking together - the best curry ever !
Dea's photography - a shoot exploring Victoria's identity
Painting together - each of us explored a more craft based way to express aspects of our chosen topics for part three projects.
DaY OnE - exPLoRiNg tHe NaTurE of iNteRacTiviTy
Visiting this "tactile focused" exhibition at The Minories Gallery opened my eyes to the possibility of using other materials to explore and present my graphically designed works, as like in these posters [above].
It is crucial to recognise that this element of tactility can elevate the work to a level of interactivity, especially if the message of the piece is heightened and communicated through feeling and touching the work in all its tangibility.
Details of the intricate embroidery work on the fabric posters. I was extremely into textiles and embroidery before I began the Foundation Diploma, having spent a lot of time at sixth form creating textiles work. Perhaps this is something I can develop to become an element of my part three project focusing on the interdisciplinary and interactive nature of graphic communication design.
What interested me most about this work [above] is that it is clothing, and we interact with clothes daily. When clothes have words written/printed/sewed on them, there is a higher level of attention brought to them. How effective would my messages against knife crime be if they were on clothing that anyone and everyone could wear? Would that spread the conversations around the topic more?
In an educational sense, creating objects to interact with further the understanding of the subject one is exploring through their work. Just as diagrams and models are used to teach certain things in school, and these textile bugs are so accurate, I could consider the use of objects and props on an interactive level to present the issues and educate viewers about knife crime.
In this work by Gillian Wearing, the messages she presents are only expressed when the public interact with her. The photographs, themselves, are not particularly interactive, but the way in which she had to arrange and direct them is raw, honest, and creates a deeper level of communication with the general public. The photographs are a visual product of her interactions with those involved.