Being Human day one

This project could include many things, but key will be for you to share your experiences and understanding of:

• being a member of Homo Sapiens
• how we occupy the planet and with whom
• the main challenges all of Earth’s inhabitants face now and in the near future.

My main aim for this project is to talk about other studies such as biology and sociology. I want to also aim at building a debate and encourage arguments when talking in a group about what makes us human beings and why those things make us human? As a group we spoke about the ideas of the world and how we want to change it for the better and hopefully agree that the world is a messed up place but we as humans are the ones to blame. Although most things that occur in the world are negative we spoke about the idea that we can do something about the world to make it a better place. I aim to identify an issue within the human race and have a both positive and negative approach to it which highlights both points in order to make something that matters to me. In today's lecture Adrian Scrivener spoke about the 2 Voyager probes carried this image into deep space where there was an image designed by Astronomist and Sci-Fi visionary Karl Sagan. He had mentioned a recording of Ann Druyan falling in love and made me think about how love is a large part of being a human. I believe that Love plays a large part in my life as a human when it comes to my family, friends and community; i love art and i love being me. However, i wanted to talk about an issue we as humans face and decided to search up what are the biggest problems we as humans face in the world. The problems faced by contemporary society are about the human being. Shortages and inequality of resources, environmental changes, lifestyle diseases, overpopulation and depopulation, violent conflicts locally and regionally as well as international terrorism. I then searched up the top-10 most concerning world issues, according to millennial's.

 In our group we had come up with 10 things that make us human, I had then added to the list on what other people in the class had said but we had noticed that most of the groups had the same ideas.  

1. LOVE/SEX (romance)
2. POWER/CONFLICT/ LACK OF POWER
3. HEALTH
4. COOKING (who else cooks)
5. RELIGION/BELIEF
6. FREEDOM/AWARENESS 
7. RELATIONSHIPS COMMUNITY FAMILY (associate in different groups)
8. IMAGINATION/CURIOSITY
9. PHYSICALITY (senses) 
10. HEIR ACHY
11. CULTURE/RACE/DIVERSITY (separates us but also brings us together) 
12. ECONOMY/WAR
13. AMBITION  (strive for better in life? What are we living for?) 
14. ENVIRONMENT
15. GENETICS (biological) 
16. JUSTICE AND PAIN DISRUPTION (we self disrupt ourselves) 
17. IDENTITY LEAVING A LEGACY 
18. FUN
19. CONTROL 
20. DRIVEN BY CURIOSITY 
21. CIVILISATION (what we’ve built and created) 
22. WANT AND NEED 
23. HERITAGE/ LEARN FROM THE PAST 
24. MULTI CULTURAL-ISM  
25. EVOLUTION NATURAL SELECTION 
26. STRESS 
27. SURROUNDING/SATISFY OUT NEEDS AND WANTS 
28. COMFORT 
29. COLLECTIVISM/WORK AND LIVE IN A GROUP
30. EMPATHY (empathetic and apathetic)  ADAPTING 
31. COMMUNICATION AND LANGUAGE 
32. TOLERANCE
33. PLAYING GOD 
34. EMOTIONS 
35. NOT BEING HUMAN IN THE FUTURE DUE TO TECHNOLOGY
36. SELF IMPROVEMENT WANTING MORE 
37. MORALS WHAT IS WRONG WHAT IS RIGHT

Final Outcome - Being human

Process

For my final outcome I first looked at the idea of love is what makes us human. I believe personally that we wouldn't be ourselves if we didn't have those that we love and if we didn't have the feeling of love. Love is something that I believe is so important for this would to have. I then thought of ways that i could make something that would show the importance of love and how it makes us who we are today. However, I found it hard to find a way to make something that was so personal to me and it may not be able to relate to everyone else in my class. So I still wanted to combine some idea of love along with an issue that we as human beings face. Deciding which issue i felt was related to the idea of love or hate and was more to do with human beings and not the world itself.  I decided to look into race. And how the human race makes us one but our actual race and ethnicity has created a divide and racism is a problem that the world has always faced. I wanted to explain my definition of being human being by explaining that although we may look different and come from different places around the world we are all one and we are all the same. Once i had these ideas I thought about different ways I could explain that we are the same but we are different in a sculptural form. 

Doing research and visiting 3 galleries/ museums I had decided i wanted to look into the biology of human being and what actually makes us human genetically. Which the linked with the idea of love and how the heart is what makes us stay alive. The heart is something that is the core of being a human and is what makes us feel emotions. I then looked into what is the most similar heart to a human heart and I found that it was a pigs heart. That is when the idea of having two hearts from the same specie being the representation of us being the human race and being the same but then labelling the hearts to show that we are different and that one heart belongs to a white man and the other belongs to a black man. After discussing my ideas with Karen she had recommended not use raw meat as some vegetarians or vegans may not appreciate the smell of the meat of the look of it. So I had to think of a way of either making a mould of covering the hearts so that the smell and look of the hearts wouldn't be off putting for the viewers. Before purchasing the hearts I had spoke to the plaster instructor and she had told me that I would need o bring a set of gloves, my own board to work on and some clingfilm because the hearts cant touch the surface of the tables because of the blood. She also advised me to dry the hearts out so that they wouldn't be as bloody for the next day where I would be making it. 

At the butchers they had only Lamb heart as it was a Halal butchers so I brought two lamb hearts. I then dabbed them with a kitchen town and tried to take off as much blood as possible and then put them outside to dry. I decided to not make a mould and instead cover a thin layer over the hearts with plaster. This would keep the smell away and cover the hearts so that it wouldn't be off putting for some viewers. I then had to sketch different ways I could present the hearts and the labels that would come with it. I decided to have them placed in a box and thought about maybe freezing them of having them hang off of string whilst still being in the box. On Thursday my main focus was on how I would need to present this so that it would be clear for people to see and look at. The string wasn't strong enough to hold the hearts as they had froze  I then though of the idea where it would be restricting the audience from touching the sculpture and i wanted the audience to look at it from a certain angle so that they would be able to see the label "black white". 

What was my final outcome about?

It is explaining my idea of being a human being and how we are all the same however we have been divided into our own identities and I wanted to build a discussion and question "are we more different that we are the same?" Because although we are all human, we all have so many differences that we almost view one another as a different type of human. 

What have you learned from this project? 

I have learned to use a different range of materials that I didn't get to use in part one but wanted to. I used meat, plasterer, glass, metal, string and paper to create this final outcome and combining materials that I have never combined before and was taking a risk combining them as I didn't test it out before hand. I have learnt a lot about process and timing. Most of my work I have to plan out each day what I have to do in order for me not to stress out and think of alternative ideas if the original idea doesn't work. The process is very quick but allowed me to think about day one - buying the materials, day two making the piece and day 3 - finish the piece off and presenting the piece. But i loved the process because it aloud me to go with the flow and risking the process because the outcome could have turned out differently if i hadn't taken that risk. And lastly, i learnt that I could make art out of any meaning and that the meaning is just as important as the material.

What materials did other students use that you could make use of yourself ? 

• String 
• Clay 
• Wood
• found objects instead of brought objects 
• food 
• wire

Critical Feedback from peers:

“Heart and mixture plaster was a great idea and a great mixture of materials and linked with the idea of how we hide our hearts and hide away from the idea of love and those that we love because we live in a world of hate”

“The writing (black and white) was done too precise and too neat in comparison to the hearts, it juxtaposes with the messy work of the heart and the blood... it would have been good if the label was made from blood or paint” 

“Not uncomfortable to look at at all but that’s maybe because it’s inside a box and presented cleanly” 

“Was the string necessary?” - I explained that I need the piece to be fixed instead of loosely hanging

"I like that it drifts the same way meat hangs in butchers" 

"It was a creative idea having two different coloured people being represented but what if the hearts were painted black and the other painted white to show that difference?" 

"I brings up a lot of questions and conversation which is important to have when looking at a piece of work" 

"We can see that they are organs but we are not sure where they are from and that kind of adds to it, the fact that we don't know what hearts these belong to and where they were found..."

"If the box was closed it would make the audience feel different towards the piece the fact that it is not covered at the top makes the viewer feel like they are breathing in the same air as the piece and the hearts. If it had a lid or something covering the top I think it would have disgusted people a lot more."

"I feel like I have seen this in a cartoon or something where they show the audience that we are the same but we just look different but actually making a real life replica of it is a lot more interesting and engaging"

"It is a known image and you've been able to make something from it"

"Maybe it would have been cool to use different lighting of having it placed higher up so people can see it clearer"

"Maybe it would have been better if it was placed in a bigger box or each of the hearts were in separate boxes to show a clear difference and divide"

The Sculptural Condition day one

For the start of this new project "sculptural condition" It has been broken into three different things and the one that we have started is sculptural performance. I read over the brief and it highlighted the word cerebral and somatic. 

CEREBRAL - If you are a cerebral person, no one would ever call you a drama queen. You make decisions using your intelligence and cold, hard facts, instead of your emotions. The word cerebral gets its meaning from cerebrum, which is Latin for brain. Cerebral people use their brains instead of their hearts.

SOMATIC - Somatic is a fancy word that just means dealing with the body. You may be tired of hearing your great-grandfather's somatic complaints, but give him a break - his body has been working for 80 years! Soma means body in Latin, so somatic means of the body and is most often used in connection with one's health.

We were asked to bring in found objects and experiment with them and how you may lay them out and present them to fit onto the body in order to create some sort of sculptural performance. The idea of using objects to make the body and the found object become one and solidify them together. I do aim to mess around with a material that i haven’t used before as I enjoyed using the materials for the being human project and loved learning about what happens to a material if you leave it in a certain condition. I also look forward to making something that is mostly abstract, i don't want to make something that the audience can guess the meaning straight away. The whole process should allow me to be thinking’s as i am going along so that I can make something completely random but have a good enough meaning behind it. I aim to also make something opposite to my human project outcome and make something that is ugly and weird as well as confusing. I must think about where the sculpture will be places and think about the environment / surrounding and see how that can effect the sculpture and it's meaning. I do want the final out come to be large is scale because I believe that a sculpture is made to be seen and to be in peoples faces and if it is going to be a part of an interactive experience I want people to look at it and touch it and be able to feel it. 

This project is all to do with invention and becoming more ABSTRACT and learning how something that may not look clear and meaningful actually is.

Contextual practice 

In today's contextual practice we had a guest artist Satoshi Hashimoto come and discuss his work. It was a great experience having the actual artist come and talk about his process and meaning as it reminded me that this course is all about expressing ourselves ad making things that are meaningful to us and create art that helps make the world a better place. In our lecture we spoke about the idea that their is more to fine art than expression, for example protest that links with standing up for yourself is a form of art and is increasingly becoming more effective and popular. 

List of artists that I found really interesting during our lecture. 

• Guerrilla girls are feminist that stand up for women who are artists and to represent those women who are artists but have been hidden by the male artists around the world. 
• Sonia Boyce photographed Asian people wearing an Afro wig and made the whole thing quite comical and humorous  black female artists that aren’t represented and asking the subjects how they feel wearing the wigs.
• Banksy protest about brexit and UKIP and other issues in England using graffiti
• Inflatable cobblestone shown at an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (v&a) - disobedient object where the artist was rolling it towards the police it reminded me a lot about the inflatable trump baby.
• Wall Street demonstration - Dollar bills with prints on it saying the richest 400 and bottom 160,000,000 explaining that the top wealthiest own majority of the worlds populations wealth all together however the whole process was not illegal.
• David Blackmore - European pa55port -erasing the British passport.
• In our lecture we also spoke about natural hazards that have happened around the world but not much had been done to help the people in the area that was effected, mainly the poor. There had been an earthquake that shifted the axis of the world which had lead to a tsunami and that had then lead to a nuclear fallout disaster which is still an ongoing issue. The government are trying to show that everything is ok but it is not safe at all and not contained. The problem is not the radiation but it is the inequality of the people that may live near there and are still living their even with the radiation. Students decided to do fundraising for those that had been effected but they had realised that the money was contributing to the problem. The problem wasn’t being addressed. They invited an activist Kaya Hansaki who interacted with the audience and asked them to wear a mask to make them understand how it felt for the local people had to think about breathing. Human rights towards breathing and how we may take it for granted. 
• Hikaru Fujii political engagement doing a music festival in a radio active place and how the people may be affected and the food that may be sold could be affected. 
• Komori and Seo decided to visit a space where they had a natural disaster hit them where 1 in 3 people were washed away. They decided to live with 1/3 of the people and we’re asked to document the hazard that occurred and how it had effected the locals.   

On our individual tables we had to write down all the issues that have either effected us personally or are just occurring. We spoke about a lot of issues that we believe are occurring in the world, and realised that we have too many: racism Islamophobia, corruption, stereotyping, climate, deadlines, bullying, TfL, workflow, abuse of power, money, death, humans, poverty, abortion laws imposed by men, mental health, homophobia, police brutality, gender inequality, travel ban, loud flatmates, war. I am pretty sure that if we were given time we would be able to think of a lot more. 

Satoshi Hashimoto

Satoshi Hashimoto had mentioned that it is important as an artist to understand the way in which the audience reacts to your art as it is important to understand how others may interpenetrate your work. So he chooses to place himself in his own exhibitions. The reason why Satoshi Hashimoto practices in a sociable way is so that the audience can interact and stay in the galleries for longer as many people just come in and look at art then leave but getting involved in the art makes the audience want to stay for longer. It is a preformative act and it’s interesting how the audience interact with the work and being able to see them react to it. He made a piece where he shaved his leg and put a stocking on with a heal going through the ceiling. 

We were then instructed to preform together using instructions... I learnt that their are two types of performances:

• Preform yourself and
• instruct someone else to preform 

“The most fascinating thing about instructing someone to preform is that  you are in control of what they person does and how the audience can react and engage to it” - Satoshi Hashimoto

How do you deal with control as a director? - tutor

“Deal with it head on” - Satoshi Hashimoto

Satoshi Hashimoto had instructed people that would come to see his exhibition to do certain things and one of them was to write something in their palm that meant something to them and not to show anyone. It was at the start of the exhibition so people were walking around with their fist close. He was explaining how usually in galleries and museums the audience must not break or touch any art but his art is instructing the audience to use their body to become the art and do things to it. The body is movable and it’s your space as you can take it to different places. 

Satoshi Hashimoto created a documentation that was filmed by a ballerina so as she was dancing she was filming the audience and their reaction. Usually the person documenting is meant to be discreet but she was very visible.  Where as the body builder are good at staying still so they would take still pictures of the audience. 

“Relationship between the art and the audience and bringing them together makes the art”

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AUDIENCE AND OBJECT 

Any object that is in the space should be used to make an instructive art piece as we were told to make our own. My ideas:

• touch my hair
• give me a hug
• give me money

Why was it main concern? / Is their a link between the concern and the action?

I decided to stick with the idea of people giving me a hug and obviously my concern was that no one would hug me. Which was quiet funny because before the lecture I wouldn't really want anyone to hug me because I wouldn't want to and it is seen as weird. But when you give an instruction that is clear for people to see it automatically makes you want people to do. It was just a funny concern to me because it made me question why I care so much about that happening. Another concern was that why do we need to have instructions for us to do something why not just d it. Most of the people I hugged i had never met or spoke to and they hugged me. It made me think that when you are told to do something we listen and do it regardless and that is quite scary. 

What was your action?

My action was for people to hug me. I love the idea of being positive and making people happy and hugs actually make you live longer so why not?

Final Outcome - Sculptural Performance

Process

For my final outcome I first looked at the idea of how you could make something sculptural become preformative and interactive with it's audience and how they could make the interaction between the both make the subject feel a certain type of way. I believe that my meaning for the piece had changed throughout the process as I was using different materials that could mean and link to a different meaning. My main idea was to create something that is ugly and mutate looking but still have a comfort yet discomfort feel towards it. I aimed at first to create a sculpture that people could only interact with by looking into the mirror however it ended up becoming something that the audience wanted to wear and touch. I believe this was only because the material I decided to present was toys but if it had been something else it would have created a different reaction towards it for example the hair wasn't something that people wanted to touch and interact with. 

Doing research on a numerous amount of artists, I had decided i wanted to look into Mike Kelley as well as Sarah Lucas where they use toys and tights in their work to create things that are linked to feminism and I then explored that further using the wide range of materials in different formats and layouts which could have resulted in a numerous collection of final outcomes. That is when the idea of combining the two came about. I spoke about the idea of looking into the mirror is a representation of you and having the craziness surrounding it link to the idea of society and how it has made us become and believe in things that society has made us believe and become people that we aren't. The process for this project was very fun and enjoyable. For the first time I think i enjoyed the process more than the actual final outcome and I normally don't. The process was simple but I think i could have made it a lot more complex if I had more time to spend with the materials and experiment further with them. 

What was my final outcome about?

It was representing the idea of childhood and society moulding us into the people we are today. The performance of the mirror and actually being able to physically wear the toys in tights made the piece a "sculptural performance". 

What have you learned from this project? 

I have learned to use a different range of materials that I didn't get to use in part one but wanted to. I used stuffed toys, tights, hair, newspaper, string, screws and a mirror to create this final outcome and combining materials that I have never combined before and was taking a risk combining them as I had to experiment which looked best before hand. I have learnt a lot about process and experimentation. Most of my work I have to plan out each day what I have to do in order for me not to stress out and think of alternative ideas if the original idea doesn't work. However, taking my time using different materials and testing out which one will work well has been a challenge but something I definitely needed to test out. And lastly, creating something that is abstract and understanding that not everything has to have a meaning, maybe stuffed tights are just stuffed tights but it allowed the viewer to create that meaning and relationship with the work. 

What materials did other students use that you could make use of yourself ? 

• tights
• toys
• hair
• newspaper
• string
• screws
• mirror

Critical Feedback from peers:

“the fact that we aren’t able to actually touch the dolls and interact with them physically makes it a lot more interesting”

“I find the whole thing quite dark and scary because they are physically in poisoned in the tights and it makes me question if they will ever escape or question why they are in their”

“Something about it makes it pleasurable and amusing but it is weird”

"Cuddling with them still makes you feel comfortable and remind me of being a child again"

"Something makes me feel sorry for the toys as if they have emotions because the toys are trapped in these nets of tights"

"Wearing the actual sculpture makes it a lot more interesting and interactive"

"Even wearing it makes me feel trapped in, its like a trap in a trap but its also comforting"

"It would probably look better as a cool clothing than a sculpture to look at"

"Something about it makes it feel suffocating when you wear it, however makes you feel safe at the same time and comfortable"

"It looks like the insides of the human body or something that has been mutate"

Language of objects day two

In today's lesson I started to test out making objects that are undervalued become valuable. So i decided to buy some fruit and decided that they would be my found material and then spray painted them all gold. This was to create the theme of value and show how we may need to value things more than others and how we don't appropriate things like food when we should. I then went further and decided to cut out a slice from each of the fruits (banana, apple and orange) and I am going to leave them for a week to rot so that it lowers the value of the fruit even more but then confuse the audience the rotten fruit are gold so it questions whether the fruit are valuable or not?

These are experiments before making the actual final outcome which I plan to use a rotten meal which may be a burger, chips and drink. The idea of making something low in value and is cheap become valuable and expensive simply by changing it's looks and surroundings. How changing the colour or adding something with worth changes how to audience may interact with the item on a day to day basis. I have used spray paint and gold leaf to make the fruit more valuable, however, i am excited to use this technique on a burger and chips meal and see what happens. It is a risky final piece but I am excited for the process. 

Elimination of recognisable form day one

For my elimination of recognisable form, I struggled to find something that interested me and think of a shape or a material to use for this project because it could literally be anything. Abstract art excites me and I have never created anything that is abstract, however this is the first time I have had to think of an idea and have to create experimentation to help me think and come up with an idea. I wanted to use either metal or clay and I was leaning towards modern abstract art. I used ink and a dry paint brush to make patterns and shapes which I had done in less than a minute then I went straight to the metal work shop and began to make two of the shapes I had made. I used the metal rods as a skeleton to the sculpture and then started to use clay to create the whole thing. I only aim to make two but if I have time I will make three. The idea is to make something abstract using as many materials as possible. I soon want to sketch out what i have made and think about other ways I could make it a lot more interesting. And what else I could add to it to make the whole thing maybe become one. I also don't have a meaning to my work but the idea behind the work but I will definitely think of one before Thursday's critique. 

Elimination of recognisable form day two 

In the morning I went to the plaster workshop, to finish off my sculpture piece and decided to use more scrip to help the structure stand for longer. However, i faced a challenge as overnight the structure that I made yesterday had fallen and collapsed because thew structure was too heavy for the platform to stay up. But his helped towards my meaning and helped it become more about support and how two bond and rely on one another. I decided to make a second structure and used a lot of scrim so that it would be more stable than the other one and leaned them against one another. I used extremely wet clay and scrim to create the two structures inspired by the ink drawings that were free hand. After I had finished I used a wet cloth to keep the whole structure wet so that it wouldn't dry out before Thursdays critique. In the evening I partnered up with Angel to create the sculptures I had drew using the ink. We thought about four different ways two people could rely on one another and support one another physically. For example one way was by me sitting on her and another was us leaning against one another to stand up right. This helped inform more of my meaning behind my sculptures about how two people may rely on one another for support and friendship. 

Final Outcome - language of objects and elimination of recognisable forms

Process

For my language of objects final outcome I first looked at the idea of food and how we as a society consume food and how others around the world are dying of starvation. It then made me think and question how much we actually value food and do we ever take moment to appreciate things we consume daily. I believe personally that most people don't and that we spend so much time appreciating things of value like branded items or jewellery more than we would appreciate water for example. In links with the theme language of objects I had chose food as it could be seen as my favourite object but how we view the food had to be manipulated so that it would be more appreciated than it already is. I then thought of ways that i could make something that would show the importance of food through manipulating its worth. However, I thought it would be great to experiment first with two types of food and see what happens. So I first started with 3 fruits which then led the idea of leaving the fruit to rot. Therefore it's absolutely worthless as we wont be able to consume it. After a couple days of leaving them to rot I spray painted them gold which gave it the external look of great worth and made people appreciate it again. Even in class people started to recognise the fruit more now that they are gold but didn't complement the fruits even before they were rotten. I decided to look into companies and how they make people believe that their products are something we need and must have, when really we don't. I looked into McDonald and how they make billions off selling fast food but I went further to look into how we spend money on things that aren't necessarily good for us. I then brought a McDonald meal and let it rot over a week at home and saw how it started to smell and mould which i then spray painted and used gold leaf to make the meal more attractive which linked to the how advertisement of how great McDonald's is but in reality the burger and chips that lay underneath the paint is rotting and stinks. 

For my elimination of recognisable form final outcome I first looked into things we cant physically see but things that we feel and the emotions that we a people feel. I then thought about a positive bond between two people and how you may have that one special person in your life that makes you feel complete and so happy. I used clay as my material as well as scrim, metal wire and wood to create my piece. It was of two figures leaning against one another. I used raw materials to link with the raw feelings that you may have towards someone and the strength of the scrim keeping the structure stronger and firmer. I enjoyed the process of this project as I have made very interesting materials that required me building and structuring simple objects together, I haven't made something that required experimentation and actually moulding figurines out of my own head which was great and I loved how abstract the outcome become. I came up with the shapes by using a dry paint brush and ink to create different mark makings which I then used to create the shaped of clay. 

Doing research and visiting 3 galleries/ museums I had decided i wanted to look into abstract art and wealth and value. Which the linked with the idea of communism and love. I also looked at a numerous of artists that make an object more valuable and how to make an object unrecognisable. 

What was my final outcome about?

For my language of objects project I'm explaining my idea of how we as a society value things we want more than what we need. For example we may value a gold burger instead of a homemade value become of the value gold has. And for my elimination of recognisable form I explored the idea of love and a bond between two in an abstract way and creating my idea of a bond.  

What have you learned from this project? 

I have learned to use a different range of materials that I didn't get to use in part one but wanted to. I used meat, plasterer, glass, metal, string and paper to create this final outcome and combining materials that I have never combined before and was taking a risk combining them as I didn't test it out before hand. I have learnt a lot about process and timing. Most of my work I have to plan out each day what I have to do in order for me not to stress out and think of alternative ideas if the original idea doesn't work. The process is very quick but allowed me to think about day one - buying the materials, day two making the piece and day 3 - finish the piece off and presenting the piece. But i loved the process because it aloud me to go with the flow and risking the process because the outcome could have turned out differently if i hadn't taken that risk. And lastly, i learnt that I could make art out of any meaning and that the meaning is just as important as the material.

What materials did other students use that you could make use of yourself ? 

language of objects:

• fruits
• burger and chip
• gold spray paint
• gold leaf

elimination of recognisable form:

• clay 
• scrim
• wood
• wire

Critical Feedback from peers-

elimination of recognisable form:

"The material clay is so easy to access and was such a great use of material to create something that is abstract"

"Both outcomes work so well individually and together"

It reminds me of a tree/roots or a hand structure and gives a natural feeling. It makes me think about the world and earth"

"I find that it is extremely spooky and really life less and dead"

"As a recommendation on how to think about different ways you could have presented it, you could have had it coming out the wall or the floor to make the object less recognisable and force people to look at it. It would also be really cool if it was a larger scale to show a more closer relation to people and humans"

"It looks like something interactive for children to play with"

"I think you have given it more life by having the white clothes as a environment and the dirty surface contrasts with it."

"Deconstruct the whole thing and try to recreate the whole thing and then it becomes even more unrecognisable" 

language of objects:

"I love how you experimented first so that you were more precise with the process for the final outcome because you would have already known how it would turn out because you've done it before."

"I love that you stuck to the idea of decay and mould to show the appreciation people have for food, it's smart"

"Funny enough it links to McDonald Golden Arches"

"I find it smart how the material used is real food and then you manipulated it further by rotting it and THEN see how it reacts with the gold and making it a lot more valuable"

"You can’t actually eat it which is interesting because we may appreciate it more now that it is gold but we cant even ea it now because we know it's got gold paint on it but it's more appealing. I love food but I hate thinking about questioning what are we actually eating and do we really know what we are consuming due to manufacturing of the food and the process behind it"

"I find it very poetic “ugly within the skin” beautiful on the outside and rotten on the inside” it links to the food industry and our economy..."

Responding to space or place within the studio

In today's lecture we focused on DRAWINGS and how it could really help instigate our ideas for this room project. We looked at Christo and Jeanne Claude who drew imaged of famous tourist attractions where he would scale them and use measurements to create the sketches in order to make the whole thing a lot more accurate. In today's lesson I had to sketch out my table in class and make sure that what i drew on the page was a replica of the measurements linked to the table. It made me think about what I want to make for the room project and how I would need to think about where I want the structure to be placed and how tall or short it needs to be in order to fit within the space. The site specific instillation is so important and therefore the measurements of the room was so important to know in order for the instillation to work.  I decided that I want to do my room project in a corner of the class and so i decided to take pictures of different corners around the building and see which corner would work best and mostly which one would be easier to work with.,

Ways of working

Room project

Things to think about when creating the room project:

1. Concept, Process Based, Site Response, Material Driven. 
2. Record multiple approaches to realise ideas and experiment. 

Things to think about during the holiday:

What materials and methods are you using? 

Why are these appropriate to your aims? 

Have you explored all options? 

I aim to be realistic and talk to the technicians about what they with would work best but I also want to come up with a few ideas and see what I could do with all that could mean I could combine them. I need to have a variety of at least 3 mini outcomes as well as final piece.

Curiosity is the reason why I choose to study fine art. The exciting little journeys art takes me on when creating, the little stories that make up the mundanity of life. Studying art has made me more aware of the world around me.

So far on my UAL foundation course I have found myself maturing with materials, methodologies, techniques and thought processes. I’ve learnt to question the world around me and generate work that allows me to express my beliefs, my opinions and overall, myself. I’ve become so captured by exploring the different disciplines, mixing and experimenting with colours, textures, light and different mediums and effects, that I found myself taking my work further than was asked of me, out of pure enjoyment and curiosity.

Concepts are my motivators, I discovered this when I exhibited my site-specific piece (place) which consisted of building a traditional Moroccan themed door, which taught me about space beyond the four white walls of a gallery and changed my nature as an artist shaping my work to fit a wider range of audiences. Subjects of my work are all inspired from more personal themes I often ponder over i.e. race, love, culture, wealth and death, from these themes I then experiment how to materialise the idea further, mainly through sculpture and installation. Transforming my concepts into pure physical form such as a sculpture is immensely rewarding for me as an artist. I really enjoy the interactive qualities an installation can have with an audience and its flexibility around space, this way of working ignites my inspiration continuously.

My love for film, poetry and literature are the three that really work on an imaginative level for me personally and of course another contributing factor to the subjects of my work. I find inspiration in novels and poetry mainly female authors for example Claudia Rankine and Toni Morrison who all deal with the themes of love, death, and race.

Engaging in what’s happening within the art world today is also beneficial to my work, living in London has given me ample opportunity to visit galleries/private views, attend art fairs and exhibitions such as Tate Modern viewing better known artists such as Kara Walker and Joseph Beuys. Seeing contemporary work in the flesh is the most efficient way to embrace the art world today and learn more about the kind of art I want to create. Arthur Jafa a video installation artist is an influential ideal to me; his work “The Message Is Death” depicts a range of Black American experiences throughout history - the cultural and political forms of art is extremely inspiring to me as it is art that is so important for today’s society to view and learn more about. His work plays on stereotyping and standing up for his own culture and race making you overly aware on themes like racism and inequality. 

During my foundation course I constructed work based on the theme “being human”, which really made me think about myself and my position in society. I am female, black and Muslim so I aimed to present work that expressed equality and diversity. I plastered two lamb hearts which I froze and then hung through butcher hooks with labels “white” and “black” below each one. It was my way of communicating with the audience that no matter our differences and no matter where we come from, we are one and we are a part of the human race.

To take a journey in art is to follow a path that is never ending; you will never know all there is to know or see and discover all there is out there. I may find myself 10 years down that path still discovering new things, getting excited and inspired by the most ordinary of things.

I am always looking for other ways to further my art aesthetically and conceptually and find that the next natural progression is on to a degree in fine art to gain a greater knowledge and understanding of art through my own work and peers. I aim to also explore further works that provokes discussion in and out of class. Thereafter my ambition is to then gain recognition as an artist and hope my work is ever pushing the boundaries forward in the art world.

Room project

Exploring different ideas for the room project. 

Contextual practice 

Space and Time project

In today's lesson we looked through lectures and a presentation about what space time is and artists that could potentially influence ideas and future work. One part of the lecture that stood out ton me was gravity and how it controls things more than we can. I used the balloons that I used for the room project which had sand in them. The balloons was a great way to test gravity. I started to record videos of me dropping the balloon with sand and the balloon without sand. The one without dropped a lot slower than the one with. I then started to do slow motion videos of the balloons dropping and you could see the vibrations within the sand. I then partnered up with Miriam who helped come up with the idea of popping the balloons and then filming them in slow motion. We found a massive weight out in the courtyard and used that to pop the balloon. The popping of the balloon was caught on camera on slow motion and showed how the sand comes out of the balloon. It made me want to learn about why gravity works less on lighter objects compared to heavier objects. I also used water balloons and used a pin to pop the balloon which in slow motion looked great. Although i don't want to use the videos as a final piece it was a great start to start the project as it made me want to research more about space and time.

Part 3 Introduction

For the Park induction as part of part 3 project was very interesting and coming up with my own project proposal is something that i will look forward to. Most of my work is based on themes that i feel very passionate about and about themes that i feel very strongly about. However, thinking about something that I could create for the park using my thoughts and ideas in previous work is something that i will need a lot of time planning and thinking. 

Making my portfolio and preparing for an interview

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Space and Time Critique