Kick It Out update

After gathering a substantial amount of research to inform my ideas and understanding of modern day discrimination, I began to explore a range of disciplines within Art and Design in order to create a visual communication, promoting anti-discrimination.

I decided that I want to work with Type, Photography and Film; so that I could practice communicating in different visual languages to my usual illustrative style. Highly influenced by the high contrast photography by Don McCullin, political art movement Constructivism, Imperial War, Nikki S Lee, Guerrilla Girls, Shirin Neshat and Hannah Wilke, I created the following, attached artworks. 

Using self-photography, I captured an emotionless image with likeliness to Hannah Wilkes Starification series. By reducing the saturation and warmth, and increasing both brightness and contrast, I attempted to replicate the emotional effect of Don McCullin's war photography. Using a feminist poem by Margret Atwood in a masculine font, I concealed my identity, in the same way that a women's individuality is often concealed by inequality and degrading. I created two versions, the original, and a Constructivism piece. I was highly inspired by Constructivism post my attendance to the Imperial War museum, where Nazi posters communicated a powerful message through the use of this art movement. I chose red due to its popularity within Constructivism, as well as its effectiveness to communicate anti-discrimination.

Still inspired by Constructivism, I then decided to create a series of propaganda posters. I began using the word "WHORE" in order for women to own such a word, in the attempts that it can not be used against us (just like the Guerrilla Girls did with the use of the word, 'Girls', only with much more of a powerful and shocking effect). Within my designs W.H.O.R.E stands for: Women's rights, Homosexuals (LGB&T), Opinions, belief & faith, Race, Ethnicity and Culture. The letters were created using collage on card to create 3-dimentional objects that were photographed.

I began by using a Constructivism colour palette, red, black and beige; however I decided to experiment and develop my designs by addressing appropriate colours to each 'topic', in order to further emphasise my idea and the cause. I used reliable research to inform my colour choice, for example, Women's Suffrage and and Political Union in England used purple and white - thus my choice of colours for Women's rights/Feminism. 

Using existing Asian male and female portrait drawings that I hand illustrated using pencil, I created the image on the left. I created the layered effect through the use of light behind both drawings, allowing both images to come through into one. I captured this image using photography and then utilised Adobe PhotoShop CC to add text. I felt that the use of the word 'DISCRIMINATION.' used alone should speak volumes. I opted for an Asian male and female as this covers: equal rights (feminism), sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion etc. I de-saturated the image to once again create the 'Don-McCullin-effect'. I explored a variety of compositions when layering the illustrations, as well as when using PhotoShop for adding type. I feel the below left image suggests domestic abuse and could be a very powerful image.


Returning back to the 3D WHORE letters, I decided that I wanted to get more use out of them. Using light and shadow I experimented by creating my first short-film piece, using iMovie to edit the footage and to record and edit sounds. I decided to start with 'W' first, and if the video turned out to be successful, I could create full length footage with all of the letters. All sounds were created by myself along with artwork and video footage.

I will continue to experiment with outcomes until I find my final series of designs.

Kick It Out!

Designed by Sophia Sargeant. Inspired by Hannah

Wilke, Shirin Neshat, Don McCullin and poet, 

Margret Atwood.

Kick It Out campaign has asked us to raise awareness of the negative effects of discrimination through provoking images. In order to do this, I have began by researching the world of discrimination through artists, designers, authors, films, books, politics etc. Discrimination includes, sexism, homophobia (I dislike the use of the word homo-'phobia', as how can you be truly terrified of someones personal sexuality?),  racism through ethnicity and culture,  ageism, predujice against someone with disabilities, against visual appearance including tattoos and piercings, etc.

The artists that I have taken a particular interest in during this topic are:
Allen Jones - as his work is very controversial and provokes argument and questions,
Don McCullin, due to the empathetic high-contrast, greyscale photography,
Guerrilla Girls, for their straight-to-the-point views on discrimination using facts, often use of humour and shocking statistics,
Guler Ates, by addressing gender, faith, identity and culture,
Shirin Neshat, who created a series of works entitled 'Women of Allah' to narrate women's roles during the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979,
Yinka Shonibare, for his exploration of race and class, and also his use of mannequins,
Nikki S Lee, in response to her unique approach upon identity,
Hannah Wilke, due to her Starification series which tackles feminism, and how women are used.

"Table", Allen Jones, 1969.

I have also referenced Noughts and Crosses, a fictional dystopia book series by Malorie Blackman.
The novels describe an alternative society where the 'African people gained a technological and organization advantage over the Europeans'. Certain racial issues are brought forward which are usually overlooked in real-life, for example the colours of plasters, ' "That plaster's a bit noticeable." "They don't sell pink plasters. Only dark brown ones." '. Derogatory terms are also used throughout the novels, 'Blankers' and 'Daggers'.

United Nation's campaign, HeForShe is also a fundamental part of my research. Upon watching Emma Watson's HeForShe speech regarding the dreaded 'F' word, feminism, I couldn't help but applaud and absorb all of the information. Watson highlighted the equal rights behind the feminist belief, and also inviteed men to fight for equal rights too, "Men - I would like to take this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue too."

So far, I have visited the Imperial War Museum in London, in order to gather information about discrimination and war (most famously, the holocaust). Poets such as Margret Atwood and John Agard have also informed my research, along with films such as Lone Survivor (Marines vs. Taliban), Inglorious Bastards and Persepolis (an illustrated narrative about the Iranian Revolution).
From my visit to the Imperial War Museum, I also took note of the political art movement, Constructivism.

From here, I will begin to explore ways to communicate diversity against discrimination, using my artists and other references as inspiration. Once I have found the most appropriate media/method, I will then condense my idea and begin to develop my outcome(s).

Narration & Memory: Evaluation

For the following theme: Narration/Memory, I took it upon myself to create an installation piece in the style of Dan Perjovschi in order to depict how memories can deteriorate as we age and also that as we mature, we as humans have more reservations and cautiousness about the world, and thus are limited to what recent experiences we share.  
Where as we are more distant to our childhood memories, we can find them less personal - almost as though we are talking in third person about someone else, and less about ourselves; hence why I used third person ‘Once upon a time... there was a girl... called Sophia’ as the main text. I also used two points of narration throughout my installation. There’s childhood-Sophia, and the present day Sophia. In order to reflect ‘childhood-Sophia’, I used inspiration from old drawings and notes that I created as a child, in order to recreate childhood-Sophia’s drawings and writing style to emphasise the age and narrate the memory; while present day Sophia has been depicted through my present handwriting, mature views of old memories and through the materials used. I used black permanent markers on white hardboards in order to create a sophisticated and clean appearance, that still reflected myself as a child as I used to love to draw with felt-pens.  

I used Episodic theatrical narration to influence my style of story-telling. This was inspired by multiple Epic plays which I have spectated. Epic theatre uses scenes/episodes which may have large periods on time in-between, therefore Episodic (Epic) plays can occur over years as opposed to hours and do not have to be corresponding - I chose this narration style as my memories are little ‘episodes’ of my life that I can remember, have years in-between them and are scattered around, and not in order.  
 I had initially planned to create my installation on a large 4m x 2m wall, however while painting the wall, the existing layer of paint peeled and flaked, which left an unsuitable surface to work on, as I wanted a clean surface like Perjovschi’s work, I also wanted to communicate a sense of sophistication and maturity to contrast the ‘simplistic’, child-like drawings. I resulted in using 3x white hardboards as my base. Despite my reservations, I’m glad that this happened as the three panels were easier to work with, can be relocated, reflect the Episodic structure by dividing the boards into three sections and also depict my stages of life that I have communicated (childhood, young-teen, late-teen). 
 I no longer mind the fact that some pencil sketch marks remain on the board. I think this adds a discrete touch of imperfections, which is a present factor in life and thus, memories.  
If I had more time, I would have liked to create my installation on all walls surrounding a room, as then I would be able to communicate more memories and also involve spectators by getting them to illustrate their memories onto the walls, just like people did on my trip to Casa Di Guillietta in Verona, Italy.

Narrative/Memory installation progress

After the complication of having to work on three panels as opposed to a whole wall, I have now come to the conclusion that it may have been a better solution. I have been able to move the boards around while drawing and writing so that I can access the space from all angles - this would have been very problematic if I was working on a still surface such as a wall. 

Before I worked directly onto the boards, I decided to make a plan using my sketches from my sketchbook and PhotoShop. The initial intention was to use my sketchbook only as a way of documenting my memories in an alternative note form, however I ended up liking the appearance of the pages so I scanned them into PhotoShop (PS), and laid each scene out onto a scaled down canvas page on PS. Doing this allowed me to play around with composition, negative space and layout. I came up with three possible layout ideas, and I used the preference of others to help me to chose my final design. I asked others as sometimes, I find you can be too close to your work to make appropriate decisions as other factors may contribute and cause you to be biased against a particular design, which may not have been the better option, such as time consumption.  

Once I was happy with my 'final' design, I then used a light F pencil to gently sketch out my design to scale on the boards. I did end up tweaking the design as working so large, I wanted to make sure that the scale of elements were appropriate to the overall appearance and significants. After making adjustments, I then began to darken my sketches using permanent markers - thankfully the size of the pen was perfect as I was able to tilt the pen to create thick lines, or hold the pen at a 90degrees for a thinner line. 

So far I am happy with how the design is coming to life, however due to tweaking in the previous stage, I now have some unintentional negative space. I am thinking of filling this space with photographic memories, detailed drawings and alternative medias in order to add textures, a range of mediums and to manipulate the spectators attention.

An issue which I have encountered, is that I am unable to erase the initial sketch marks on the board, as the eraser alters the texture of the board, making the path of the eraser obvious in certain light. Also, I had hoped to use different pen sizes in order to create different sized text and to noticeably alternate thickness of lines, however my Uni Pin fine liners did not absorb into the board, causing the ink to sit on top of the surface and not dry. Luckily, as I previously mentioned, my permanent markers were able to create different thicknesses by successfully using pressure, angle and and speed. 

Where I was going to have the design feeding across all three boards as one, I changed my mind and treated each of the three panels as separate, but relating sections (like siblings as opposed to one). I chose to do this, as it means that my design can be seperated and still make sense on their own, and to also symbolise the stages of my life that I have progressed through and the memories from those stages: early childhood memories, early teens, late teens/entering adulthood.

So far, I feel like this is progressing well, and I will be happy with the final outcome despite the problems and complications.