Critical Rationale

Meg Quick     5020036

 Critical Rationale

 

Elle a vu le loup is a body of work that began last year when I decided to research into original fairytales and the meanings behind them. I decided to focus only on Little Red Riding Hood. The story is iconic, and I particularly wanted to look into the French version written by Charles Perrault. I really enjoyed the research process and discovering the true meanings of this story however I feel that I could have gone more in depth with research and potentially could have done more than one story. The reason I decided to focus on one story was so that I could focus all my attention on it and explore it as much as possible. There were so many different avenues and ideas about what the story could mean however most of what I researched about the story was that of a feminist point of view. Many believed that Little Red should be allowed to walk alone and we shouldn’t have to fear the “wolves”.

The interpretation I took on of the story was that the “wolf” represented a man in pursuit of the girl’s virtue and that the red cloak represents Red becoming a woman. The story was originally used as a warning to young girls of the dangers of men once they were women. I decided to research into the effect that the male gaze has on women today and found a lot of references to female objectification. Once I’d done the research into the story I had decided I was going to collect stories to compare. But after much debate I decided that this was too obvious and I didn’t want to veer away too much from my original plan, I also tried the stories alongside my own photographs to see what it looked like and I feel that it didn’t really represent what I was trying to say nor did it look good alongside the photographs.

One thing that I decided when taking the photos for this project was that I never wanted the models face to be seen. I wanted people to relate to the story themselves. It became clear to me throughout the term that the photographs we’re missing something and that I wasn’t telling enough of the story. I had plenty of images which could represent the middle of the story however not enough of the beginning and end. I decided to experiment with technical processes and even changed the style that I shot the model in as well. The final images tell the 3 pivotal parts of the story, Red putting on the cloak, the walk through the woods and the ending where she has slept with the wolf and been killed.

I decided to keep my instillation idea quite simple. The photographs are in white frames with white mounts. I chose white so that the colour within my images would really stand out and so that the frames would not detract from the image.

Overall I think that the project has been incredibly successful and I feel that I have represented the story the best that I could and visually I’m so proud of the work I achieved. The images themselves are better than what I expected to create and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the whole research process.

Critical Rationale

The original idea for this project was to focus on philosophy and benefits of being outdoors, however the idea took a different direction when I came across some information about woodland fairy tales.

The Brothers Grimm were the most iconic out of all the fairy tales I’d read and what set them apart from the others I found was how unhappy and spooky they were. I focussed mainly on stories that I knew included woodland. Reading stories such as Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel we’re a massive part of my creative process, having read a similar story when I was younger it was interesting to read the more gruesome version of these beloved bed time tales.

I felt that the forest was a vital location for my images, due to the atmosphere that they can create and the emotions they can evoke within us when walking alone or late at night. The idea for the series was to create a sense of presence within the images and for the viewer to relate from the fairy tales they grew up with and that have been passed down for years and years.

Chyrstel Lebas’ project ‘Presence” was an influence on this body of work with the way she managed to create a sense of fear within her photographs of the twilight woodland scenes.

Lebas also used fog within her photographs and this was something I tired to re-create using smoke bombs and fog filters however I felt this was too artificial compared to the other images I had.

For the photographs I decided to optimise the time of day that I took them twilight was probably the best time of day for the photographs as a lot of the light that was coming through the trees wasn’t too bright. It was particularly beneficial to got out and take photos when it had been raining or was still raining as this just added to the gloomy look of the photos and the greens of the forest we’re darker.

I wanted to represent the fairy tales within the photographs without using people to make it too obvious which fairy tale it was. This meant the viewers could come up with their own concept for what story the photograph was representing or even make up their own story simply by viewing the images.

I decided not to add any quotes or name the photographs after the stories that inspired them because I wanted the viewer to make their own association of which fairy tale it represents.The name for the project is Marchen, which means ‘fairy tale’ in German. I decided on this name in honour of the Grimm Brothers who inspired the project. The phrase is the strongest link to the concept and is something slightly different and interesting as well.

Artists Note

 At the exhibition I plan to have an artists statement alongside my prints to explain the concept of my images.

This body of work is a visual representation of my research into archival  love letters.  I used a collection of quotes from the letters that I felt are the most relatable and the most endearing. The letters all vary in age however they are all written by famous men. 

The idea for the project all began when reading the letters between my parents whom for four years continued their relationship long distance.  It was very strange for me to see the declaration of love between my parents and this began my my journey of research into the lost art of letter writing. 

The images for me are a response to the love letters and I wanted to explore the boundaries on how I could visually respond to them. 

Final Images

My final images are a visual response to 3 love letters that I’ve found through research. I decided to settle on 3 images for my final prints  and i will set them out in a triptych.

The images themselves aren’t going to be linked to the quotes themselves however i may add a small artists note along side the images to explain my journey of searching through letters and creating a visual response based around what I read and how the letters made me felt.

The image below shows how I plan to display the photographs in the exhibition, alongside the images I will have my artists note printed and laminated next to them.

Research & Ideas

After completing the relationship task in week 3 and looking into the written relationship between my mum and dad I’ve decided to make my final idea a visual response to several love letters I have found.

I began by looking into Letters Of Note by Shaun Usher who had created a photo book on letters,  emails, notes and even doodles  of importance that he felt had to be seen.

I also decided to research into a photographer called Marten Lange  whom created a series of random portraits named Another Language.

The project’s meaning isn’t clear because the images have no explanation so this makes me wonder whether the photographs themselves our another language.

https://www.martenlange.com/works/another_language/#35

Another project I looked at was  Meyer Levin embarked on a journey through Europe. His assignment was to seek out the remnants of Jewish communities, to cover the “Jewish story”. In the fall of 1995 Mikael Levin retraced his father’s journey. He photographed the concentration camps and the Europe of today, contrasting his journey to his father’s experiences of fifty years ago.

The photographs are a visual response to his fathers journey.

These projects inspired me to create a visual response to letters. I then started off my research by finding some books based around love letters and the lost art of letter writing.

I started by looking into one of the most iconic books about love letters called “Love Letters of Great Men”. I found the book to be a mixture of what may not have been love letters at all and some that we’re very in depth and romantic.

I decided to use certain quotes from the books and photograph what the quote evokes for me.

For example the quote in the second image for me made me think of cold winter mornings where you can see your breathe in front of you. It also happens to make me think of an empty room in an abandoned house.

At the moment i’m planning on having a triptych of images in response to the letters with a small artists note explaining the journey I have taken researching the letters themselves.

Picbod Week 4.

This week we looked at the body: the form, functions and interactions. 

Consider how are you corporeally connected an/or discoed with the spaces you conduct in your life. The structure of the body and how its distorted. 

We begin to look at the body like a piece of still life. 

The word naked is descried by Jonathan Jones as “some one with no clothes on” however naked can be linked to venerability as well. 

Whereas the word Nude is quite a flattering word and doesn’t have to be vulgar.  Thomas Ruff used stills from porn films and blurred them to question whether these naked portraits can be artistic as well. However some still just see them as pornographic photos. 

For me I cannot get past the aspect they are essentially just pornographic photographs and I can’t really see the artistic side of the series. 

Nadar did a similarly uncomfortable series about hermaphrodites. 

Similarly to shows such as Embarrassing Bodies, we see male and female parts on this particular show we do not find it pornographic we use it as a confirmation that we are what we consider as ‘normal’

However some people watch the show as some sort of fascination from a scientific point of view.

Sally Mann – Proud Flesh. Larry Mann her husband suffered from muscle dystrophy and Sally photographed him through a series of intimate portraits however they are not all clear. Some are layered and some include textures and layers. 

Hannah Wilke’s mother got diagnosed with breast cancer and so she created a series based around this. 

I think the images are really intriguing and truthful. For some reason their is a big taboo agains’t photographing people when they are severally ill. Its almost as if people are scared to insult people with the sight of people with a serious illness and I think this is wrong as photographs are supposed to be forms of truth why shouldn’t we show how we truly look all the time? 

Piere & Gilles. 

This was the first male nude gallery exhibition and it caused quite a controversy and posters on the street had to be covered. 

People are less okay with the male nude in general to the fame nude. It seems that in society the female body is deemed ‘appropriate’ to be seen nude however it becomes awkward when it is the male form. 

John Coplans- asked his young photography intern to take photographs of his nude self. He sates that he becomes a different person and it’s liberating. 

In the video he created he states that people don’t want to see Old people being photographed. He states that naked old people are a taboo and that people aren’t interested in old people because they are ‘going to die soon’. 

He had an exhibition at the MOMA in New York and he would go down the exhibition and listen to people talk about his work. He states in the video that woman would love his work and say he’s exposing himself like woman do in nudes and thats great however men did not approve of the work. 

The photographs are taken on polaroid by his intern and he used one light in the studio.  Coplann’s states that his photographs are nothing to do with language and communicating they are physical states of being. 

Carolee Schneemann.

Schneemann’s “Action for Camera” in which she merged her own body with the environment of her painting/constructions… “I wanted my actual body to be combined with the work as an integral material– a further dimension of the construction… I am both image maker and image. The body may remain erotic, sexual, desired, desiring, but it is as well votive: marked, written over in a text of stroke and gesture discovered by my creative female will.”

This weeks task : you are asked to photographically consider how you are corporeally connected and/or disconnected with the spaces you conduct your life in. You may wish to examine the structure of the body and how it is distorted to serve certain roles or you may think about the time and locations in which the body shapes the environments it has found itself occupying.

For this task I decided to look into the way our bodies move when we sleep and in particular how I sleep differently with my partner to when I’m alone. 

With more time and better equipment I would like to create a series of images through one night about the way our bodies move when we sleep next to each other and alone. 

Picbod Week 3.

Relationships are titled (mother, father, niece, friend, lover, hometown and prey) but these categories tell us so little about the intricacies and nuances of relationships we have an hold that are constantly flux. 

Relationships are important in our life and they are every where. Whether it be family, partners, friends, animals or strangers we all have some sort of relationship. 

We began the talk by looking at Jamie Diamon- Constructed family portraits: The photographer places random strangers that he meets in hotels in a photo together to create the illusion of a family portrait although they are not related at all. 

This can link to Richard Renaldi’s project touching strangers series that we looked at in week 1. 

Laia Abril- The Epilogue. 

"This is the story of the Robinson family – and the aftermath suffered in losing their 26 year old daughter to bulimia. Working closely with the family Laia Abril reconstructs Cammy’s life telling her story through flashbacks – memories, testimonies, objects, letters, places and images. The Epilogue gives voice to the suffering of the family, the indirect victims of ‘eating disorders’, the unwilling eyewitnesses of a very painful degeneration. Laia Abril shows us the dilemmas and struggles confronted by many young girls; the problems families face in dealing with guilt and the grieving process; the frustration of close friends and the dark ghosts of this deadliest of illnesses; all blended together in the bittersweet act of remembering a loved one" 

Matt spoke with Laia in regards to the project and the family that she was photographing. 

Laia recorded everything in the house and she found that even though they weren’t the main focus of the project they were very welcoming and were very open with her. 

Laia didn’t know them very well before the project began and this is vastly different to the project by Krewinkle last week whom spent 10 years with his subject. Laia lived with the family and she found it very intense and was particularly following the mother around more so than anyone.

For this weeks task we we’re asked to show a relationship. More importantly the space between two people in a relationship. For this task i knew a lot of people would pick their own relationships with parters or parents however I decided to do the relationship between my Mum and Dad.

My mum met my dad at 19 and they continued a long distance relationship for 4/5 years and in this period of time my Dad would send my mum short notes and letters from various places where ever he was working. When i was taking images of the letters I wanted to share the bond between the pair however I also wanted to keep that part of their lives private as i know they are both very private people. 

This weeks task has given me inspiration to look into love letters and how the act of writing letters is somewhat lost now  a days thanks to the advance in email and texts.

I’ve decided to look into the lost art of letter writing and how it can be so much more personal to receive a letter than a text or an email. 

 

Picbod Week 2.

This Week in Picbod we looked at:

Identity + privilege. 

Choice + Representation. 

We change our identity based on the needs that we have. We change ourselves around certain people, and act differently to fit in. e.g. society 

Representation. 

Conversations; record and Stimuli** 

Conversations can address the imbalance of power in a photographic encounter and can also empower the audience as meaning-maker. 

The viewer of our work is a spectator. Similar to watching a tv show or a football game, we have no control over the outcome.

possible life. Conversations with Gualbert. 

 

The book documents the story of Gaulbert’s illegal life in the Netherlands. Along with Krewinkel’s images of Gualbert however his faced is scratched out or not focused completely. Even though we see documentation of Gualbert, we never see his face in Krewinkel’s images and this adds to the risk of releasing the book.

 

” The book that has resulted from the collaboration between Krewinkel and a man identified as Gualbert (not the real name). Illegal immigration of course is a hot topic all over the world. It constitutes a real issue – as much as a rather crude political tool used by the political right to whip up ugly sentiments” 

http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2012/09/review_a_possible_life_conversations_with_gualbert_by_ben_krewinkel/

The layout of the book starts with personal documentation of Gualbert and his family photographs. In the interview Krewinkle states that even though Gualbert was an immigrant, that the police would not search for Gualbert unless he had was a criminal or broke the law.

The book ends with a documentation of Aids in the country where the subject is from. This for Krewinkle was a link back to Gaulbert’s roots and original history. The book starts with the documentation of his birth and ends with the problems in his country of birth. Which for me, strikes that Krewinkle is trying to say that even though Gaulbert broke the law, his life if he had not moved to the Netherlands would be completely different and he may not have had a life at all. 

We were also set the task of having a conversation with a stranger with no specific subject other than the fact they had to be a stranger. 

For this task I used a patient that attended my mum’s clinic.

My Interview.
Today I met Sue. Sue has secondary progressive MS. Which is essentially the 2nd stage of Multiple Sclerosis. I met Sue when visiting my mum in hospital and she agreed to be interviewed for the task.
I explained the concept of the conversation to Sue and what I was studying. At first i was so nervous about asking her about her condition but she was so relaxed about the whole situation.
I discovered that Sue was diagnosed in 1995 and has been part of a drug trial for the last two years where every 100 days they swap Sue’s pill for either an actual form of medication or a placebo. Its her decision or not whether she thinks she’s on the medication each time.
I went on to ask her what the hardest part of her illness was and she sadly replied that within recent years it has been more and more difficult to use her right hand as she has developed a tremor.
Another task that she struggles with is reaching the shower which is sadly on the 3rd floor of her house.
I finally asked Sue how she’s come to terms with her conditions and she felt very sad about the fact that its her children that don’t understand that mummy’s legs aren’t “going to get better”. The whole conversation was particularly difficult when Sue told me that her husband whom is a Surgeon has not yet accepted her condition either and he constantly tells her that he wants to fix her as well as all his other patients.

Meeting Sue really opened my eyes to the fact that despite her condition she still works a normal job, raises 3 young children and despite the fact of not being able to walk, lives in a house with 3 floors. She really is an inspiration.

The photos i decided to accompany the conversation was one of Sue’s hardest battles in her life. The Stairs and the fear of loosing the use of her hands. 

 

Picbod Week 1.

Each week of Picbod we will study a different topic:

Week 1- Identity (constructed and complex)

 Week 2 -Conversations: Record and stimuli

 Week 3- Relationships; fixed and fluid

Week 4- The Body: forms, functions and interactions speaking.

 

Week One is representation:

 

What makes up identity? 

1. What we look like? 

2. Where we are born ?

3. Our upbringing?

4. What we buy/the things we like?

5. What we do for a living? 

6. What we do for fun? 

7. Our morals? 

8. What we do when no one is looking? 

9. How we act when sober in comparison to how we act when drunk? 

 

 

The photograph is a neatly packaged, bite size piece of information that carries codes and descriptors. 

 

http://www.touchingstrangers.or

Richard Renaldi’s project “touching strangers” is the body of work in which two strangers meet for the first time and have to pose for a photograph together. The photograph appears to be an intimate moment between two people however they are complete strangers. The photograph tricks the viewer and we begin to question what a photograph can tell us.

 

Noah Kalina- Everyday. Took a photograph of his face every single day for a year and merged them all together.

His face stayed the same in every picture, mainly his eyes however his environment changes around him and we begin to see him in different places and get more of a story about where he goes day to day.

 

Should we accept and embrace limitations?

Are there any barriers of photography?

 

Grayson Perry-Who are you.

Grayson Perry turns his attention to identity as he creates portraits – from tapestries to sculptures and pots – of diverse individuals who are all trying to define who they are.

Becoming Simone? 

A photo book based around a man that decided to become a woman and documented so in photographs. The book contains a series of photographs and at the end a medical report stating how he legally became a woman. 

http://www.alessiabernardini.com/becoming-simone#/id/ev18046

 

Do you we change our identity’s based around what others think of us? Should we change how we are because of what others think of us? 

Thinking about the concept of profile pictures, why do we change them so frequently and care so much how people see us. As humans we crave other human interactions and maybe we change our appearances and personalities in order to receive that certain level of approval that we so badly crave however in relationships we receive the most affection and attention with those that see us as we truly are. This begs the question as why we try so hard? 

This week we we’re set with the task of creating mechanical montages based around ourselves and one other person we knew well. For this I choose to focus on myself and my mother.

I found old family photographs, scanned them in and wrote over the top of them with what comes to mind with each image. 

More Photography Research.

Since finalising my idea for 250mc I decided to do some more research into photographers and artists that have also created bodies of work based around walking.

The first photographer that i discovered was Richard Long,  a British photographer whom between hitchhiking lifts, he stopped in a field in Wiltshire where he walked backwards and forwards until the flattened turf caught the sunlight and became visible as a line. He photographed this work, and recorded his physical interventions within the landscape.

Tate Modern said that “This piece demonstrates how Long had already found a visual language for his lifelong concerns with impermanence, motion and relativity”

I really like the simplicity of the work and even though it may not be closely linked to the research i’ve done, and is very different to my body of work I love the simplicity of the photos.

I was also recommended to read Wanderlust- A History of Walking by Rebecca Solnit.  The synopsis of the book describes the book as “A cultural history of walking explores the ancient practice, from ancient Greece to the present, delving into Wordsworth, Gary Snyder, Rousseau, Jane Austen, and other cultural and literary icons to show how this basic activity has been imagined througout history”