Unit X: Easter Research Round-Up

Over Easter I’ve been fascinated by the idea of ‘Evil Reflected’. This came about from my initial research into voodoo and the talismans, or ‘Gris-Gris’, associated with it. From the book, Voodoo- Mounted by the Gods I came across a particular fetish that took the form of a small doll but had shards of metal and glass protruding from its wooden body. The caption for this image read:

‘This gris-gris is made to both defend the owner and injure others who wish him harm. Inside the fetish are hair and nails from the owner. The body is covered with metal shards and bits of mirror. These two materials are responsible for sensing danger and turning it back. If the owner is cursed, the bad thoughts will be reflected back to the sender and destroy him.’

This struck me as a very powerful and uncomfortable thought that one would wish not only to protect themselves with such charms but would actively hope to cause the death of anyone that may wish them harm. It strikes me as quite a contradictory outlook on the nature of evil as one could argue that by reflecting any bad thoughts, one becomes part of that evil deed.

Anyhow, from looking at the gris-gris I was interested in taking this very abstract notion and translating it through a textile medium. To do this, I have used the process of tucking and pleating in order to create a raised surface onto flat fabric. I’m interested in creating pattern but more importantly a 3d structure out of a flat surface.  I also experimented with sheer fabric to see how the transparency might affect the structure. By utilising the transparency of my medium, I am interested in evoking a sense of fragility. However, at this stage I have only scratched the surface in terms of using fabric manipulation in my work.  To develop this further I hope to recreate my fabric samples in large scale to see how far I can push the structural capabilities of fabric.

Unit X: Mr X Stitch

As a continuation on the road to rediscovery of my love of textiles, I thought it was appropriate to include the lecture with Jamie Chalmers, otherwise known in the world of embroidery as Mr X Stitch. Chalmers is an embroiderer, blogger and generally a very funny guy! In his lecture, he introduced us to the work of contemporary embroidery and needle work artists and a few of the exhibitions he has curated within the field. As a strong advocate of banishing feminine stereotypes, I must admit to my own preconceived ideas of the feminine connotations of embroidery and needlecraft. And so I owe the likes Jamie Chalmers thanks for bringing the traditional field into modern art and design. His blog is a testament to the exciting and ever-evolving work in the field. The link to which is here: http://www.mrxstitch.com/

I highly recommend that you take a gander!

What I loved about this lecture was Chalmers’ sheer enthusiasm he had for all the astists included in his (very extensive!) powerpoint. Here are some of the artists (for there were MANY) that stood out to me as inspiration for Unit X.

Melissa Zexter: School Girls (detail) Gelatin Silver Print, Thread

Stacy Page: Kathy, Take me with you

Maurizio Anzeri: Collaboration with Robbie Spencer and Richard Burbridge for Dazed and Confused

Diem Chau: Hair, Hand; Porcelain cup, Silk thread

Unit X: Today I am Inspired! ( Part 2: Embellisher Induction)

And lo! Like some divine intervention, this morning's lecture was followed by an induction into the embellisher in the embroidery department. I was a bit sceptical about using the embellisher, having seen some of the samples floating around the studio (one of the benefits of the new art and design building is that you get to take a peek at what the textiles students get up to!) as the result looked a little too messy and  resembled too much of crafts projects for my liking. But from today's session I can see its a great way of merging together different fabrics and fibres and I must admit, I had far too much fun doing it! Check out the samples below.

For these samples, I was interested in only embellishing portions of the stands of yarn and fabric layered on top of the base of felt. I purposely left parts of the yarns loose so that the create an extra layer to the overall fabric. I was also interested in working with different textures and densities such as the use of a solid silk fabric in contrast to loose wool fibres to see how they would work together. I love how there are many layers to the final surface as wisps of trapped fibres seem to float outwards as though in suspended motion. 

For today, we were limited to working with the fabrics and yarns that the department already had in their cut-offs box. But I can see the potential in the technique to work with both natural and synthetic fibres. I am particularly interested in layering fabrics of different densities and possibly working with alternative materials such as paper and plastics. These materials wont necessarily blend in with the base fabric because there aren't any fibres that can be felted together but nevertheless I am curious to see what happens. 

Unit X: Today I am Inspired! (Part 1: Lauren Bowker)

Following on from our lecture with Lauren Bowker, a textiles designer and innovator, I was reminded of just how much I loved Textiles in my foundation year. Having originally applied to Manchester School of Art to study Fashion Design, she did not make it to the course of her choice and was instead offered a place on the Textiles programme. In spite of this initial setback her work today is a testament to the fact that as a design student you are not limited to a set field. Now, her work spans across the board with textiles, fashion, chemistry and more recently the field of engineering.

What's most exciting about Lauren Bowker are her efforts to bridge the gap between technology and design. This pretty much began in her final year as a BA student, where she developed dyes that reacted to the level of pollution in the wearer's environment. This is something that she continues to develop in her practice in which aesthetic appeal goes hand in hand with function and innovation. With her ongoing research into thermal-chromic inks Bowker has utilised textile technology for a Fashion context. These take the form of wearable sculptural pieces for a successful Parisian fashion brand that have also been photographed by Tim Walker with Kate Moss as the model. This is encapsulated in the mantra of 'See the Unseen' in which her beautiful feathered pieces seem to take on a life of their own as a showcase of renewal and decay right before our eyes.

Learning about Lauren's practice has gotten me excited about experimenting with materials on a surface level. I have been struggling within my course when it comes to shape-making and designing and feel that I havent quite gotten the hang of it yet. I am also a little afraid that perhaps I wont be able to find my own stamp. This is why I feel elated since this lecture as it has brought back to me something that I truly enjoy- and that is working with and manipulating materials, both traditional and unconventional. From my previous course I picked up textile sampling as an effective and enjoyable way of generating ideas. I love nothing more than an afternoon of simply messing around with machine embroidery and scraps of fabric. This curiosity about fabrics and how they work together to create something new has fed into my current sketchbooks. My tutor Sarah pointed this out to me in a recent feedback tutorial as something I keep revisiting and should continue to develop through the duration of my degree. I hate to say it but I haven't quite found my flair for the designing and shape-making element of each project. Though I know there is plenty of time to figure this out, it is still a constant fear of mine that I will not have a designer's epiphany any time soon! But what I have gained from today's lecture is that it would be a shame to give up something that truly excites me in pursuit of trying to be something that I am not.

Hence why, I have decided to return to my textile background as research for this unit. What I hope to achieve is to find a way of incorporating the textile techniques that I am interested in a fashion outcome as an amalgamation of all that I love.

Unit X: Hetain Patel

Today I attended a lecture from the artist Hetain Patel. His practice is based in performance art varying between film and live performance. Performance art is not something I know much about so I was intrigued to see what his work entailed. And since as part of this unit we've been encouraged to deviate from our usual field, this genre of art could provide inspiration for our final outcome.

Hetail Patel frequently dabbles in collaborations with artists outside of his field. Such as in the performance piece 'Sine Language' 2007 where he worked with a Beat-boxer to present a sort of rhythmic conversation between two practitioners from opposite fields.

However, his work primarily deals with the notion of cultural identity, most significantly his own. For example, his latest piece 'Be like Water' 2012 talks of how he came about overcoming his childhood embarrassment of having to wear traditional Indian dress by associating it with the costumes of Kung-fu warriors that he admired as a boy.

Much of his work is a reaction to his personal experiences of culture and identity. I think this is what makes his work so accessible as to a degree we have at some point in our lives questioned what it is that makes us who we are, be it cultural practices or our individual idiosyncrasies that define us.

After the lecture we were asked to make our way back to Hilton House so that we could speak to the artist as a group and possibly get some feedback from him about our work. It was a bit odd to have to trek all the way back to Hilton House for this but I suppose the first years have been given a sort of nomadic status since the beginning of this unit! At this stage I didn't have much work to show Hetain Patel but I was interested in what he had to say about collaboration and the general process of working with other artists and practitioners.

There weren't many present from my group, or even from other groups as a matter fact. So we joined forces as a bit of a super-group! We all got chatting (or winging about Unit X) and by the time Hetain came over to speak to us we had a really nice and relaxed atmosphere going.

Below are some of the questions we asked him about his practice.

How do you go about securing venues/ gallery exhibitions to showcase your work?

• Make a proposal that is relevant to the venue
• Approach the venue owners how you would want to be approached- do not send the same proposal to all venues.
• Visit galleries and openings- get to know curator and let them be aware of you and your work
• Avoid cold calling!
• Get to know curators! Go talk to them in their curated exhibitions and gallery openings.
• They will be happy to listen to what you have to say about them.
• Know that this is something that takes place over a period of time; it is inappropriate to simply approach curators and ask for an exhibition!

How do you approach the artists that you want to work with?

• These could be people who's work you've seen and are inspired by so it may be a simple case of asking them to meet you for a coffee/ an informal setting so that you can get to know them and their practice. It might be that nothing comes of it, but it is simply a case of having a conversation with them and finding things you are both interested in pursuing before beginning a project.

How do you approach working with people outside of your discipline and how do you reach a mutual decision in regards to the direction of work?

• Have a series of informal conversations with the other person
• Its all about having empathy for their practice
• Try to find links between your interests as a point on which to move forward
• Treat it like a relationship- compromises have to be made!

How do you make contacts in your field?

• Attend conference events for artists. This is a chance to meet not just other artists but also producers and directors.

• These events are specifically for networking so be sure to swap cards.
• Then add these people to your mailing list. It is a way of making people aware of what you do. i.e. email them any time you do some thing even if it is to put up or change a website. That way they will subconsciously register your name and remember you if you ask to work with them in the future.

Do you begin your projects with an idea of the kind of outcome that you want?

• Not necessarily, I may choose to work with different mediums at the same time. This is an important process of trying things out and seeing what works best in saying what you want to say. In some cases only certain processes will work, in others all might have successful outcomes.

Are your performance pieces rehearsed?

• For some pieces it is important for the act to be improvised and 'in the moment'. Often the interaction that takes place during the performance is what the work is about.
• Alternatively, Sine Language was mostly improvised but had a pre-determined structure due to the subject matter (i.e. there was a set rhythm pattern).

It was a bit of a faff to get to and from Hilton House and there was a lot of waiting around but I would say it was worth it in the end as Hetain Patel is a very nice and down-to-earth guy who gave us a really good insight into his practice as a collaborative artist. Having begun his career from a Fine Art background, where much the focus is on the individual, he was able to sympathise with our situation and give us good pointers about how to develop a successful collaboration. He spoke very much about the importance of having a series of simple informal conversations with the person you are working with and generally making the effort to get to know them and finding common ground with them. He stressed that for this to happen, we must have empathy for their practice. I think that is perhaps the most relevant piece of advice we've be given for this unit!

Unit X: An Afternoon Well Spent

For my poster I learned how to make a voodoo doll out of string- Oh how I love my degree! Its all a bit sinister, having been locked in my room fashioning dolls out of string for the entire afternoon but I thought it was a nice hands-on approach to making my poster as I'm not much of an illustrator.

Here is the link to the Youtube tutorial that I used, and my feeble attempt!

The finished product was then displayed with all the other posters, or should that be Tarot cards, on Tuesday  as part of our group presentation. For this, we had to talk about our ideas to the whole group for exactly 175 seconds to give everyone a sense of our concept. It was all a bit daunting but it was nice for us to be able to see what everyone else had been up to and how they had interpreted the theme of 175.
As it turns out, there are two other groups who had the same brainwave as we did and use 1+7+5= 13 as their starting point as well. So it looks like we've got some competition on our hands!

But I'm not too worried about it at this stage as its early days yet. We've decided that we will continue to look at our individual themes over Easter so that when we come back we will have a broad pool of ideas to choose from. After that its up to us to battle it out *ahem* I mean discuss in a civilised manner which ideas get put towards the final outcome. This should be interesting.

But for the meanwhile, please enjoy this lovely picture of us working hard on our Tarot cards. Awww!

Unit X: Hello my name is... TRISKAIDEKAPHOBIA

No, I haven’t just slammed my fists onto the keyboard; that is our group name! Just rolls off the tongue, does it not?

Triskaidekaphobia, meaning ‘an irrational fear of the number 13’ came about as a result of our first group meeting on Tuesday.

After going through the facts that we’d come up with about 175, there wasn't much that jumped out at us as something we could push forward as a group project. That was until it was pointed out simply that 1+7+5= 13...ground-breaking! Its kind of obvious but the point is we didn't have to use 175 since 13 was a significant number in itself. We came to the conclusion that since 13 is an unlucky number we could begin by looking at superstitions as this gives us a broad scope for ideas at this initial stage. Besides, it’s far more fun to research something morbid!

On Wednesday, we met up again for a group exercise in which we set down some ‘ground rules’.

#1. Warn others if you cannot attend a group session, or workshop

#2  It is your responsibility to catch up on anything that you have missed.

#3 All information is to be shared with the group, either through posting on Facebook or in regular  group meetings.

It's not much of a comprehensive list but the general gist of it is that all members need to co-operate fully and make time for the group.

Our final task for the week was to create a collaborative poster to present to the rest of the group which would demonstrate our chosen theme. An issue that we came across was that we all had our interests and could not yet agree on anything in particular. So we decided that our posters should be a compilation of the various themes we want to look at- with the over-arching theme being superstition. To continue the running theme of the number 13 we decided to make 13 Tarot cards as an additional nod to our theme. We also felt that it was important to maintain a group aesthetic. In order to tackle this issue we decided that our individual posters should share a similar format. So in reference to Tarot cards, we appointed Alex to the prestigious title of official 'card-designer'. The purpose of this was so that the overall look of the posters would be similar whilst giving each individual just enough creative licence.

I think we've made a positive start to the project as each member of the team has taken an active part in the meetings and so far everyone seems to have very diverse and exciting ideas.

Unit X: Voodoo

When approaching the theme of ‘Superstitions’ my main aim was to stay away from any westernised ideas surrounding this topic. How I arrived at my current theme was purely a result of resolute procrastination and chance.  After an unsuccessful hunt for obscure titles at the MMU library that appeared only on the library search engine, I just so happened to wander into the photography section when I stumbled upon the book ‘Voodoo- Mounted by the Gods’.  Filled with beautiful photographs, the book captures the journey of the Swiss photographer Alberto Venzago that began in 1988 as he documented for 10 years his fascination with the Voodoo culture of Benin. Through this and the accompanying documentary, Venzago sheds light on the mysterious subculture and gives access to the rules and rituals of this world of African Voodoo.

'voodoo is about sorcerers saints demons and tricksters. It’s about the dark powers that made us survive'

The quote above, taken from the accompanying documentary is particularly poignant as the endurance of voodoo culture is attributed to the historical context of the slave trade in Africa, a time in which it was believed to the ‘essence of Mother Africa’.  I think it’s a nice idea that it is the people’s beliefs that allowed them to maintain a sense of identity during such a tragic time. I am intrigued by the value and power that faith can hold for the people who live their lives by it, however bizarre its practices and rituals may be to outsiders.

What also interests me was the use of objects and talismans illustrated in this book. Objects called ‘Gris- Gris’, that do not simply come in the form of dolls as popular culture would have us believe, serve different functions to the holder. Some are a source of healing, whilst others a means of protection against harm. As my practice is based in fashion and textiles, I’m very much interested in continuing to work in a 3D format and so I think that looking at actual objects as a source of inspiration could give me a lot to work with by way of silhouettes to recreate materials to look into and silhouettes to recreate. 

Unit X begins!

After putting off blogging for as long as I could manage, I have decided that enough is enough! This time I WILL keep on top of my blog. Although I must confess, this epiphany came to me only after being told that my grade depended on it!

So what is the ominous Unit X that we've been anticipating from the start of this year, I hear you cry! The closely guarded secret was revealed to us this week. In honour of Manchester School of Art's 175th anniversary, we've been given the theme of 175 as our starting point. Our first task is to come up with some facts that will 'activate the number'.
This was so typical of a new brief to land us with something completely vague and expect us to go off and churn out something great. So being left to our own devices with a project that is so open to interpretation I did what any self-respecting student would do and consulted Google! These are the facts I have chosen.

What's more is that this is to be our first collaborative unit where we will be working with Textiles and Film and Media students to produce our final piece of work. This is something I'm very excited about as it gives us a chance to take advantage of the skills and techniques involved in other courses and begin to create a creative student network with people we may not otherwise interact with in the studios. It's also a really great way of working as most project in the creative industry as a collaborative effort and I think it will introduce us to a really great way of working which will allow us to bounce off of each other's ideas.
I must admit, the notion of group work generally does leave me feeling a little nervous but since I've always loved taking a sneaky peak at other people's sketchbooks and seeing how their ideas evolve, if anything this project will be a great opportunity to do just that! Working with other art students will create a really creative atmosphere where we can bounce off of each others ideas and hopefully come up with something really ambitious as a result.
All in all, I'm looking forward to working on this project and can't wait to see what we come up with.