New Term: New Project
In the first session for this term we did an 'object lesson' the idea was that we would use an object that we picked as a starting point for our project this term.
I chose Will Self's 'Scale' as my starting point:
I liked the idea of 'Scale' and I created sketchbook sheet with the first lines of the book:
'Some people lose their sense of proportion, I've lost my sense of scale'
I had a few ideas in class which will need to be developed - I liked the idea of Alice in Wonderland with the 'Eat me' 'Drink me' potions to becoming larger and smaller. This is in turn reminded me of the artist:Anne Gaskell and her 'Wonder' series
Untitled#02 Wonder
'Anne Gaskell crafts foreboding photographic tableaux of preadolescent girls that reference children’s games, literature, and psychology. She is interested in isolating dramatic moments from larger plots such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, visible in two series: wonder (1996–97) and override (1997). In Gaskell’s style of “narrative photography,” of which Cindy Sherman is a pioneer, the image is carefully planned and staged; the scene presented is “artificial” in that it exists only to be photographed.'
Guggenheim (2017) Collection Online: Anne Gaskell [Online] Available from: https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/1409 (Accessed 11th April 2017)
I am interested in the photographic tableaux as these staged images can create a truth more real than a documentary image if they are executed well. In this image I actually like the ambiguity as is the girl holding the other girls nose - is she trying to save her or trying to kill her?
In relation to scale the Wonder series examines the pre-adolescent girls and uses their bodies which are in flux from childhood to adulthood just like Alice in Wonderland. I am no longer a girl however the body and scale could be developed to create a photographic project that may work.
I will work on some sketches to develop these ideas further....
