What is a Manifesto?

a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

A manifesto is a published verbal declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, government or an artistic movement. In etymology (the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history), the word manifesto  is derived from the Italian word manifesto, itself derived from the Latin manifestum, meaning clear or conspicuous.

Some of the  most well known manifestos to people in the United Kingdom are political manifestos, the three main parties; Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were the parties in the last election in 2017.

Jersey also has a Manifesto, which is called ‘Reform Jersey Manifesto’. Below is a link to the Manifesto that the Deputy in the states assembly presented in 2016 as the ‘MANIFESTO – 2016’ Senatorial By-election

Reform Jersey Manifesto

Examples of other manifesto’s:

• 1 The Bible and the Ten Commandments.
• 2 The US Declaration of Independence.
• 3 Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech.
• 4 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
• 5 Apple Ad: Here’s to the Crazy Ones.
• 6 Andre Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto.

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• FEMINISM MANIFESTO’S:

The manifesto has been an important genre for feminist writers because the form enables women’s voices to be heard at their most provocative, independent, irreverent, and demanding. Feminist manifestos are often short and pointed declarations of identity and politics that use radical rhetoric to upend the status quo of gender and sex. Whether they take the form of letters, brochures, pamphlets, or even full-length books, feminist manifestos try to change reality by using the power of words to resist male domination and to envision women’s liberation. There were many feminist manifesto’s that occurred during my focused time period of second wave feminism, such as: ‘The Women identified Women’ written by a radical lesbian formation as well as Valerie Solanas’s 1967 SCUM Manifesto. The 1960s and ‘70s witnessed the creation of some the most iconic feminist manifestos, thanks to renewed global and local women’s liberation movements.

However, during research i came across a feminist manifest from 1991 which caught my eye and highlighted how radical manifestos can be. I watched the short clip which was created around the riot grrrl manifesto and thought this would be an interested example of how radical feminist were and the protests that they were making to continue their fight for rights throughout the waves of feminism.

  “Grrrl Love and Revolution:  Riot Grrrl NYC”  (Women Make Movies, 2012)

The Riot Grrrl Manifesto:

BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other’s work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can’t play our instruments, in the face of “authorities” who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and

BECAUSE we don’t wanna assimilate to someone else’s (boy) standards of what is or isn’t.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary “reverse sexists” AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock “you can do anything” idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.

BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

MY MANIFESTO:

Make photo’s of:

1. A Feminist
2. Adolescents exploring their sexuality
3. Women expressing their Femininity
4. Women being exploited – similar to actresses in the 1970’s
5. Women where the rule of technicality is broken (grainy/blurred)
6. Portraits with strong facial expression and stance

For my project, as much as models and the actual concept is important, now these two important factors are more or less decided upon and finalised, it is vital that I chose the specific locations where I will be shooting wisely.

After looking at several artists who have inspired me and observing their work, I have realised the importance of setting and where the shoot will be carried out. Most of the artists I have looked at this far have been streetwear photographers who photograph their subjects, most of the, on the street and in urban areas of where the may live. I have come across a few times, examples of where photographers have shot in a studio set up where the background is an infinity screen and this would have been done in a typical studio. Doing this achieves much different results then when shooting on location in town or on the streets where photographs become more informal and more characterised as a result.

Using a location for a shoot adds much more character to the subject and brings out their personality more than if you’re shooting in a studio, in my own personal opinion, and this is what I what to achieve in my onw photographs as I will be focusing heavily on individual people who will essentially make up the body of my project. It is important that I show them as best I can and to do this, I feel the use of urban areas to heighten and emphasise the focal point of fashion and clothing brands such as The North Face, Tommy Hilfiger, Carhartt, Supreme and Stussy in every shot. These are the types of brands I expect my models to wear.

For my shoots, I do not intend to tell my models what to wear and instead leave this up to them because if I ell them what to wear and or the style they should attempt to achieve in their look on that day, this will take sway from the realness and rawness of what my shoots should be where I am photographing the way teenage boys in this modern day express themselves and how they do this through what they wear where it is so easy to be judged, fell judged or judge someone based on their looks and what they may wear. I will, as a means of heightening the emphasis on freedom, leave the choice of outfit up to the models. I know that whatever hey may wear, whether it connotes vibes of a vintage feel or street feel, it will fit into what I want to achieve. And so to coincide with this emphasis on fashion, I want the locations to also be fun, fitting, vibrant and I want them to hold an element of exclusivity – that when I am photographing my subjects in these locations, it feels exclusive and important to focus on the location as much as the subject.

Furthermore, a concept I want to explore is the effect that photographing the location on its onw as well as the subjects within this location may have. I believe this idea could work well because I could pair an image of the bare location with another image of my models in that exact location but from a different perspective – because the model will be the focus. It would be interesting to see the effect of focusing on the features of the location and then talking an element of this away by pairing it with an image that could be seen as worse – that I am ruining what may be a location of beauty by placing some teenagers in the centre of it. I retrieved this idea from Tiane Doan Na Champassak’s work and in particular, the book I looked at called ‘Sunless’. This project saw Champassak visit prostitutes in Thailand through booking appointments with them, and instead of visiting them for the reason everyone would think – to engage in sexual activity with them, instead Champassak went along to these prostitutes place of business, whether it be a hotel room or their apartment and photographed the location – the area in which he found himself as well as images of these men and women naked on the bed. He produced a book which confronting questions regarding gender and sexuality and it was same up of alternating images between harsh, very heavily contrasted and shadowed black and white images of the location and much more delicate and elegant close-ups of the prostitutes naked body which were much more vibrant tin colour and the curvatures of some of the women’s body’s imitated that of the walls and decorations that Champassak found in their apartments. This concept of dividing a body of work up through alternating images between location shots and subject shots is very effective and is something I could experiment with.

It is important that I begin to plan where I want to shoot and that I have an idea of different locations and setting on the island that I feel may work best. I have not gathered many ideas of locations to shoot in yet but intend to in the next few days so that I am not lost for ides when it comes to the day of shooting. In Jersey, there are many areas of urban scenery that would be perfect but it is about finding these areas because I am yet to discover them. Looking at the work of Grout and Arrowsmith as well as pioneers in street photography such as Bailey and Klein, they have used the mundane settings of streets but with the addition of lively subjects who are performing for the camera, the locations can come alive and I feel this is what I can achieve in my work.

Examples of locations where I have thought of to shoot thus far include areas like town, however, not on Kings Street because this is often too busy and crowded with people shopping and therefore, I would focus more on smaller and quitter alleyways and side streets in between shops in town. Furthermore, it would be great if I could find some areas in Jersey where there is a long stretch of wall with some graffiti on. However, it is likely that I may be out on location and coincidentally come across a perfect little spot of wall that has some colour on and would be great as a backdrop for a couple of shots.

My mate was telling me about an area near Fort Regent where there is brick wall and on this, someone has spray painted the words ‘Welcome To Jersey’ and if I could find this spot, this may be very effective.

Other areas like skate parks would work well where I can also get some shots of some of my models actually skating if they are of this group of people who skate regularly. There are quite a few skate parks in Jersey and give off the perfect urban look and feel.

I have also thought to photograph at Les Quennevais estate for example as I know this area well where there are garages upon garages in rows that would look great as a backdrop because the are not too busy with textures, patterns or colours and would quite subtle but effective as a setting.

Furthermore, one location that I am set on using and will probably be the basis for one of my first shoots is Minden Place Car Park in town and in particular, the top level of this car park as it is open air and overlooks St Helier and its vast array of building tops.

some ideas for locations

• Minden Place Car Park, top story
• town – back streets and side streets where it is less busy (maybe Kings Street)
• graffitied walls 
• plain brick walls
• Les Quennevais Estate, the garages 
• any other estates 
• skate parks 
• casual streets or pavements 
• outside any apartments/flats