For my project, I will focus on how the bunkers are currently portrayed as on Jersey as a remnant of the German occupation; I was inspired by a book by Robert Hackman called Metamorphosis which I came across while at the photo fair in Paris. This book documents Albanian bunkers from the soviet era which had been reused as homes for people, places for businesses, or abandoned. For my photoshoots I will document abandoned bunkers and island defenses which have been re-purposed for use by the Germans during the occupation. I will then make my own altered landscapes inspired by Andreas Gursky.
Sherman, C, Published: 2006, Retrospective, New York: Thames & Hudson Inc.
~~~~~own writing~~~~~ (critic/art historian etc.) says: “Drawing on feminism as well as phenomenology, I also suggest here that Sherman’s work participates in a particular mode….” (Sherman, 2006, 33 (page No.)), ~~~~~comment/state opinion on what the author has said~~~~~
if longer than 4 lines:
~~~~~own writing~~~~~ (critic/art historian etc.)
“~~~~~indented work of author~~~~~”
online sources:
authors name, year of publish, title of the article/work, place of publication (websites place of operation i.e London), URL address
Compare Francesca Woodman and Mary Ellen Mark’s representation/documentation of mental illness.
Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
Mental illness.
Surrealism (Francesca Woodman).
Francesca Woodman (Surrealism, Long exposure, Self-portrait, feminism, depression).
Mary Ellen Mark (Ward 81, Karen Jacobs, documentation, 1970s mental hospital).
Compare a personal view and ‘outsider’s perspective.’
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
Surrealism.
Staged.
Documentary.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Francesca Woodman.
On Being An Angel.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Mary Ellen Mark.
Ward 81.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced.
Sheila Pree uses dolls to comment on and explore cultural beauty standards. She took images of dolls and real women and digitally edits them together to show how unrealistic dolls are compared to what a real roman looks like.
My Photoshoot Plan
My plan is to use this as inspiration but to edit them differently to get my point of view across about unrealistic body and beauty expectations. I plan on taking the images in the studio in order to get well-lit portraits and I’ll be taking direct inspiration from this image of Bright’s (bellow) but editing it in my own way.
Shoot 2: Trophy Wife Barbie
This is the image I have been inspired by for my second shoot. It’s by an Instagram account called Trophy Wife Barbie. Her images are have an adult humor to them and are very feminist in the way that she’s documenting what she a real life woman is like but using Barbie. This image is meant to represent how she feels taking off make-up.
My plan is to take images of a doll with her hands out and then use Photoshop to copy the face and make it look like she holding her face and then remove her facial features where her face used to be. It will be like Trophy Wife Barbie’s but her face will be completely gone.
Shoot 3: Sheila Pree Bright
For my third shoot I’m going to look at Bright’s work again however this time not only focusing on portraits but on the bodies of the Doll’s. I plan on editing them with typography like i have done with previous projects in order to incorporate my own style. I plan of writing things like ‘Plastic Fantastic,’ ‘Is this real to you,’ and ‘am I perfect yet?’
Shoot 4: Bright
For this shoot I’ going to do more portraits in the style of Bright however, I plan of taking well lit images of the doll’s faces and then using nail varnish to remove the painted on make up dolls have. I then plan on editing them together and having one half of the face with the painted on make up and the other half without.
Shoot 5: Simmons
For this shoot I’ve had multiple inspirations. My main inspiration is the Early Interior Series by Laurie Simmons. I have ordered a doll kitchen and I have some miniature dolls and things for the kitchen. I plan on taking images of the doll in the kitchen, which is meant to represent stereotypical gender roles, but then add a twist. After taking some normal images, I plan on taking some but inspired by Instagram account Mariel Clayton (@psycho.barbies). I plan on using fake blood and face paint to give the kitchen images a bit of a comedic but frighting twist. This is meant to represent how some women fight back against these stereotypical roles and beauty representations. It’s also meant to represent how all the generations of girls since the suffragette movement have strove to fight the inequality of the generation before them.
Shoot 6:
This shoot was inspired by the two image bellow which I found when brainstorming ideas. The point is not the shame people out of plastic surgery but to show the fact that some woman feel like they have to chemically and physically become like plastic in order to think they are beautiful because of the world we live in. I’m going to set up a tale for the doll to like on and a white tissue to go over her to make it simulate being in the clinic and draw the markings from the bellow images onto their faces.
