Liberationand Occupation: My personal study is based around the theme of “occupation and liberation”. I have personally interpreted this theme in a historical context, whereby I will be investigating the way gender stereotypes have evolved and developed over the years (from the mid 20th century to now), and therefore will be identifying the differences between the past (where gender roles and stereotypes were more pronounced and conservative – occupation) and now (where gender roles and stereotypes are becoming more fluid and liberal, with focus being drawn towards an individuals personal goals and expression, rather than their gender – liberation)
Gender: My personal study will be focusing on gender roles, and the stereotypes that society labels both men and women with. My work will focus on giving examples of where gender roles are abided to, and where they are challenged, and the difference in the viewers opinions towards these 2 ends of the spectrum.
Stereotypes: I will focus on identifying and presenting well known gender stereotypes in an overt, obvious way, as to allow the viewers of my work to clearly identify these stereotypes, and possibly relate to witnessing/experiencing these stereotypes, therefore allowing them to relate more to the work.
Phoebe Jane Barrett: Barrett’s work focuses on the concept of breaking the stereotype of men having no emotions, with their masculinity being the main focus of their personalities. I will be taking inspiration from Barrett’s presentation of men as just as emotional and human as women, in order to reflect the harmful gender stereotypes that men face (that are perhaps less spoken about), in my own work.
Cindy Sherman: Cindy’s work focuses on creating bold an loud images, that represent the absurdity of how women are portrayed in the media. I feel that her work is extremely identifiable, and I have taken inspiration from her bold style.
“Compare how Phoebe Jane Barrett and Cindy Sherman challenge gender stereotypes in their work“
How do photographers such as Phoebe Jane Barrett and Cindy Shermanchallenge stereotypical gender roles in their work?”
“How is masculinity and femininity portrayed in the work of Cindy Sherman and Phoebe Jane Barrett?”
“Compare how Cindy Sherman presents women in her photography with how Helmut Newton presents women in his photography”
Below shows a mood board of my ideas from the starting point of Occupation vs Liberation. I have two main starting ideas, one relating to the subject of gender roles and exploring what I had previously touched on in my AS exam work however going into more depth, looking into gender roles in the media: advertising, movies and tv shows, ideas of swapping the genders in the photographs and recreating things with exaggerated stereotypes to make a statement. My second idea relates to the idea of myths and legends, looking into stories and myths of the island of Jersey. Looking into creating these photographs and making up an image of the myth in a tableaux effect, looking into how these myths could occupy all pf the island and maybe how the older generations may believe them or effect the space of the island.
Mood Board Of Ideas
Below I have some artists I would be interested into looking at and I am gaining inspiration from. These include Anna Gaskell who looked at using children stories, Jeff Wall a photographer who uses tableaux photography, Cindy Sherman and exploring gender especially the female gender and Kourtney Roy somebody who looks at the ideal female and the male gaze using her work.
Occupation of beliefs and stories – myths of the island
Anna Gaskell – Jeff Wall – Tableaux photography – Narrative and stories effecting the photography – Anna Gaskell and her work being influenced by movies and paintings – Jeff Wall and the use of staged and tableaux photography, also looking at the environment and place.
Possible Questions:
How has stories and literature influenced the work of Anna Gaskell?
Simon Morley says ‘The sublime experience is fundamentally transformative, about the relationship between disorder and order, and the disruption of the stable coordinates of time and space.” (Morley 2010:12)
For my personal study, I am going to be working mainly with people and objects as I want to tell a story of the evolution of my family and I. After taking these images, I will compare them to images I have found on the upbringing and history of living in other country who are in poverty or less fortunate than myself. This is so I can see the different of life now for me and for someone the similar age as me, with different upbringings. I will also compare this too how different countries that are facing war currently in the 21st century and compare that to my life and even the life people lived during the German Occupation in Jersey. I will then experiment with different aspects of my shoots and I hope to create montages from the images gathered by myself.
Adam Ethan Berner
Burner has many different projects, one main of the projects I am going to focus on is; Making A Family; The History and Theory BehindFamily Photos. I feel that this project links in well with occupation and liberation, as Burner is documenting his family history by creating a personal archive. Below are some of his images from this project;
Using the following link, I was able to access information from Burner that he had wrote up himself, along with his original images. Burner’s work from this project is mainly analysing and documenting old family photos and showing how people have grown up. Burner states that ‘family photos adorn the walls of homes. They are the last things before and after we sleep, and living rooms for guests to see. They remind us of our kin and loved ones. The photos reinforce what the idea of the family is as the images create an idea of what normal family life is like.’ Burner also states that ‘Underneath the image of a smiling face, the text of a missing persons sign reads, “Have you seen me?” The most important part of a government-issued identification document is the photograph of the person to whom it belongs. When one sees an unflattering photo of oneself, one doesn’t say, “The pixels that create a facsimile of my likeness are unflattering.” You say, “Delete that photo, I look terrible.’https://museemagazine.com/features/2018/11/20/making-a-family-the-history-and-theory-behind-family-photos?rq=adam%20ethan%20berner
A Photo From Burner’s Project
Technical; the lighting from this image would’ve come from the lighting around the room along with the flash on the camera, I can tell this because the faces of the subjects are slightly over exposed. The shadow present behind them could’ve been caused my the flash or the way the home lighting was angled. The tonal range within the image is little, this is due to the face of the black and white worn by the subjects being very normal and bold colors, yet neutral . The color temperature of the image is slightly on the orange side, this may be due to the fact the image was taken as cameras were just developed.
Visual; The texture of the image looks rough, due to the discoloration of it and the wrinkles within the image, from this texture you can tell that the image is old. The image its self is 2D, but due to the shadows behind the objects and the angle they are standing you can see a 3D affect. The composition of the image has a layout of four individuals stood side by side next to each other, two males and two females who are dressed in smart attire. Immediately, I am drawn to the women in the white dress, this is because white stands out over the black and orange background.
Conceptual/Contextual; Burner used this image due to the fact to show his family history, the meaning behind it is documenting family photos, however, as suggested by Burner ‘photos aren’t always taken’ so when they are it is a memorable moment, so in the future that moment can be remembered.
Laurie Simmons
Simmons is an american photographer who tends to delve deep into the portray of gender rolls, one of her main projects interesting me being Big Camera, Little Camera, where she associated things she has grown up with, mainly dolls with things from the present day such her house or her work, but her work is also a symbol of gender roles.
Through a review done my Adam Burner he said; ‘Throughout the collection of photos, one can see the ways in which Simmons’ career developed as she plays with scale, staging, and the borders between reality and fiction.’ here he is saying that his lady he has researched about is showing her evolution and how she grew up will dolls, and Burner’s photography is now portraying them as reminders from her past along with associating them with things of the present, such as her home/job. I researched more in detail about this project using the following link; https://museemagazine.com/culture/2019/1/8/book-review-laurie-simmons-big-camera-little-camera?rq=adam%20ethan%20berner
My personal investigation looks at my grandparent’s lifestyle and how it has been influenced by the time period they grew up in, the 1940’s. I have explored the influence of religion and spirituality, gender roles within the family structure and social norms during this time period which are still present in their lifestyle to this day. Appropriately, I chose the art movement of realism to influence the stylistic features of my imagery to create the narrative of my grandparent’s life style. Realism photography looks at documentary photography and photojournalism to capture life how it is, whilst occasionally raising social and cultural issues. With my topic being based in my grandparent’s lifestyle, I felt that using documentary photography would be the most appropriate to showcase this, thus drawing connections with realism. Moreover, my work is aimes to look at social norms and family structure, such as the wife being a housewife whilst the husband provides for the family, which illuminates social issues which still subtly influence today’s society.
Image from: Walker Evans – “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’
The art movement of realism and straight photography looks at creating imagery which showcase life how it is. The movement emerged in the 1840’s, which retaliated against pictorialism which suggests photographs have to look like a drawing or painting. Artists who work within this area look at raising social and cultural issues relevant within society at that time, in order to make the audience aware of this issue in hope something can be done to make a change, which presents the convention of social reform. This area looks at documentary photography and photojournalism to document the events which are occurring. Within this art movement artists stick to the original techniques of photography, the use of photography for science, to create detailed, sharp images showcasing real life.
Image from: Walker Evans – “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’
Walker Evans is a key photographer who has influenced my investigation through his ‘Let Us Now Praise Famous Men’ photographic series. In this he aims to document the lives of sharecropping families, those who are forced into labour which involves them having to look after the land and in return they gain a share of the crops produced on their portion of land. His work falls into the movement of realism, as the series produces imagery which showcase the families’ lives as well as drawing cultural issues at the time, with strong political views being produced from Evan. In addition, his work looks at capturing lifestyle, which is similar to my project, which enhances my understanding and approach to capturing the lifestyle of my family, which has allowed me to consider the conceptual and contextual elements in a new way.
This mind map explores different ideas which I would consider to be my main focus for my person investigation. With each idea made below I tried to link them back to the overall themes of Occupation and/or Liberations, as those themes are still the project title. Personally, I wanted to come away from looking at the occupation of Jersey, due to me doing it for such a long time, exploring different elements. I took the word Occupation and Liberation and looked at synonyms which allowed me to respond to the words in a more contemporary and artistic way, as well as ensuring I would be able to conduct multiple photoshoots to produce strong imagery relating back to the themes. My exploration is shown below:
Mood Board:
Action Plan:
Moving forward I would like to create a repose to the themes of occupation and liberation by exploring my family, more specifically my grandparents. I have decided to choose my family as I have a personal attachment to the subject and I believe I will be able to produce stronger outcomes, in a conceptual and contextual sense, as I have that bond with my subjects which allows them to be more open. With regards to looking at my grandparents I would like to look at lifestyle and how their upbringing in the 1940’s has effected their lifestyle, with specific looks at gender roles, family structure and religion. These three areas are the main influencing factors on their lifestyle, however when I look further into their past I am sure that other elements will make themselves present which I can also include in this investigation. I have decided that I would like to look through family archives to gain an understanding of their lifestyles before I was born, and conduct photoshoots which showcase their lifestyle now, allowing a comparison to be made of the past to the present.
Markosian is a Russian American artist of Armenian descent. She war born in Moscow and in 1996 she left to go live in California with her mother and her brother. Until the age of 23 she had no contact with her father. After 15 years of not seeing him she travelled to Armenia to see her father.
Markosian’s body of work called “inventing my father” is what I will be analysing and exploring in this post.
Throughout this project Diana explores her father’s absence throughout her life through the use of archival imagery, landscape images of important locations and also through photographing objects, letters and newspaper articles. This particular project is very personal, and the artist projects very raw emotion onto her audience through the use of black and white images and through portraits of her father.
“For most of my life, my father was nothing more than a cut out in our family album” – Diana Markosian
I have decided to use Diana as my case study, as one aspect of my family history I feel is important to incorporate into my project is my parents’ divorce. I wanted to see how the artist approached photographing and portraying the absence of a parent through images, as I will need to portray the same.
“I often wondered what it would have been like to have a father. I still do.”-Diana Markosian
Diana also has a project “mornings (with you)” which is almost a part 2 to the above photo series, where she meets her father, gets to know him, and documents it through images of them together in the mornings.
Analysis:
In this image we can see a printed photograph of Diana, her mother and we can also see that her father has been cut out of what would otherwise be a family photograph.
We then learn that Diana’s mother had cut out her father. This image is captioned “This was the closest thing I had to an image of my father: a cut out in our family album.”
Conceptually, It is clear that the absence of her father in the photo reflects his absence in her life. The lack of her father also further emphasises her mother. Which reflects the importance of her mum in her life after loosing her father figure.
The exhibition The Invisible Hands is devoted to the migrant workforce employed in Jersey farming industry, their lives, living and working conditions in Jersey. The labour of seasonal farm workers in Jersey has been an important part of the local economy for more than 150 years, yet their presence on the island is largely undocumented.
Invisible Hands offers another perspective on agricultural labour in Jersey from the workers themselves. It is a collaboration between migrant workers, the artist Alicia Rogalska and The Morning Boat.
‘I work as an artist to explore relationship and frameworks for others to respond to,’ Ms Rogalska explains. ‘I wanted the workers to have their own voice. It’s about acting as a support structure and providing the space for the workers to speak. They are often spoken about but rarely invited to speak themselves.’
The project includes a robot programmed to write a list of eight requests to improve working conditions for Polish migrants. Those eight points include reforms to the health and social security system that currently mean workers are not eligible for benefits until they have been in the Island for six months, and improvements in living conditions and wages for those undertaking the most difficult work. The robot demonstrates the increase in machinery and technology in the farming industry. This highlights that in the future, there may be no need for human labour.
Since my personal study will be related to my family and their immigration to Jersey, I will be researching what their home was like politically and social during the 80s when they left so I can better understand their reasoning for coming to Jersey.
To begin, similarly to Jersey being very closely related to England yet having a certain degree of autonomy, Madeira has the same relationship with Portugal. In order to understand historical context in Madeira, I will also have to research what was happening in Portugal at the time and the effects it had in Madeira.
Portugal was once one of the world’s richest countries when their empire stretched over vast areas in places such as Asia and Africa. Since their wealth was not reinvested into developing their internal infrastructure, over time Portugal and its remaining colonies, especially Madeira, became one of Western Europe’s poorest in the 19th and 20th century. Due to the Portuguese revolution, and the many colonial wars in places such as Angola and Mozambique in aims of independence, the Portuguese economy was seriously struggling.
“Portugal lost an estimated 2.6 million people to emigration, more than any West European country except Ireland” – Source
As a result of this many Madeira locals struggled and lived in poverty, with low job prospects. This lead to many people emigrating in hopes of more opportunities abroad. The emigration “boom” began in the 60s and 70s, but also continued through to the 90s. During this time many Portuguese nationals went to places such as Venezuela, Brazil and England. Some did so illegally in order to avoid military conscription to fight in colonial wars.
“Between 1951 and 1991 the population [in Jersey] increased by 52%, largely as a result of the growth of tourism and then the finance industry. The source of immigrant labor moved from France to Portugal, more specifically Madeira. “ – Source
While different sources disagree on the total size of the Portuguese population of the UK, they agree that there has been a significant increase in migration from Portugal since 2000 , which coincided with a large rise in the Portuguese unemployment rate in the early to mid 2000s.
I was also keen to find out more about the history of Portuguese people in Jersey, as I am aware there is a large community residing on the island. However, it was noticeable that it is not an area of the island’s history that is well recorded. I was able to find some information regarding migration patterns and some statistic’s relating to this on the Government of Jersey’s website.
As you can see from the chart above, from 1981 to 2011 the amount of Jersey residents who’s place of birth was Portugal/Madeira has steadily increased.In this table, is the previous information expressed in terms of percentages. We can clearly see that over the last 3 decades the amount of Portuguese people in Jersey has increased by 20%.
