We had our first crit of Spring semester on Friday which has definitely got me thinking and excited about the upcoming show. First an updated description of what I want to do for the show and what the critique on Friday was centered on.
My hope is to address two main points of interest. I am creating an installation using design and photography that will capture my grandparents and serve as a portrait of them and by extension my family. At the same time the work will focus on memory and the certain amount relatedness that comes with the idea of nostalgia. I want people to feel comfort and warmth, the fondness of the past.
What I want to do is to design an environment in which viewers in the gallery can feel comfortable. Memory is sensory; it can be evoked by so many different things (sights, sounds, smells, touch). While everyone’s experiences are different, there is something about the idea of remembering, of looking back, that is constant and allows for a certain level of relatedness. In my gallery space I will be setting up this scene of the living room in which viewers can interact with the details and memories that are personal and specific to me and perhaps further reflect on their own.
My group responded well to my ideas and gave me alot to think about. I am trying to iron out the way in which I will display the photographs of the house I have taken in juxtaposition with the old photos and memories I have been collecting. I think that in flipping through my own photos some of their effect is lost and they would stronger hung on a wall perhaps behind the couch.
There were mixed thoughts on a series of collages I began making as experimentation for the start of a memory book. Here I took found photographs (of people in my grandparents house) and layered them in a collage style with the corresponding picture of the room in the house. I also added text about things I remember.
So I am still unsure of exactly how the elements are coming together but I am continuing to experiment in hopes of find a way to balance all of my content.
Hey Mary, I really enjoyed your crit on Friday. Check out what I had to say here:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed seeing Mary's work in crit Friday. She's also concentrating in photography, so I've been personally familiar with her work. Her conventional series about her grandparents depicts beautiful photographs of objects within the home. The prints seem finalized and ready to hang. The collage project is more experimental in terms of photo-collage. She has branched out into two different projects on the same subject matter of memory and family. Photographing something in the present day of old objects versus collecting old photographs (of which she is not the photographer but the subject matter itself) are two different ways of talking about memory. I think a lot of the students enjoyed the collage, but I was particularly struck by the first series. I think she captures beauty of the objects that represent her grandparents without using portraiture. Moving away from this traditional representation on the subject matter of memory within the traditional mode of photography is interesting and rather challenging. The second project may appear less fulfilling for me because I feel it lacks a control of the photographer. This seems to be more of a design concept, which makes sense for Mary because she is also a graphic designer. I did take a close look at the individual photographs of the collage and found them to be heartwarming and interesting, but there is something about the overlapping of images of the past that frightens me, perhaps. I find both projects interesting-- maybe I find the collage to be intimidating in a sense. The images of Mary's personal past evoke a sense of growth and intimate connection-- I can relate to these childhood photographs. Reconstructing these in collage makes me think the memories all belong to one place, which feels uncomfortably juxtaposed all together. I admit now I am thinking that because I am writing more about her second project, maybe she could go with it!
I really love what you are trying to accomplish Mary. I can't wait to see more in the next couple of weeks! Just from the past semester I feel you are moving in the right direction with your thesis. (Plus it's gonna be pretty awesome to have your grandparents' couch to sit on! ;])
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