conTEXT issue 2

A student-led journal on contemporary practice and critical questions in art and design.

2019 / issue 2

Welcome to the second issue of conTEXT, Bristol School of Art’s student-led journal examining critical questions in art and design. What a year it has been for the conTEXT team! After the successful launch of the journal at the Colston Hall in February 2018, the editorial team were invited to discuss the project at the Association of Colleges’ annual conference in Birmingham. Lee Enever, Will Bertram and Magda Nowak presented conTEXT as a case study that combines theory and practice in art and design. They were the only student presenters in a panel of established academics. Since then, we have had a re-print of issue 1 and started work on issue 2. This has been a truly collaborative project with HE students at Bristol School of Art. In December, the editorial team ran a peer review panel, where students presented and submitted work for consideration. A dedicated team, led

by Magda Nowak, photographed work and provided text edits, before compiling the submissions into the format we have today. This project has been generously supported by Bristol School of Art students, staff and alumni.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we have enjoyed working on it.

Lydia Wooldridge

Will Bertram & Lee Enever codesigned Everything is Lost (2019) for the front cover of conTEXT issue 2. Their design is inspired by the collaborative virtual painting created at the launch of conTEXT in 2018. Everything is Lost explores the potential of working in virtual reality and the design combines found imagery alongside isolated virtual elements and photography from the launch event. Everything is Lost playfully combines modern and traditional techniques (virtual reality painting and collage) to represent the future trajectory of art alongside its dependence on art history.

Will Bertram and Lee Enever

EDITORIAL

Editorial Director Artistic Director Artistic Director Creative Assistant Photographer Project Lead

Magda Nowak Lee Enever Will Bertram Charlotte West Ronja Thielmann Lydia Wooldridge

magdalenanowak1992@gmail.com lee.enever@hotmaill.co.uk will.bertram@yahoo.co.uk char.e.west@gmail.com info@ronjathielmann.com lydiawooldridge@gmail.com

04 06 08 10 14 16 17 21 22 25 26 30 32 35 38 Postmodern identity in the form of the knitted balaclava

Drawing: What use is it to me? A review of drawing as thinking

Catherine de Carlo: Coal House (2019)

How people can reconnect with the earth by building their own shelter

Ming Green: Identity and mental health

Gaby Solly: Held Breath (2019)

How is Brexit influencing contemporary fashion?

Mags Murphy: Identity and why it doesn’t exist

Isolation, authority and meaning in the white cube and religious spaces

Lynette Evans: Monuments of the Domestic (2018)

How does Jessa Fairbrother’s work challenge expectations of women?

Tracy Cockle: A Journey (2018)

Is Photo editing shaping perceptions of reality?

Sam Beasor: Home-brewed identity

Naomi Meredith, Ricardo Pireira and Sarah Jose: Museum Fatigue

Balaclava

Balaclava

I chose to represent my understanding of my identity in the form of a knitted balaclava. Knit provides a vehicle for representing the concept of identity fabrication in the postmodern sense.

This emphasises how your identity is not innate or fixed, but changeable and shapeable. The knitting itself contains flaws and imperfections, which I see as reflecting this instability and lack of structural integrity. They are indicative of the vulnerability of the object. I chose to embellish the plain base with different types of threads and wools to represent how we adopt and incorporate elements in relation to our experiences. I wanted my representation to be wearable, something to be tried on, to reflect the performative aspect of identity.

We use the identities we construct as ways of interacting with and negotiating the world around us. Wearing something like a balaclava provides a feeling of safety perhaps analogous to being swaddled as a baby or tucked in as a child before we start struggling with ideas of finding a place for ourselves in society. I used soft wool, to incorporate an element of comfort and security provided by an apparent sense of identity. I chose to make a balaclava because it represented both this idea of comfort and security, worn to protect oneself from the cold, but also the sense of a mask or disguise. For me this represents the way in which the identity we externalize and perform is in some part about controlling how we are perceived and the capacity to distract from what we want to be hidden.

Charlotte West

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Balaclava

DRAWING What use is it to me?

Gaby Solly

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DRAWING What use it is to me?

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lmost any treatise on the practice of drawing emphasises it as the ubiquitous, universal method of representation. However, it is one that many people lose confidence in as they leave childhood behind. This is understandable when the widely assumed concept of what ‘good drawing’ is still hinges on notions of accurate, figurative representation (in the Western world, at least).

This narrow perception is one that I am shaking off decades later and, in so doing, I am better able to recognise the relevance of drawing to my own fine-art practice.

In an ‘expanded field’, drawing can encompass photography and collage, and leaps from two dimensions into sculpture, performance and even through time, as artists trace passing moments with durational pieces such as Gosia Wlodarczak’s Frost Drawings (2012). The artist spent 18 days drawing on the front windows from within Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art: creating a responsive piece between the inside and outside, being both observer and observed, recording what passed by and incorporating the corresponding reaction to her ‘performance’ into her drawing.

What ties together vastly different drawing approaches, media and styles is the connection for a viewer with the artists themselves, and their creative process. As MOMA curator Christian Rattemeyer, explains “We value [drawings…] for their intimacy and directness: In drawings we seek truth, not power” (Rattemeyer, 2013).

Discovering this expanded field of drawing through the words and work of artists such as Cornelia Parker and Richard Tuttle (both of whom excel in elevating the ordinary) has allowed me to view my own practice more clearly, and to better consider the range of expressive drawing that I create ‘off the page’ - even to the extent of gesture and vocalisation. I am intrigued by the dialogue that artists such as Richard Serra and Rachel Whiteread create between their drawings and sculptures, each one informing the other. Furthermore, I am ‘drawn’ to Catherine de Zegher’s description of “the tactile sensibility” in Eva Hesse’s drawing

practice (de Zegher, 2009). I feel a special affinity for this aspect of her work, especially how she communicates space, process, materiality and connectivity. I am curious about most things, finding poetry in the prosaic. So, as well as taking photos to record my making process. I also instinctively photograph the world around me.This is my version of ‘drawing’.

Without a camera I would write or sketch some of what I witness, though certainly not so easily, nor so prolifically.

Drawing is a tool for recording, explaining and developing ideas; and I include writing within this framework, as I jot down thoughts, compose metaphors and emphasise and link words with over-written lines to gain clarity and to ‘draw’ connection.

As Joseph Bueys muses “[…]drawing is really nothing other than planning: one embodies, represents, gives experiential form to something or a spatial relationship or just relationships of size” (Harlan, 2007). In this regard my drawing work might consist of annotated sketches and photographs, or maquettes in paper or clay, made to envisage an idea before committing to a final piece.

I increasingly realise how much drawing occurs inside my head.

Putting such ideas onto paper can feel like a big commitment, like putting a brake on, and often I seem unable to demonstrate my thoughts adequately in this way. Because of this, I lose many of my visions because they are either forgotten or just never leave my head to develop further. I could learn much from Rachel Whiteread who remarks that “the process of drawing is like writing a diary […] My drawings are very much part of my thinking process […] I use them as a way of worrying through a particular aspect of something” (Whiteread quoted by Curiger, 2010).

Whiteread accumulates objects on her daily travels and also refers to these collections as drawings. I, too, comb beaches and streets and it is through this compulsion that I am starting to recognise that what touches me particularly are traces of existence, the marks left on the world by both the living and the inanimate. These are, arguably, the most unformulated drawings of all.

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Raised

Coal House

ariety dy a v embo l issues. to y it a il c b ti their a d socio-poli n ls and ateria nmental a Carlo m f o o re vir ne de e natu cluding en atheri th C s e xamin erns in ctice e lobal conc My pra of g

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Balaclava

In the 21st century, can shelter reconnect us with the soil?

Kerry Lewis

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raditionally, as a culture we have looked at somebody who grows food and believed they are a poor labourer, uneducated and have no choice. We believe if you are educated you sit at a computer, work in a bank or in an office.

We have put value on these positions that are becoming more and more detached from the natural world, roles that are almost designed to keep us away from nature. Even the square shape of an office that is imposed upon us, is a shape never found in nature.

Of course, times are changing, land is becoming more expensive, it is now popular among the middle classes to buy organic fruit and veg, or better still grow your own. But as a society, in our day to day lives we are detached from the earth. That is why I ask, in modern society how do we rekindle our relationship with the soil?

In some ways we are more interconnected across the globe than ever before. Over the last half century globalisation has sped up massively, meaning that now the biggest companies are no longer national firms but multinational corporations. We can communicate with humans all over the planet, purchase products that never used to be available to us and influence other countries’ economies. But what effect does all this constant ‘buying in’ have on us humans? We are living in a time of anthropocentricity.

Humans have come to believe we are above nature and even

separate from it. As Satish Kumar puts it, ‘Nature is out there: the forests, the rivers, the birds […] and we humans are here, enclosed in our homes, apartments, offices, cars, trains…’ (Kumar 2013). There are humans that consider it our right to go out and conquer nature, through science and technology. We have harnessed natural resources and developed industrial farming, but along the way we have poisoned our rivers, made our soil infertile and clocked up a lot of air miles. This is all driven by the concept that the chief purpose of nature is to fuel the economy.

In Latin, ‘humus’ means soil. The words humility, human and hummus all come from the same source. As Kumar beautifully puts it, ‘When humans lose contact with the soil, they are no longer humans’ (Kumar 2013). Soil contains all the minerals needed to sustain life, we are both dependent and related to soil. However, our disconnect from the soil is only a part of a bigger web of estrangement humans are facing. Our food is being shipped in from all over the world. The typical American prepared meal contains, on average, ingredients from at least five countries outside the United States (NRDC 2007). Meat is being manipulated and processed into such products that some people are beginning to no longer associate what they are eating with a living creature. In addition to disconnecting us from nature

and the soil, modern life is disconnecting us from each other.

People are moving around more, and no longer living in close communities, as a consequence it is having an impact on our health. Researchers from Brigham Young University in the US, carried out a survey in 2015, which showed evidence that people who feel, or are, socially isolated or live alone are at about a 30% higher risk of early death (NHS Choices 2015).

Shelter, one of our most basic needs, protects us from the elements and keeps us safe and warm. However, our culture now ‘outsources’ this most basic human skill. The average modern man or woman now believes they are incapable of building their own place of safety. We have come to accept that only highly trained, humans can participate in this craft, without which we are vulnerable. Our estrangement from the natural world means that we no longer directly relate it to a source of our most basic needs. Hence why we have been able to exploit and abuse it to such a degree. The humblest of materials, earth, is of interest to all members of society.

As the book, ‘Building with cob’, so eloquently puts it, ‘[…]the academic can analyse it, the scientist and engineer can test it, the poet can lyricise it, and the child, woman and man can hold it in their hands to build their home together’ (Weismann & Bryce, 2006). Throughout our education beginning as a child, we have come to think that soil simply means dirt and that dirt means dirty. But dirt is not dirty; it is the source of life. There is a solution: Imagine an efficient building material that can be sourced from the site, needs only the addition of straw, water, perhaps aggregate and, as a bonus is inexpensive. This is cob. A building material which, although now gaining popularity in the sustainable movement, has been used for centuries.

People searching for an environmentally friendly alternative to modern building materials that use vast quantities of fossil fuels in their manufacturing, extraction and transportation, need just to look under their feet.

30% of the world’s population live in homes made of earth.

However, these are now mainly indigenous people who live in pre-industrial societies. These buildings respond intimately to

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the local site on which they are built, and are an expression of the community and the needs of the inhabitants. If the idea of earth buildings in the UK seems primitive and a bit obscure, you need not look further than the humble labourer’s cottage. These were always built with materials specific to the region, stone and mud from the fields and grasses from the local area for the thatched roof. These could be titled Britain’s indigenous vernacular buildings. The term ‘cob’ is widely spread across England, with variants for different areas, including; ‘clat and clay’ in Lancashire, ‘Clob’ in Berkshire and ‘Wichert’ in Hampshire. A defining feature of a cob wall is that it is one solid mass with no joins, giving it stability against seismic activity. As of 2006, it was estimated there were half a million inhabited earth buildings in the UK, consequently they are not as uncommon as it would initially seem.

Building with cob embraces a mindful and holistic approach to construction. Certainly, the process uses predominately natural materials, but it also encourages the owner-built house and a simple low-tech approach. As Tim Ingold discusses in his article ‘The Textility of Making’, within western thought, design and form have become something imposed on matter, led by an end result. He asks the reader to: ‘Consider splitting timber with an axe. The practised woodsman brings down the axe so that its blade enters the grain and follows a line already incorporated into the timber through its previous history of growth when it was part of a living tree’ (Ingold, 2009).

Here he is describing how the craftsman must surrender to the qualities of the wood. Cob is the same, it is a material

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that lends itself to organic forms, and curved edges but can also have irregularities. This is a stark contrast to the perfect surfaces of industrial buildings that can cause stress to our internal biology. Building with cob can be very therapeutic whilst stimulating the senses, as touching earth with our bare hands is an element in our modern lives many are far removed from. To have handled and known every piece of a building, and to understand how all these pieces work together, is about getting back in touch not only with the soil but with our ability to provide for ourselves (Weismann, 2006).

As previously mentioned, not only are we estranged from nature, we are also becoming increasingly disconnected from each other. The very nature of building with cob lends itself to teamwork and community building. Building any structure is very physically demanding, but due to cob not needing any specialist tools or machinery it is especially physical and hands on.

Many communities striving for a more sustainable way of living have adopted this material, for example, ‘Lammas’ in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. The Lammas project is centred in the eco village of Tir Y Gafel and is pioneering an alternative model for living on the land. It has been designed using a method that could be replicated across Wales, combining the traditional smallholding with the latest innovations in environmental design, green technology and permaculture (Lammas Website). Lammas defines what it means to be low impact as, ‘homes are built from locally sourced natural and re-used materials and are low in carbon output, thus creating a lifestyle that is environmentally sustainable’, (Lammas Website). In 2006, Policy 52 was passed in

Balaclava

Pembrokeshire, an amendment to planning regulations allowing for low-impact, self-build developments (Positive News 2010). Alongside this, Wales in general is promoting low impact building, and was supportive with the aims of the Lammas project, enabling them to apply for planning permission (Dawn Elizabeth Sheridan, 2014). Buildings were to have to have a zero carbon footprint in construction and use (Lammas website). In 2014 the residents ‘[…]were considered to have substantially met their functional needs from their land-based livelihoods by producing 75% of the functional needs from the land’ (Lammas 2015). All of the nine families inhabiting the land have designed and built the primarily cob houses, workshops and barns collectively with help from each other and volunteers. This sustainable way of living means hard work growing food, raising livestock etc., but in return residents are united, with each other, their food and of course the soil. The inhabitant’s central motivation to make the move to Lammas was a desire for a holistic lifestyle. They wanted to connect with likeminded people, and share a desire to connect with the land, be that practically or spiritually. Participants of the project framed mainstream society and housing as not allowing connection to the land, and alienating them from their surroundings (Clark, 2017). Members see building their own homes from local and sustainable materials as a way of embedding themselves further into their environment (Clark, 2017).

Cob is already being used as an alternative to the repetition without variation, prefab and conventional construction practices. These organic cob forms have a range of applications, including schools and community centers. Cob, being a low impact construction material, is by

its very nature low cost. In fact, the dwellings within Lammas have all cost between £5,000 and £14,000 (Lammas Website). The surge in demand for low cost housing since early 2014, has led not only to building materials such as bricks running out, but also a shortage of construction workers (De Castella, 2015). Low impact developments using the local abundant materials, may often be granted where conventional development is not permitted. By starting with small projects such as a cob oven, a garden shed, or even attending a cob building course like those run at Lammas, we can begin to change our attitudes towards the soil. A material that is so rich, yet we regard so poorly.

Building with cob is just one way we can re-engage with the soil. This constructive practice also satisfies our primal instinct to be tactile and make things. Creating human shelter, with human hands from local soil, could be the antidote to our ‘outsourcing’, ‘buying-in’ society.

Humans are dynamic, and we live in a very different way to how we did 100 years ago. Technology is moving fast, and we have become accustomed to our little luxuries in our industrial housing. To consider cob building as going back in time to a romanticized past would be to altogether miss the point. It is about respecting the earth, the soil and adapting and improving practices to enhance our quality of life. In summary, co-founder of Lammas, Paul Wimbush says, ‘for me personally, there’s nothing more rewarding than reforming the intrinsic link between us and the natural world that supports us” (Positive News, 2010). I believe this perfectly defines what it is to be interconnected with the earth, and how advantageous building with it can be to our relationship with the soil.

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Balaclava

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Identity

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piece with personal views of my own identity was the drive for this sculpture. It is created from over 200m of wire, 0.5kg of charcoal and some playdough. As a whole, the piece is cold, fragile and falling to bits posed in a ‘fed up’ state common to its creator. I believe that this sculpture is a direct representation of my mental health. The piece shows that there is no way that I or anyone else would be able to make another sculpture exactly the same. Like humans, the sculpture is unique and there are no two people made the same, not even identical twins.

The wire represents both strength and tangibility which portrays my body, creating structure and stability to my statue, but as we are all aware, our bodies are constantly changing and adapting. I created it so that the wire was not fully encasing the charcoal, allowing for some pieces to fall out of the structure. This is to represent problems which we try keeping bottled up but yet they still manage to surface.

Charcoal was used due to its cold and dark appearance but if treated in the right way, it will burn to produce heat and

light energy which is completely different from its original form. I like this analogy as it contradicts itself in this state change.

Starting from a dark and cold place to then producing this bright, warm light really speaks volumes to me as it gives me hope that someday there is potential for a brighter future. The brain is encased in a silver wire to show that there is a real awareness of the potential that my brain holds. I tried to make a clear difference between the materials used so that it would represent the disconnection I feel between my body and my mind. I wanted to burn the sculpture to see the effect of having the right situation to ignite the charcoal to relieve space in my life for more positive things. I believe that it is a personal experiment to see whether taking all the dark matter from my life away will hopefully reveal the potential underneath the green wire or it will just fall apart… Either way it still represents the uncertainty of the future for someone with mental health issues.

I feel that I am mentally and intellectually enlightened, with a maturity that comes from surviving lots of life

experiences. This has meant that I have had to deal with a lot of things that most people will not have experienced or will only encounter during later life e.g. the death of your friends. I believe that my heart is post-modern with its wild and impulsive ways, staying contained yet dropping to land on my sleeve, open and vulnerable to the wider world. The heart is supposed to look beaten and trampled to represent my love life, yet it is still intact and somewhat working well.

In line with Stuart Hall’s concept of identity, I believe I am a mix of all three: my brain is contained and so enlightened; my heart is uncontained, so post-modern; and my body is contained but with room for movement and so is sociological.

Having movement in our lives will shape our identity and the people we continue to develop into. There is no quick fix to mental health and quite often there are things which we could let go of but instead keep it inside, after all, we are just human.

Ming Green

Held Breath Gaby Solly

Held Breath is a mixed-media, installation piece that explores the tension between the need to respect, respond to and release the individual pupil within a primary school classroom. It also considers the desire and demand for, and of, those individuals to conform within the class, both as an environment and as a community.

The idea for Held Breath came out of an investigation into artists who were particularly interested in the way clay can materially embody both the process of making and the person shaping it, actually and metaphorically.

Giuseppe Penone’s 1978 Breath pieces lead me to wonder about containing the breath of an individual and what that might say about the curtailment of personal freedom. Layered onto this is my own continued process of selfknowledge and ‘actualisation’, as an artist, and personal experiences of primary school as pupil, parent and teacher.

Breath has become my metaphorical focus: The fundamental component of life, a deeply personal experience and something that takes up intimate space inside and outside of an individual’s body. However, it is shared within a group, as each inhales and exhales the air about them.

Held Breath comprises of 30 slip-cast porcelain cubes, of similar but different sizes, based on the individual measured breath capacity of each pupil in a year six class at Sefton Park Primary School in North Bristol. In addition, there is an accompanying sound piece of the recorded breathing of the class as a group, and each child separately, to play in a loop.

With staff at Bristol School of Art, I have developed a novel way to slip-cast different sized porcelain cubes from just one two-piece plaster mould.

As well as needing to consider the variable cast-sizes I have also been investigating how to constrain the mould size in order to limit its weight and the amount of slip used in each cast. This has been done by altering the shape of the mould using metal walls.

I am aware that the slipcast cubes will not be precise; due to the unpredictability of both materials and process. It is highly likely that the porcelain forms will distort, somewhat. But, I anticipate that this possible variance in result, will add to the integrity of Held Breath, underlining the unique nature of each individual.

Balaclava

How is Brexit influencing contemporary fashion?

Ronja Thielmann

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he sociologist and religious theorist Peter Berger once said: “Society is a product of man. Yet it may also be stated that man is a product of society” (Berger, 1990, p.3). To be able to answer how Brexit is influencing contemporary fashion I will first look at identity. I will examine personal, national, global and gender identity referring to Peter Berger and other social theorists.

Further, I will look at Brexit and global political shifts. I will analyse a collection from the contemporary fashion designer Ana Carolina and consider her use of decorative techniques to explore contemporary politics and national identity.

When thinking about personal identity and what makes me who I am, what Berger said above certainly rings true. A person’s identity is influenced throughout their life, this you can see when considering the people who surround you – society. Things change, you get to know more people and places, and as your knowledge expands your identity shifts.

Berger also said, “in a curious way man is ‘out of balance’ with himself” due to being ‘incomplete’ at birth (Berger, 1990, p.5).

Humankind did not stop at boundaries, but went far beyond to meet new people, to learn, to see other countries, cultures, and to expand knowledge. Human beings will always have a drive to ‘complete’ themselves. A clear example of this can be seen in colonialism and European expansionism, when mankind went to great risks to search for and colonise the ‘unknown’. Global trade is not a recent phenomenon but has been part of society for thousands of years. This opened up endless possibilities and a way of life, which we, in the West, have grown accustomed to. Our drive to ‘complete’ ourselves compels us to connect and to learn which directly enriches our personal identity.

When talking about national identity I want to concentrate on British identity. Looking at fashion, traditional British clothing is often considered country clothing - such as tweed fabrics, green wax jackets and caps

- a “nostalgic relationship to rural, peasant, ethnic attire”, which developed alongside the changes, and social angst caused by industrialisation and urbanisation (Kaiser, 2012, p. 53).

When defining national identity one might have difficulty not mentioning culture. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall said when two people “interpret the world in roughly the same ways and can express themselves, their thoughts and feelings about the world, in ways which will be understood by each other”, then they belong to the same culture (Hall, Evans and Nixon, 2013, p. xix). However, this is a transnational perspective. I can tell from first hand and I believe many of you reading this will agree, a bond between people can happen across national boundaries. So, where does this leave national identity in contemporary society? In other definitions, culture is closely linked to society and as I mentioned above society is shaped by us, all of us – residents, visitors, immigrants.

So what is British identity? This is a

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FASH whom. There is a shift happening in the society, a small but certain shift towards a more open and accepting society. The fashion industry is gradually considering more gender fluid approaches to reflect these changes in society.

Ana Carolina: Escape (2017) Carolina is a contemporary fashion designer who studied in Copenhagen, New York and London, where she created her BA collection, Escape. the collection is about an escape from turbulent times in the face of Trump and Brexit, and she also touches on other contemporary issues such as gender identity (ArtsThread, 2018). I will initially analyse her collection in relation to gender, then discuss current global political issues in relation to her work.

To present her collection she created a showreel in which male as well as female models exhibit the same garments. The jackets and tops are straight cut without any shape and, therefore, can be unisex. However, these garments are worn with skirts, modelled by both genders. Here Carolina blurs the lines of gender classification and challenges out-dated societal perceptions of binary gender distinctions.

Carolina gave the collection the name Escape, as it symbolises a departure from turbulent times including Trump and Brexit (ArtsThread, 2018). The global shift to the right, throws a spotlight on what the public resent: The establishment and the elite, the perceived loss of sovereignty and control, and capitalist globalisation. Carolina uses symbols and graphics in her collection that are familiar to most of us. The symbols act as a universal global language, brought to us though globalisation and consumerism. Hall explained that semiotics (the study of signs) act as “vehicles of meaning in culture” (Hall, Evans and Nixon, 2013, p. xxii). Carolina’s graphics on the garments include a box of chips, Wi-Fi symbol and charging cables. These are familiar to many of us and represent the materialist, capitalist societies in which we live. Moreover, McDonalds and Apple are both companies which represent the essence of globalisation and capitalism. Whilst

question recently made prominent in UK politics. Brexit has shaken the nation and is raising questions about national identity. Recently there has been a global shift towards looking inwards and right-wing leaning governments are on the rise. With particular reference to Europe is this a backlash against globalisation and the free trade that comes with free movement of people? The ex banker, politician and priest, Stephen Green said this is “too simple” for Britain (Green, 2017, p.11). The Brexit vote, unlike the Trump vote, was not antitrade, anti-establishment, and unlike the Italian rebellion, it was not to stop a radical overhaul of an inefficient state, it was closer aligned with the rise of the AfD (Alternative fur Deutschland, the far right German political party) in Germany. Both initiatives seek to take control of their borders and to keep Brussels out of their affairs (Green, 2017).

‘Sovereignty’ is being overly repeated by the leave campaign, with an imperialistic undertone it emphasises that British people living abroad are called ‘expats’ and not immigrants. Whereas any foreign national living in the UK is considered an immigrant.

However, Britain sees a place for itself in the world. As globalisation appears to be an unstoppable phenomenon regardless of recent backlash, we ask ourselves, what does global identity really look like?

Like individuals, nations have a drive to communicate, to learn and develop. Could global identity be the sum of all personal, national and transnational identities? If we strip away boarders, nationalities, language, religions and prejudice, would we still have the same morals? Is it not true, being human connects us and a smile is understood in every corner of the world?

Returning to consider personal identity, there is another aspect that many of us are struggling with: gender identity. The sex assigned to us at birth is not always the way we want to live. Society has for a long time dictated behaviours and what clothing can be worn by

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HION

much of the western world begins to resent what these symbols stand for, we find ourselves in a situation where we are reliant on them. Further motifs show symbols from every-day life: a door stop, a spray bottle and a woman in need of a pee. But what gave the collection its name are the graphics depicting travel, such as tickets, airplanes, flip-flops and a customs and immigration sign. By repeating the graphics over and over Carolina also suggests an escape from the very elements she depicts: escaping consumerism and a capitalist society. Amongst other symbols you can find a whistle, which supports the previously mentioned unrest and resentment in people nowadays. A symbol of a whistle connects to protests, people taking to the street with anger towards politics or social issues. The graphic of a flower reminds of the Tudor rose which is constructed of a white and red rose, which is the emblem of England.

The combined colours red and white is a national symbol for English culture. The garment that depicts the repeated wording “citizen of the world” reminds us of global identity and when we strip off any national boundaries we are not divided into citizens and immigrants; we are humans – citizens of the world.

Carolina has used different textile techniques in her collection including hand embroidery, screenprinting, and laser cutting. The use of traditional screenprinting and hand embroidery aligns with the urge to save heritage traditions, as they are considered bastions of national culture. Alongside traditional screenprinting Carolina also uses modern techniques such as laser cutting and digital printing. These techniques stand clearly aligned with the modern and digital age we live in. They

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also act as a visceral metaphor for ‘cutting’ the UK from the EU in March 2019. Like the Brexit vote, where the voter was too removed (and uninformed), the designer is removed from the physical activity of cutting when using a laser cutter.

The use of colour in the collection is also striking. It recalls the colours used for national flags. Carolina uses white, black and red repeatedly to suggest the motif of the flag and national identity. She uses bold block colours, never more than three or four in one garment.

A flag is probably the most widely used symbol in relation to national identity and often also personal identity.

Carolina addresses many complex issues simultaneously and uses different symbols, and textile techniques in Escape. Her collection is layered with explicit and implicit signifiers of consumerism and globalisation. I believe social trends and political shifts can influence people’s mood, their viewpoint, therefore their identity and socio-political issues. Artists and designers like Carolina produce objects that express their identity. As Berger suggests, humans are ‘unfinished and incomplete’ - we have a constant drive for new things, inspiration, learning and teaching (Berger, 1990). We are never content with what we have, so we search beyond for the newest iPhone, the latest fashion - we want everything faster, smarter, better. This does not exclude culture and does not disregard traditions. But as our personal identity is constantly shifting, so is the world and we need to keep pace with it - if only to stay content for a little while.

Identity

Isolation, authority and meaning in the white cube and religious spaces.

Charlotte West

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imilarities between spaces of religious worship and art galleries reach beyond the architectural commonalties, to the deeper power these spaces possess, and the meaning they provide. In looking at spaces of art and religion, we will consider three primary points of comparison. Firstly, how architectural elements allow for isolation and the creation of an inside/outside binary. This will then allow us to look at how art galleries and religious spaces attain and deploy authority through their physical presences. Finally, we will examine the ways both institutions provide value and meaning to those who subscribe to them. Strong convergences across all three areas demonstrates that the similarities extend past, yet owe in part to, their physical space. This article focuses on white cube galleries, and Western Christian spaces of worship, using Bristol’s Spike Island gallery and Bristol Cathedral as spaces for analysis.

The architecture of both Spike Island and Bristol Cathedral creates isolated environments.

Spike fits closely with O’Doherty’s description of the white cube gallery: ‘The outside world must not come in, so windows are usually sealed off. Walls are painted white.

The ceiling becomes the source of light […]The art is free […] “to take on its own life”’ (O’Doherty 1986, p. 15).

Similarly, within the cathedral, the primary source of light is from high windows. The outside world is obscured by stained glass - visual depictions of the stories that bind the community that is constructed within the space. The isolation of the gallery “gives the space a presence possessed by other spaces where conventions are preserved through the repetition of a closed system of values” (O’Doherty 1986, p.14). This is seen to include “[s]ome of the sanctity of the church” (O’Doherty 1986, p.14), both are beautiful spaces, absent of external cues.

The physical isolation of both spaces creates the impression that they are timeless. In religious spaces, this sense of endurance and stability is important in the creation of a “space where access to higher metaphysical realms is made to seem available” (McEvilley 1986, p. 8). The art gallery, similarly isolated, becomes a sealed space perceived to possess a potential for transcendence. The white cube is said to have been institutionalized by MoMA (Cain 2017), but pioneered by James Whistler in 1883 (Fox 2012).

w

Kerry Lewis

e t i h w Whistler’s exhibition of monochromatic works displayed sparsely around a blank white gallery was intended to alienate the Victorian working classes. For Fox (ibid.) then, “[w]hite had become the cold and exclusive colour of the artistic elite”.

This aligns with O’Doherty, who argues that “[t]he white wall’s apparent neutrality is an illusion. It stands for a community with common ideas and assumptions.”

(O’Doherty 1986, p. 79) The origins of the white cube gallery, therefore, lie in the separation of the minority who ‘understood’, the insiders, and the outsiders who didn’t.

The cathedral and the white cube then, are both environments of physical isolation, which in turn, allows for the creation of

groups defined in part by opposition to the outside.

Now we will return to identity formation, but first we will look at the authority within both spaces. O’Doherty speaks of how when outside of the isolated bubble of the white cube gallery “art can lapse into secular status. Conversely, things become art in a space where powerful ideas about art focus on them.” (O’Doherty 1986, p. 14) This phenomenon, exemplified strikingly in the work of Duchamp, is also evident at Benoît Maire’s ‘Indexed Waste’ (2018) at Spike Island. A mixed-media piece comprised of waste collected from the artist’s studio, is displayed in the white cube gallery. The objects become a piece

of art, undergoing a transformation in content, status, and value, they become authorised by their context.

Just as the gallery space is imbued with this authority, so too is the religious space of Bristol Cathedral. Under the towering arches and ornate rib-vaulted ceilings the viewer is presented with a closed value system. The narratives and values of the group are physically reaffirmed in ornate carvings and stained glass windows. The objects, rituals, and traditions involved in worship, the external practice of religion within this isolated space, make religion feel eternal, tangible and true. The space is a physical testament to the reinforcing power and authority of the institution.

Both religious space and the art gallery possess the capacity to impact identity. McEvilley argues that “[t]he essentially religious nature of the white cube is most forcefully expressed by what it does to the humanness of anyone who enters it and cooperates with its premises.” (Mc Evilley 1986, p. 10). That is to say “[i]n classical modernist galleries, as in churches, one does not speak in a normal voice” or exhibit much of our humanity (ibid.). We surrender a part of ourselves to comply with the codes and values of the institution, however this is not necessarily negative. There is release in this, and most groups require some form of compliance from its members. O’Doherty argues that in the white cube gallery, the stripping of our humanity to the ‘spectator’ (the reduced version of ourselves) and the ‘eye’ (capable only of relating to visual forms) serves to “stabilize our missing sense of ourselves. acknowledge that our identity is itself a fiction, and they give us the illusion we are present through a doubleedged self-consciousness.” (ODoherty 1986, p. 55) If this is believed then the gallery aids individual identity formation, albeit in a postmodern

sense. The separation of ‘self’ from ‘other’ can have disastrously divisive consequences, as proven by the history of religious conflict. Social groups are however inevitable in some form or another, as the individual searches for something bigger than themselves in which to invest faith. Both art and religion offer this security and the sense of identity that comes with belonging to a larger ‘self’.

To conclude, we have seen how both the white cube gallery and the cathedral space, through isolating themselves from the outside world, attain authority, and a capacity to aid in identity formation and provide meaning to the individual within the group. Although the architecture of the elaborately ornate Bristol Cathedral and former industrial white space of Spike Island may not be obviously aligned, the way that their architecture shapes their influence and capacity is similar. Beyond the vastness of both, the more significant tie lies in their capacity to provide a structure in which individuals can surrender a part of themselves, in the hope of finding value and meaning.

Monuments of the domestic

Lynette Evans

With a fascination in human behaviour and habits, this work by Lynette Evans explores the home in search of the universal monuments to the domestic. These are scenes that can be echoed in any home but are often hidden. They are private monuments to the struggles of chaos and order and simultaneously convey a sense of shame, tragedy and humour.

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Jessica Thomas

How does Jessa Fairbrother’s work challenge expectations of women?

G

ender roles are patterns in society that relate to a specific gender. The repetition of these roles has a permanent impact on society and forms our ideals about men and women. Men were considered responsible for taking care of the family financially, by being the breadwinners. After 1946, they were the sole providers as women stayed at home, returning to life as a domestic housewife. The sole focus for women was to provide a family and to make their home presentable, to fulfil their husband’s needs (Anon, n.d.). They were once common practice and now these patterns have become the expectation. However, some social traits have broken down due to changes in society.

For example, it is now acceptable for women to work but it is still expected that women care for the family. These gender roles are apparent from an early age and are reinforced as children grow up. I hear comments myself in day to day life that reinforce the issue. As a shop assistant I hear conversations with parents and small children about what is a suitable toy or clothing.

The engagements often end with a common statement like “No you can’t have that dolly, it’s for girls. Why don’t you look at the cars? Boys like cars”. Social norms are limiting how we interact with each other.Both men and women face social pressures that sometimes exceed what they are comfortable with, forcing them to change their appearance, habits and lifestyles to suit what they think is desired.

Defining what it is to be a mother has become harder. Due to changes in law, society and technology, the traditional view of a mother has become more complex. There is variation in age, marital status, sexual orientation and preferred gender (Geist, 2013). Adoption means that a biological connection is no longer needed for a woman care for and raise a child. Surrogacy, as well as, adoption means that women no longer have to go through the struggles of pregnancy and childbirth.

Traditionally, motherhood involved a biological connection to a child, but changes in law means that the biological connection is no longer essential. In this article I will analyse the work of photographer Jessa Fairbrother in relation to the social expectations of women in modern society. I will look specifically at motherhood and the stereotypical role of women.

The social expectations of women developed from the assumption that women will have children. With this, it was also assumed that women should want to get married, be polite, accommodating, and nurturing towards others. Gender roles have always been apparent in civilizations and it is believed that men created these stereotypes to have control over society. This is similar to how the ideal of femininity was created to conform women into what men desired (Parker, 1984 p.4).

The piece Role Play: Woman with Cushion (2017) considers the reality of having the

option of being a mother taken away from you.

The subject in the piece, the artist herself, is performing the role of pregnancy through different stages. Recently, Fairbrother concluded that she would no longer attempt to solve her infertility after years of medical investigations and three miscarriages. This piece is her response to the natural, biological, maternal path being closed off to her. The recent death of her mother cemented her inability of becoming one herself (Fairbrother (pers.comm.) 26/1/18).

The title of the piece, Role Play: Woman with Cushion recalls her childhood. The fact that from an early age you perform the role of a mother, dressing up in your mother’s clothes, and shoes, wanting to be like her. Fairbrother is performing the role again but now with the knowledge that she will never become one (Fairbrother, 2017 a). The series of photographs perform the stages of pregnancy, but the order is jumbled and fractured like the artist’s mindset.

Reflecting her thoughts since the decision to stop IVF treatment.

Fairbrother’s piece is a patchwork of black and white photographs in series. They are stitched together creating what the artist describes as a quilt. This makes reference to a patchwork quilt that her mother made, but unfortunately lost, mirroring the loss of the artist’s fertility (Fairbrother, 2017 b). The piece is hanging which is traditional for a patchwork quilt. The quilt is a traditional household item like a framed cross stitch piece that has been made by a female family member, fitting with the social stereotype of women completing feminine orientated activities (Parker, 1984 p.2).

The photographs show the subject in her grandmother’s blue dress, another connection to her maternal family line. The blue embellishment of the ink highlights the importance of this. Blue is a colour that is often associated with depth and stability, beneficial to the mind and body which due to opinion may be something that the artist is lacking (Bourn, 2018 a). However, it may be symbolic of Fairbrother’s slow progression into restoring and rebuilding her confidence. She has described producing this piece as restorative but not therapeutic.

Death is a subject not often spoken about in detail; grief affects people differently. The visual arts (including Fairbrother’s Role Play: Woman with Cushion) communicate complex subjects to others without using words. Having a routine is a factor that has helped Fairbrother with the death of her mother. It may not be therapeutic, but the process is familiar to her, guiding her through the day.

Fairbrother has framed the piece with a painted and pinpricked gold boarder, as “there is something about piercing the paper with a needle and thread that is both violent and beautiful” (Fairbrother (pers.comm.) 26/1/18). Piercing a self-portrait with a needle is a very destructive act. It is a permanent act that damages the paper and is reflective of her fertility treatment ending, a conclusive decision impacting her life.

The use of the colour gold is often associated with wealth and prosperity (Bourn, 2018 b), but I believe in this case it signifies the courage and personal power that Fairbrother had when coming to terms with the passing of her mother.

Rozsika Parker, a feminist and psychotherapist, has published widely on femininity in relation to embroidery. The Subversive Stitch has a more general but refined outlook in terms of the roles of women with chapters referring to femininity, chastity, dominance and domesticity. She uses multiple examples to support her theoretical approach.

As Parker highlights, we unconsciously see a needle as a tool to repair damage. To use one is an act of forgiveness not to destroy or damage (Parker, 2010 p.xix). Embroidery has provided women, historically, with the strength to resist and constrain their thoughts about society.

“It has both promoted and cemented social

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submission in terms of femininity, but it has also provided psychological aids and independence to speak out” (Colette, 1966 p.205). This is clear in the work of Fairbrother.

The embellishment of photographic prints is common in Fairbrother’s practice and hand embroidery is only one of the techniques she has used in this piece. She has used gold inks to embellish the cyanotypes, photographic prints that have been exposed using digital technology. One way she uses the technique is to cover the face of the subject in some of the images of herself. After her experiences she found it hard to photograph herself and work with images of her mother. Her work is about connecting to other people by performing the body, her work is so personal that she does not have to be recognisable in the images. The gold markings that mask the face are visually similar to flames, also linking to pain and destruction.

The contrast to the monochrome images and gold ink emphasises the pain it represents.

Parker’s separate study in her book Torn In Two shows how Western culture portrays maternity in idealised and superior stereotypical terms which are the consequence of dominant cultural constructs of mothering, and are in the most part negative. Parker suggests that children in situations where their mother’s have focuses elsewhere, become increasingly dependent on both their own, and culturally generated, illusions of their mothers, rather than any real intersubjective encounter with

their mother (Parker,1995, p.299). Motherhood is idealised to be an achievement that will fulfil a woman’s life. The relationship between stereotypical femininity and maternal instinct are intertwined and hard to differentiate. But not all women want to be mothers or are medically fit to become one. So, does that make her less of a woman? Changes in cultural pressures such as motherhood are largely reliant on feminists who are breaking down the patriarchal method of standardising categories of ‘femininity’ and ‘mothering’. New categories must subvert the social tendency to fuse femininity with maternity.

Parker suggests dismantling this connection would lead to a more openminded ideal of female subjectivity as a whole, not just specific to mothers.

The creative process has a selftransformative impact on a person. The only thing that limits you is your imagination to create something that represents an emotion or experience. It can portray your internal thoughts.

Donald Winnicott’s theory of mirroring supports this. It helps us to understand the process of embroidery, as it affirms well-being in a person through its therapeutic traits as a craft (Parker, 2010 p.xx). Winnicott developed his theory from the context of a mother-child relationship which encourages the act of embroidery as a gendered role like motherhood. The embroider can see a positive reflection of herself in her work and in the reception of her work by others, similarly to the achievements and behaviour of a child

(Parker, 2010 p.xx). A mother is often judged by her child’s behaviour, like an artist is judged by their artwork. Embroidery promotes self-growth as a great amount of time, concentration and effort has been invested to create a piece that portrays the internal mindset of the artist. The appreciation from others creates a sense of pride and admiration that can be restorative to a person’s self-worth, it restores confidence in a person whilst creating something unique and beautiful.

Parker’s historical and psychoanalytical approach to the social expectations of women supports Fairbrother’s account on how she felt about making the piece. There are many layers to the piece even if you look purely at the artist processes used to create it. Maternity and fertility are themes popular in art, but Fairbrother exposes the vulnerability of the subject (herself) for viewers to see freely. She shows that it is acceptable to not fulfil the expectations set by society. Using roleplay to portray her issues of infertility, she clearly challenges social expectations of motherhood.

Furthermore, emotion is expressed, another common feminine trait, that is exposed, making the piece so effective to the viewer. Role Play: Woman with Cushion is powerful in reflecting the unspoken issue that it almost, in doing so, enforces the need or want to have children. The viewer questions and reflects the impact of their own expectations when looking at the piece.

Valeria Labruna

A journey by Tracy Cockle

IS PHOTO EDITING

SHAPING PERCEPTIONS

OF REALITY?

Magda Nowak

P

hoto editing has become so common in the digital era that we hardly notice it anymore. Retouched faces of celebrities are looking at us from billboards, magazine covers and TV screens.

If everyone has the correct number of limbs, we tend to accept an idealised image with a perfect skin tone and a lack of wrinkles. Even though photo editing is nowadays a widespread practice, and everyone is aware of it, it is ethically controversial due to the negative influence on self-esteem, especially amongst teenagers. Photo editing is also responsible for the phenomenal growth of advertising and therefore, consumerism. In this article, I will first explore the history of photo editing pre-dating the digital era. I will then explore traditional methods of retouching, which were used in the darkroom. I will analyse Richard Avedon and his practice of creating perfect images with analogue photography. Moving on I will present Annie Leibovitz’s series of adverts of Disney fairy tale scenes, as an example of an inseparable mixture of photography and photo editing.

In 2015 Adobe Photoshop celebrated its 25th anniversary and released a series of short videos to introduce and compare analogue film developing with digital editing. Konrad Eek, a commercial photographer and darkroom expert with over forty years experience, presents the history of some of the tools that are used in Adobe Photoshop today.

I believe many people, especially the young might not be familiar with the concept of creating black and white prints out of a 35mm film negative, but I am confident that they may find the process fascinating.

A darkroom is the place where the magic happens – it requires skills, years of practice and exceptional patience, but it is worth it. The effort and time put into each photograph is highly rewarding and satisfying. In his YouTube video, Eek chooses one photograph and presents a range of techniques applied to improve the image. He reveals the etymology of names and looks of Adobe Photoshop icons by presenting their roots in traditional developing and editing. One focus is on the part of a photo with a magnifying glass to make details clearer. This process is the

counterpart of a Sharpening Tool which is easily accessible in Adobe Software.

Tricks and photo manipulation were always used in photography, but it was only in early 1990s that retouching photographs became a common and well-known practice. Idols and trendsetters shape perceptions of the ideal figure and the beauty ‘canon’. This often irreversibly affects people’s self-esteem. Kerry Donovan uses a range of examples to show when photoshopped images have crossed the line of “aesthetics”, missed “ethics” and landed somewhere between “ridiculous” and “super-fake” (Donovan, 2012). He explains that “In October 2009, Ralph Lauren released an advertisement that featured model Filippa Hamilton. In this advertisement, Hamilton’s appearance had been photoshopped so dramatically that her head was now larger than her waist” (Donovan, 2012). He also describes Ann Taylor’s company case: Only 3 months after apologising for “overzealous photoshopping” on its websites and magazines, the latest campaign again showed shocking examples of editing, where models seem to be made from rubber. Over-editing images may affect depression, in particular eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. It also creates unhealthy rivalry amongst women. According to The World Young Women’s Christian Association, research proved that the unhealthy culture of competition between women exists and nearly 80% of women interviewed said that they competed with women over physical appearance (YWCA, 2008). This rivalry over unrealistic beauty standards means that women compete with younger women, and women compete with “their younger selves”, using cosmetic procedures to attain more youthful versions of themselves(YWCA, 2008).

Even though retouching seems to be a very present-day issue and has shown to have a bad influence on society and people’s selfesteem, the greatest photographers of our times have used retouching, editing, collaging to improve their images using any method for almost 150 years (Mullen, 1998). Leading photographer of the 20th century,

Richard Avedon, started his adventure with photography at the age of twelve. He joined the army forces and as he says “My job was to do identity portraits. I must have taken pictures of one hundred thousand faces before it occurred to me I was becoming a photographer” (The Richard Avedon Foundation, n.d.). After two years he left the forces to become a freelance photographer and shortly after that Harper’s Bazaar’s leading photographer. During his career, he worked for the most influential magazines in the United States. He became famous for his fashion photography and the capturing the portraits of people like Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Kate Moss, George Bush, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot and many, many more. He died in 2014 after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage during a photo shoot for The New Yorker.

The exhibition “In the American West” displayed in the Amon Carter Museum in 1985, Texas was probably the most powerful collection of the artist’s photographs. Avedon was commissioned in 1978 by the Museum to create a series of portraits of ordinary people living in the west of the country.

It took 5 years to finally narrow down the collection to 120 images. Avedon considered this work his best (American Masters Series, 1996). At the time he was commissioned he was already 60 and had health problems. Ageing and illness led him to re-evaluate his beliefs. This life-threatening heart condition did not stop him from working as he felt like he was “entering the last chapter of his life” and wanted to honour it (American Masters Series, 1996).

The project was shocking for people from the industry and they were wondering why this successful, loved by celebrities, west-coast photographer was focusing on middleclass workers. The exhibition presents a variety of people – drifters, loners and ordinary workers. All of them captured from the waist up or as facial shot. None are smiling. At first glance they seem to be environmental portraits – models are wearing overalls, they are dirty and look like someone just interrupted their work. However, they are all presented in front of a white background, which makes the whole series unified and allows us to focus on the expressions, not the background. The photographs were printed in enormous sizes (up to 3 meters in height). This made them even more dominant. The images are rough and harsh and they carry impressions of reality and authenticity. However, critics often accuse the series of exploiting the subjects and falsifying the west (American Masters Series, 1996).

As noticed by the theorist, Leslie Mullan, photography was originally a tool to document truth and objectively represent reality. However, over the years its function has changed diametrically. She describes photography as postmodern art which connects myth and truth. The artist shapes his art the way he sees it and it is his creation (Mullen, 1998).

Another controversy raised around the collection was the print instructions, undertaken by Ruedi Hofmann, Avedon’s studio manager (Avedon, 1994). People questioned copyright issues of Avedon’s work as a whole. Before the exhibition, editing was done to Avedon’s suggestions. Years after the exhibition, Laura Wilson (the photographer’s assistant for 6 years) describes it in the “Avedon at Work. In The American West” book: “He felt that the tone was heavy; they were too black and had too much contrast. In reprinting, Dick’s directions were rarely technical. He would say simply, “Make the person more gentle,” or “Give the face more tension” (Wilson, 2013). Editing was then done not only to improve the composition of the photograph but also to enhance the picture’s emotional content. This was the photographer’s deliberate act. He played and shaped reality. Honest images which appear journalistic turn out to be the artist’s vision and mirage of real life.

In the American West: Beekeeper, Richard Avedon, 1981.

In the American West: Coal Miner (with mark-up), Richard Avedon, 1981.

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Beauty and the Beast, Annie Leibovitz, 2011

In comparison to analogue techniques, I would also like to discuss the contemporary photographer, Annie Leibovitz and her campaign promoting Disney Parks. Interestingly, one of most beloved American photographers, she was much influenced by Avedon and his journalistic style of portraiture. Some of her earlier images may remind us of Avedon’s raw fashion, but she is more commonly known for beautifully composed, over-edited images of celebrities. In 2007 Leibovitz was hired by Disney Studio to capture a whole range of celebrities in Disney movie scenes. The project continued to 2014 and included 23 settings with 35 Hollywood stars involved (HuffPost, 2013). Each advertisement features a catchy slogan, for instance, “Where a moment of beauty lasts forever” for Beauty and the Beast with Jeff Bridges as the Beast and Penélope Cruz as Belle.

The series of incredibly appealing images are definitely attractive.

Even though characters are still recognisable it is hard to argue that the images look like the creation of a graphic designer rather than a photographer. Leibovitz is in a league of her own and a highly skilled photographer, however, for the final effect, she has a whole army working very hard to achieve only the best results. It is also doubtful whether celebrities are the right role models for children. Again, we can observe how the artist creates unrealistic visions of the world, where happiness is based not on talent and abilities, but appearance and success stories.

In the case of depicting fairy tales with a cast of celebrities and an enormous amount of post-editing, we cannot really expect “truth” from the images. Mullen explains “Artistic […] photography uses the archetype of beauty as a connection to truth. Beauty, however, is based on the beliefs of culture and does not necessarily define truth.

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[…] Understanding of photographic truth, like all other truths, depends on an understanding of a culture” (Mullen, 1998). She states that, ‘the photographer who chooses to represent beauty is erratically presenting the world through rose-coloured spectacles’ (Mullen, 1998).

Both Disney in its stories and Leibovitz through her photographs generate unmatched archetypes of beauty and questionable perception of success. It is obvious to notice the relationships between retouching images by artists and ordinary people. In a smart-phone era, youngsters tend to “sublime” their images to become like their idols. People want to appear more attractive and present their life as interesting, happy and fulfilling. Instagram filters and photo editing applications became easily accessible tools. So now, ordinary people, just like artists and celebrities, present their photographs in overly stylised ways.

Photo editing seems to be an inseparable factor in photography.

Even the most skilled photographers tend to improve their images. We often expect truth from photos and appealing and attractive images seems to be more desirable. The retouching process has changed through the years. This can be seen clearly in the work of Avedon and Leibovitz: They both represent different styles, however, after analysis, we notice many similarities. Photographers, like other artists, want to present their opinions and appreciations, therefore, they are shaping images to respond to their personal style, often against our perception of truth and reality. The society we live in has changed alongside progressing technology, therefore, we are now increasingly looking at distorted images of society, not only on magazine covers but also in social media. Photoshopped images are no longer the domain of just artists, but also ordinary people. It might be implicit, but photo editing has a strong influence on shaping perceptions of reality.

Balaclava

Balaclava

‘Museum Fatigue’, a study by Benjamin Ives Gillman, written in 1916, describes and illustrates how visitors go through physical processes when viewing exhibits. Gilman writes; “The pictures obtained indicate that an inordinate amount of physical effort is demanded of the ideal visitor by the present methods in which we offer most objects to his inspection” (Gillman, 1916, pp:62). We agree that this study is still relevant today.

In response, we have drawn images that accurately represent states of contemporary ‘museum fatigue’. We each created an illustration, leaving us with four drawings that we manipulated to make our own montage Museum Fatigue: 1916 - 2018.

Naomi Meredith Ricardo Pireira Sarah Jose

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Please be aware that this is an educational publication and efforts have been made to credit all individuals for their work.

Concerning students’ work: all copyright lies with the individual.

Alexandra Owen Alice Planel Alice Tillotson Andrew Banda Anna Boland Anya Beaumont Benjamin Appleby-Tyler Catherine De Carlo Charlotte West Chloe Pugsley Claudia Collins Elenya Knops Elly Morris Emily Patterson Fern Baldwin Gabrielle Solly Harri Nourse Harriet Jackman Hollie Davies Jacob D’silva James Rubery Jamie Reid-Sinclair Jan Peter Janie George Jasmine Eckett Jessica Thomas

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Jessica Turrell Jiaming Green Jo Kear Joanne Elizabeth Jose Joao de Castro Faria Paim Joe Britton Jon Chmielewski Kate Duffy Katie Alderman Katie Green Kerry Lewis Kiera Jocelyn Kiran Patel Laura Edmunds Liz Hammond Louise Franklin Lucy Bates Lydia Wooldridge Lynette Evans Magdalena Nowak Margaret Murphy Mark Samsworth Matt Benton Michelle Goddard Mike Griffin Naomi Meredith

Natasha Bisp Natasha Hook Nathan Carr Oli Timmins Oliver Kent Pam Stockwell Patricia Crystal Rachel Toon Ricardo Pereira Richard Cox Ronja Thielmann Rosie Ford Sam Beasor Sarah Alice Jose Simona Dlugosova Steve Carter Tamsin May Tim Southall Tracy Cockle Valeria Labruna Vera Boele-Keimer Vivienne Rose Wesley Owen William Robinson Zoe Bevan Zoe Shaw

HE courses at Bristol School of Art BA (hons): Applied Arts, Art History and Fine Art FdA: Fashion Textiles, Fine Art and Graphic Design

Left: Museum Fatigue 2019 with HE students and staff from Bristol School of Art Right: Call for Participants - The Snail Project

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