Over the Summer Break you are asked to create either a single piece of work, or a series of pieces, that capture and portray the essence of a group of people at a certain time, past or present - a nation or “tribe”.
Tribes
This could be anything from the Portuguese community in West London to the Goths of Camden, Sunday League football teams, a crew of graffiti writers, war veterans, professional crazy golfers, traffic wardens or lorry drivers. Look around you and seek out unusual or interesting ‘groups’ of people with odd hobbies, habits, lifestyles or jobs, highlighting their ‘collective’ personalities. Perhaps these people with great stories are right there in front of you and you didn’t see them before. Your final piece can take any shape you like - perhaps a short documentary piece or a series of short moving animated portraits. It could be a series of drawings and recorded interviews or maybe a fantastic set of photographic portraits. The trick is to have good access to your subject matter, spend good time with them and be observant, sensitive, objective and informative when you document the subject. Its not enough to just point a camera at someone - observe what they do, think about why this is interesting and think about how you will capture this.