Lucie's blog: Self Evaluation: Commission

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

When we were told our project theme was waste I went back to a previous project I did in my foundation year inspired by Tim Noble and Sue Webster where we created shapes and forms through the means of shadows of rubbish. But during the tutorial Steffi pointed out that the outcome may be aesthetically pleasing but the concept wasn't there. So after some re-evaluation and more research I came up with my new concept. It started with halls being over run by trash, and than moved on to the trashy impression and first glance appearance left by a large amount of students in halls. This than extended to Chatham and Medway itself. My concept is to show the trash through the impression of the shadows on the background, just like the impression of Medway was left on me.

I looked at the work of Noble and Webster first again, my understanding of their work was to find beauty in the shadows of repulsive object and remind us how big rubbish is. I also looked at Vic Muniz, his wasteland series, and the idea of the transformation of the object itself. As well I looked at the camera less photographers The Shadow Catchers, the group of artists manipulating paper, light and shadows directly on the paper. Their work was a good starting point, it helped me understand the line between art and nice looking pictures. Finally I was recommended Rashad Alakbarov, used shadows to form words with rubbish and other materials, this was my main inspiration for this project, it stayed close to my original idea but the concept became clearer.

I struggled with this project especially with the printing, and the outcome isn't what I expected. I focused to much on the fashion set build as it is a group project and pushed the commission behind it. But in the end I enjoyed it, it pushed me out of my comfort zone and even thought the outcome isn't as good as I could have made it I am still happy with my work.