Week 2

Project

At this current moment, for this project, I’m trying to focus on something different each week. This week the topic is nature. It’s interesting to focus on one element during the day. While going on my daily walks back home, to work, to the shop, or school etc; I’m always trying to keep my eyes open and appreciate small things around me, that are naturally a part of my daily life. The things I like, I photograph. There are so many everyday objects that are so easy to overlook but if you stop for a second and look closely they can become an inspiration.

I’m working with a film camera for this project that I haven’t used before. It is a camera that I found at my mum’s home and it probably hasn’t been used for over 20 years. It feels special and sentimental that my mom used it when she was my age. But because of its age, I’m not sure if it works properly so I’m shooting my first roll of the film now and I’m hoping to develop it on Monday and see if it turned out okay.

Lecture part 1

After this week’s lecture, I started to think about simple things that we are surrounded by daily; at first, look seem so irrelevant but when you look closely they can begin to inspire you.
There were a lot of interesting artists in the lecture that inspired me, especially by understanding that not every art project has to be grand and spectacular, sometimes it’s good to stop and look for inspiration in something small. There is something beautiful in simplicity.

Research

Annette Messager is a French contemporary installation artist born in 1943. She had a long career and has an impressive body of artwork. She explores conventional views of women throughout society as a whole. Her early works include domestic objects such as toys, textiles and found objects. Throughout her later pieces, she started to question traditional forms of femininity and masculinity. In 2005 her installation Casino was reworded by Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale.

Daily 2016

This is an installation made from a giant safety pin, comb, key and pair of scissors etc. She made these giant hybrid forms drawn from personal memory and daily life. They are inspired by fiction and fantasy and it creates a battle between logical and illogical, making you question reality. She takes inspiration from simple daily objects and changes them into something very dramatic and theatrical. As the author says “For me, the fantastic is in daily life; real life is more extraordinary than all of the imagination.”

My vows 1988
While researching Annette Messager’s I found another installation that wasn’t in a lecture but I enjoyed it.

While researching Annette Messager’s I found another installation that wasn’t in a lecture but I enjoyed it.This installation brings together hundreds of photos each one of which presents a small part of the human body; mouth, nose and hands etc. The body parts from the photos belong to men and women of all ages. Each photograph hangs from a string and they all together form a circle on a wall. Together the photographs form a representation of humanity that is equally old and young, masculine and feminine, sensual and base. A humanity that is not categorized by physical differences.

Sophie Calle The Hotel (1983)

Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer and installation artist. Her work portrays human vulnerability and explores the topics of identity and intimacy. She is known for her tendency to follow strangers and investigate their lives.
In The Hotel series, she posed as a maid in a Venice hotel to investigate the lives of strangers through her possessions and habits. When the guests were out of the room she would photograph their belonging like opened luggage, laundry, contents of bathrooms, and even trashcans, noting details from diaries, letters, and so on. She photographed twelve rooms in the hotel and she wrote narratives to the photographs. The texts include quotes and details from the documents Calle read as well as her interpretations of the people whose privacy she invaded.

During the lecture the thing that brought my attention to this artwork, where the photographs. Something was intriguing about them, the composition and the truthfulness of them. They were random objects, suitcases and bins etc. technically something that shouldn’t be interesting to photograph but it made it look very real. Like it was spontaneous but thought through at the same time, it felt staged but real.
Knowing the concept behind this project, I liked how she wrote her narrative and interpretation of people based on their room. After all, isn’t it what most of us do, judge, interpret, and put narratives about someone by their looks. We don’t know them, and we don’t know what they have been through but it is always easier to judge. Either way, I think this project was too invasive. They didn’t know they were being watched and that their belongings were photographed. I think that she went too far with this project but the results of her work are interesting.