Evaluation

At the beginning of Unit X I was a little overwhelmed by the incredibly open brief and how we were expected to work almost completely independently. I was also slightly mystified by the group blog that we were to keep. However, as the weeks passed I started enjoying the blogging experience a lot more, instead of just keeping notes in a personal journal, it was nice to share ideas and inspirations within the group.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Unit X was the fact we were in Hotspur House rather than the TIP studio. I feel like it opened up my way of working. Hotspur is such an inspiring building in itself, with the history and the fact that working artists use the studios as well as just us students. What else was very lovely about the unit was that as well as just other textiles students working in the space, we were surrounded with some of the other disciplines within the School of Art, allowing us to absorb other people’s work that was going on around us.
Through the course of the last 8 weeks, I have found that the way I used to work has changed. Instead of being very literal and image based in my work, I’ve actually done very little drawing or photography, which is what I have mainly concentrated on in previous projects. This time I have worked with words and thoughts more intensely. I have also spoken to many people throughout this project, collecting opinions and thoughts on my subjects and work. This is an activity that I’ve never really done before. My work this time has been much less processed based; I think the fact that set workshops and classes haven’t been timetabled has had something to do with this. In previous projects I feel that I was trying to make the subject of my work fit in with either knitting or 3D construction for example, rather than letting the work develop in a more organic way like it has in Unit X. Because of this, I have enjoyed the project a lot, I like working more freely and openly.
I think the most successful aspect of the unit has been my idea development. Being part of the Imagining It sub group has been exciting and I’ve stayed much more focused as I was part of a group of people that work very similarly to me. I think that previously I’ve been a little distracted when working alongside people who are more fashion or product based, so it’s been really enlightening to work with the other Imagining It students.
Although I have improved throughout my previous projects, I feel I didn’t start off Unit X as strongly as I could have done, I was still a little slow in the beginning with my research and development work.
I hope that my final show next week will reflect the effort I have put in through Unit X and really portray how interesting, exciting and fun the project has been!

Book sampling

Some of my experimentation with booking making. I played around with folding and various textures and weights of paper.

Georgia Russell

Some amazing work that artist Georgia Russell has produced using old books:

http://silentstoryteller.typepad.com/blog/2010/08/georgia-russell.html

Books

I’d alkso like to present the text/words in a book. By putting only on word on each page this gives the word more impact. En-mass, single words can often be ignored so I hope that by decontextualising each word or phrase will give it more importance.

My Text

I want to present my audience with the words I have collected thoughout my investigation of the lower working class and chavs.
When words are presented and displayed in a block or paragraph often the individual words are ignored or not absorbed fully. I want the viewer to take in each word, I hope to challenge the negative attitudes towards chavs.

By wrapping text around a column or pillar it will invite the viewer to interact and move around the piece. In Illustrator I produced a list of key words that I’ve collected on chavs, and using the vinyl cutter these will be transformed into a transfer to apply to the pillar.

Matt Stokes

I like how artist Matt Stokes uses words and text in his work, alongside photography and other mediums. I think the large blocks of writing are interesting, the audience might not necessarily read the entire thing, but it has impact. I also like this particular exhibition space, with the mix of work on the walls and on desks and tables. This could give us some ideas for our own spaces...!
http://www.mattcstokes.com/

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is well known for using text in her work. It has given me ideas for my own work with using words and text.

Curriculum Vitae

Madeleine Theokritoff: Curriculum Vitae

DOB: 05/12/1991
Tel:
Email:
Address:

I am currently attending university where I study Textiles in Practice which I am very passionate about. My interests include film, art, fashion and music.

Education
Currently studying Textiles in Practice (BA Hons) at Manchester Metropolitan University (2011 – Present)

Qualifications
11 x GCSEs (incl. As in Maths, English, Science)
3 x A Levels (A-C in Art Textiles, Fine Art, English Lit.)
Art & Design Foundation (Pass)

Employment
Birds Derby, Ltd. (2008-11)
Working as a part time sales assistant for a local confectioners and baker taught me to work as part of a team of employees; to be punctual; and good customer service. I also handled cash, took stock and prepared fresh food.

Atlas Delicatessen, Nottingham (2010-11)
I practiced good customer service, food and drink preparation, cash handling, cleaning while working part time for a local delicatessen and espresso bar.

Skills
I feel I work well as part of a team; I am friendly, reliable, organised and punctual; and I have good customer service experience.

References
Kate Egan – Course Leader
All Saints Campus
Manchester Metropolitan University
Oxford Road,
Manchester, M15 6BH
0161 247 1324


Lisa – Manageress
Birds Derby Ltd
7 Main Road,
Radcliffe on Trent
0115 933 3030
Nottingham, NG12 2FH

Textiles??

This week I’ve been freaking out a little because up to now I’ve produced very little textiles based work. However, when I tried embroidering words into textiles it seemed pointless. I think I was doing it for the sake of being a textiles student. The embroidery brought very little extra to my work so far, the words were still there, but it was quite uninteresting to me. I have decided to concentrate on the words and meanings much more than on attempting to produce a textiles piece.

I was also considering using things that are synonymous with the Chav to embroider onto, for example trackies, hoodies and caps. I think this would be too obvious, and doesn't really convey the message I would like it to, it just seems too basic. I want people to really think about the words I am using, and hopefully they'll create a picture in their own minds.

Words and Text

As I have worked through Unit X I’ve found that my work has been much less about image and photography and I have concentrated a lot more on words and text. I’ve experimented with word placement, sizing, and typeface.

chavs in fashion

The Fashion world also appears to have become much more interested or concerned with the Chav, with sportswear/trackies/hoodies – clothing once synonymous with chavs – coming back into fashion in a very big way in recent years. I think this is because often when something becomes notorious or infamous in our culture, fashion makes it “sexy”, negativity is turned into fascination.

Clothing by Courtney MC http://courtneymc.com/

Popularization of chavs

As well as mockery and negativity towards the working class, the chav has also been popularized. Television programmes like Shameless and The Royle Family have greatly popularized this class of people. Instead of being the usual stereotype of yobs and vandals, the characters are lovable and funny.

is this The Chav?

hoodies. trackies. delinquents. underprivileged. underclass. antisocial behaviour. drug abuse. teen pregnancies. alcoholism. vandalism. spongers. slobs. violence. feral. tacky. bling. worthless. benefit scroungers. doleys. breed for greed. sub-class. unemployed. welfare state. dysfunctional. caricature of the chav. degenerates. work shy. amoral. debauched. crime ridden. criminals. plebs. proletariat. broken homes. white trash. urchins. rude. dossers. yobs. louts. the unwashed masses. uncivilised. backwards. impertinent. oppressed. poverty. poorly educated.

Demonization of the Working Class

Owen Jones’ book “Chavs: The demonization of the working class” highlights many of these views on chavs. Jones notices how it has become completely acceptable to take the piss out of the working class – “It’s sad that Woolworths is closing. Where will all the chavs buy their Christmas presents?”. Some even call the lower working class as “Sub-class”. If the same remarks were made of a minority group or a sex it would be racism or sexism, so why is it okay to be so derogative of a huge portion of the population of the country??

Michael Mayren

Mancunian photographer Michael Mayren studies everyday people and places in his work. His work on the working class, and "chavs" is of particular interest to me, as he looks at things that we would normally overlook in our daily lives.

Mayren has also worked with artist Sarah Hardacre to create photographic collages using people and places:

http://www.michaelmayren.co.uk/

Views on chavs

Growing up in Nottingham, (an area that some people describe as “rough as fuck”!), I have always been surrounded by chavs, so much so that I rarely notice the difference, and I have very little opinion on them whether positive or negative. So when talking to other people, it’s interesting to hear their mixed, controversial and mostly very negative views on chavs.

Chavs

The increase in the population of the working class has led to a new term being adopted into the English language – “Chav”. I plan to look at how the chav has been demonized, popularized and eroticised.

The Hulme Crescents

The council built huge housing complexes. In the 1970s the Hulme Crescents were built, at the time they were the largest housing project in Europe. However, they were demolished less than two decades later due to being so dysfunctional. Increased crime, vandalism and other anti-social behaviour came into the working class’ lives.

Slums

Looking at how Manchester was affected by the Industrial Revolution and how it impacted people’s lives has gotten me thinking.... The city, although striving in the industrial world was becoming a depressing place to live. Poverty was a big part of most people’s lives, many even lived in slums.

One of the biggest slums in the 19th century was Angel Meadow, measuring just over 33 acres, it was home to nearly 30 thousand residents.  "Hell upon Earth" was how author Friedrich Engels described it.

El Mac - Street Artist

Continuing with the theme of street art, I discovered LA-born grafitti artist El Mac. His detailed photorealistic work takes inspiration from Mexican and Chicano cultures

Unit X

Investigating Manchester
After a week or so of wracking my brains and thinking about what I would like my project to investigate, I became inspired by the talk we were given by John Davis from the MMU Visual Resources Centre last week. He showed us slides from the collections, and what really caught my eye were the ones taken in the 1970s that depicted the housing estates in Hulme. I am interested by how Manchester used to look several decades ago, how this city was quite a depressing place to live at the time. Manchester was a very working class, industrial town, and the housing projects reflected this. I plan to look further into the old estates, particularly in Hulme and their subsequent demolition

Hulme 1960s, areas cleared for development of housing
flickr.com/photos/mmuvisualresources

Evaluation

Although I feel that I have managed to resolve this sampling project towards the end, I think that I could have approached my research and development in a much more active way in the beginning. I don’t feel that I really “hit the ground running” and this meant that the project didn’t get off to a very productive start. I feel that I’ve continued and developed my theme of Robust and Fragile throughout, with fairly good contextual research also. I began my research with taking photos and making observational drawings, which I continued to do all the way through this unit. My strongest observational work didn’t come till later though I feel, as I delayed visiting the Museum of Science and Industry too long – the photos I took there were helpful, I wish I could have done this earlier in the unit however. 

I feel that I am strong at developing and working through my ideas, I am capable of being selective with my themes and ideas. However, I think that when it comes to resolving these ideas into samples/pieces I struggle with realising them into the physical form. I know I need to work on this in the future to reach my full potential.

I enjoyed my workshops, particularly the Knit one. My work with colour is probably the most successful part of the whole project, I developed a good colour pallet that really pulled all my samples together in the end. I struggled with the 3D construction in the second half of the unit and my work reflects this – I wish I had given more time to sampling and really exploring the potential of working on the body but I dwindled this time.

 In future I plan to better manage my time, in the past I have always been a very last-minute worker and I think this has a negative effect on the work I produce. In the next project I hope to really throw myself into my work from the very beginning by building up an inspirational body of observations, drawings, photos and notes that will really kick-start things.

Alba Prat

In the 3D construction workshop introductory slideshow my eye was particularly caught by designer Alba Prat’s work. Her use of simple shape built up into complex forms was interesting, and the slotting form in some of the details of hers reminds me of my own work with slotting. 

Slotting

Whilst looking and exploring cogs and wheels within mechanisms, I became interested in how they interlock and slot together. This led me to briefly look at PlayPlax, the child’s toy with utilises this slotting technique so that infinite shapes and structures can be created. In 3D construction I am exploring different materials outside of the textile domain. I created some of my own slotting peices, circles that fit into each other to make an almost spherical shape. Though I tried to work in plastics, due to issues of expense I decided upon utilising cardboard. Cardboard has also proved more stable than my plastic samples, which were flimsy and delicate.

Using my spherical cardboard shapes, I worked onto the mannequin, experimenting with layouts and patterns that I could create. I decided to make the cardboard shapes in many different scales, one of the main reasons for this is one of my favourite drawings of mine from this project was the one that had many shapes and sizes of cogs all fitting together. The varying scales provides a more interesting piece I feel. 

MOSI

As part of the research into my exploration of Robust vs. Fragile I visited the Museum of Science and Industry. Here I took many photographs and made observational drawings of machinery, both large and small. These helped me to develop my ideas further about the structures and shapes that I used in my 3D construction sampling.