These photographs were taken at the beginning of 2009. They're of me and they were the first project I did when I went back to a new class at Design and Arts College (D&A) after having to take a year off. Needless to say, showing these photos was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and that's definitely saying something because I've had to go through a LOT of hard things. I was so so nervous when I was doing my critique in front of 14 people I had only known for about 6 weeks.
The images I displayed were put together in a David Hockney inspired way and had questions like "You don't think I have to put up with enough, without you starting too?", statements such as "Take your time staring at me while I can't see you" and words like "cancer", "leukaemia" and "different". I wanted the people viewing them to be awake of what it was they were doing and aware of how the person they're staring at would feel if they were doing it in person. At this time of my treatment, I was constantly aware of the elongated looks I would get from passersby (which as my Dad said to me, was fair enough because I didn't look normal, and they had to take their time deciding what was wrong with me etc), but it drove me mental. I would come home from the mall in the foulest mood, angry at everyone but also really hurt. I had to put up with so much crap with my treatment, and I couldn't even go out to the mall to try and get some normality back.
I felt amazing after I had displayed these though. I got some really great feedback and some of my classmates reported back to me the intense emotion they saw on people faces as they were standing, looking at them. One of my lovely classmates, Andrea said she thought I was incredibly brave (my Mum had said that too, but she's suppose to say things like that so hearing it from Andrea was awesome).
Abbey Proctor, 2009, A.L.L Me (3 of a series of 5) [digital photographic collage]
This assignment and time of my life was when my slight obsession with identity came into being, so I decided to drag the photographs out from the archives and use them in a wee project this year for my BFA study's. I printed four of the original photographs off on the Xerox at A3 size and accompanied them with a wee note asking "What is this person's story? Please feel free to write your theories and ideas on the photographs." I stuck them on the wall at D&A in the hope that the First-Third year photographers and fine artists would jump at the chance to interact with some artwork. I was mistaken. I went in a week after I put them on the wall and there were three ideas on them. I was slightly heartbroken to say the least, but my tutors came to the rescue and got their students to write on them. Bless.
So after the photographs being up for three weeks, this is what was on them. I was so excited when I picked them up from D&A yesterday morning.
Now finally, what this post is actually about:
As one of the side projects I'm working on for my BFA at the moment, I'm going to pair the words that were so kindly written on the images, with a portrait of me now. I'm going to try and get the same lighting, facial expression and composition as the photo above. I'm undecided how exactly I will display the words, but at the moment I'm thinking I might set it out like a caption either below the image on the same page or displayed and framed separately to the photograph in the way of French photographer Sophie Calle. I want to create a confusion between the physical identity and the.. personality, I guess you could call it.. that is listed along side the portrait. I'm hoping it will turn out really interesting..
No comments:
Post a Comment