Stereotypical Insight

This series is the most recent that I've been working on and is also part of my final assessment / exhibition that will take place sometime next year (yay!). 

When I was first planning what I was going to show for the final assessment, this idea came to mind and my very first intention was to only show a large series of works like these. Although after a critique with my Whitecliffe tutor, it was decided that my plates and the concept behind them was quite strong and they needed to be a part of my final assessment. That was totally fine by me because I'm kind of in love with the physical plates and the photographs of them (which are now a little different to the ones in the link above, but I'll upload the final images of those later) but it meant that I had to rethink my final show. A lot as it turned out. In the end there were a few different components (which again, I'll upload later) and this series was the last one; visually it was the last work seen within the space when everything was hung and conceptually it tied everything together.

As with everything else I've been working on this year this work addresses stereotyping, although I think these may do it in a more literal way than the rest of the work in the final show. The idea behind these came directly from the physical act of stereotyping. My intention was to emulate a first conversation and first encounter with someone new, and bring to light stereotyping by making the viewer aware of the thoughts and opinions that would come to mind when looking at the images and reading the text.

While photographing, I recorded the conversation had between my subjects and myself. I did this without them knowing at first, so they wouldn't be as self conscious about what they were saying as they would be if they were aware they were being recorded. Obviously they were already pretty self conscious since they were having a conversation with someone while a camera was pointing straight at them, but I was sure they would feel worse if they knew beforehand that I was going to be typing up our conversation. 

I told them that I was going to be photographing them, that my project was about stereotyping and I wanted them to be as comfortable as they could be, hence the reason for the constant conversation. Being a little shy myself, I struggled talking to most of the people I photographed so at first it was a bit of a mess of me trying to relax and just be myself while trying to make sure my subjects were relaxed and being themselves so the typed conversation was as close to what they would normally say as possible. 

Abbey Proctor, 2011, Stereotypical insight [digital photographs, typed text]

These works', when shown with the rest of my final work make it easier for the viewer to relate to the work as a whole. The other works' more directly address myself and my leukaemia, so having images of other people in the show opens the viewers eyes and helps them to incorporate themselves in the work and think about themselves in terms of stereotyping. As my tutor said in my end of year review "people like thinking about themselves, so why not help them?".