Bodies of Thought

Abbey Proctor, 2011, Bodies of thought [inkjet photographs, paper mounted in frame, dimensions variable]

This work brings into question the importance of physical appearance when identifying an individual, creating an emphasis on the core human self while questioning the validity of stereotyping.

The core self is an extremely fragile, yet strong thing that is present within each of us, a thing that is not a physical structure residing inside the body, but a composite entity that is a product of the thoughts and interactions between the mind and body. It is a construction of the mind, one that is strong and robust enough to withstand constant change and partial demolition and it is here, within this seemingly fragile, composite state that lies the strength of the self. A composite or a collection of things such as the self is able to have items come and go or be damaged without necessarily destroying the entity as a whole, enabling the constant functionality of us as human beings throughout life. It is this self that makes us who we are as individuals, enabling us to grow and become emotionally stronger, determining our personal identity, and making each of us distinguishable from the other. Although the physical, external body seems to define us, it is merely an external shell that embodies this self, it is the internal thought processes and interactions that are the essence of each individual; the body is essential to the functionality of these thoughts, but it does not define our essence.

This is my final installation. If you can imagine walking into a small room; the dictionary and plates are on the wall to the right of the door, the portraits of myself on the wall in front of you, a wall to the left consists of a big window and no photographs, and the wall behind the door is where the four portraits and text live.

I'm tied between explaining everything, why each piece is where it is, how each one relates to the other and just leaving this post where it is and letting whoever reads this put their own interpretation onto it. I know I've explained each individual work in previous posts, but I don't think I will explain everything in detail.

Hope you like it! 

External Identity Crisis

As said repeatedly I'm sure, my work this year has been a result of my experience with leukaemia and the reactions from strangers I received when I was going through treatment. However, this series is the only one that directly references my illness. It's the result of the wee research project I did I while ago where I got students from my art school to write their opinions and reactions on a few portraits of myself I'd taken when I had just finished treatment but still had no hair. I absolutely loved the words that they had written on the photographs, but fell even more in love with them when I started playing around with how I was going to display them. I really wanted to cut into an actual dictionary and display the pages in the way that I have below, but books are my obsession and I just couldn't bring myself to cut into one, especially a dictionary! So I compromised. This framed 'dictionary', as I like to call it, is put together with photocopied pages of a dictionary I found in the cupboard. If I remember rightly, there are 13 or 14 pages. With each one I cut everything out of the page, except for the word that was written on the portrait, leaving in the columns and page numbers etc. 

I placed the pages on top of each other without really paying attention to which definition was where, with the exception being if one was completely hidden behind another; the result of which is actually quite interesting! One section in particular that I really like is where 'healthy' and 'cancer' are overlapping. Just that small thing explains exactly what I was trying to achieve with this work. Having the pages on top of one another and then placed within the confines of a frame is my way of bringing the opinions together, creating one entity and showing how these often contradicting opinions are about  one person. I'm not sure how the viewer would interpret the dictionary if it was displayed by itself, but when paired with the two portraits below, the meaning is more obvious.

A wee bit of research

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..