Learning Outcome 1: Develop and realise a self-directed programme of learning which draws from wide-ranging subject knowledge.
During Unit 2, I have been trying to combine my learnings from UAL textiles workshops, research into textiles and developing skills in textiles, with my visual artwork, music and political activism – which has manifested in several creative outcomes:
Firstly, I began exploring stitching as a metaphor for healing, developing on my exploration of psychological states through abstract painting, by incorporating stitching into my abstract artworks. I also created a textile piece after researching the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where scars are seen to beautify the object by celebrating the healing process. Additionally, I wrote a song to reflect on these visual explorations, titled ‘A Thread of Empathy’. These works were displayed/performed at ‘The Vibrant Mind – Exploring Mental Health Through Artistry’ exhibition in Bologna, where my art collective, Dare to Care, delivered a public programme of events, titled ‘Ways of Healing’. As part of this public programme, I delivered a workshop where participants co-created a patchwork artwork reflecting on experiences of cruelty, which is featured in a documentary I filmed and edited to showcase the collective’s work.
Secondly, I have been creating textile wall-hangings after being inspired by reading ‘Women for Peace – Banners from Greenham Common’, as well as matching cushion covers – using the domesticised medium to reflect on psychological abuse in personal relationships. Influenced by Jeremy Deller’s pithy messaging, I created these textile works, and the laborious task of drawing, cutting out and stitching letters, made me realise the importance of words in my creative practice to communicate concise and often humorous messages, to deliver impactful and engaging messages.
Thirdly, I created a jacket in response to Rishi Sunak (then PM)’s comments about a “sick note culture” as part of the government’s disability benefits overhaul, which I wrote about in a rant on my blog. After my disabled friend, Thom Jackson-Wood asked me to make another jacket, which feature the words ‘Sick Note Culture’ in rainbow lettering and a felt “sick note” attached to the back, as well as polymer clay “pills” for buttons – we decided to collaborate on a music video for the General Election campaign – using defiant humour to implore voters to consider the most vulnerable members of our society when voting. This has made me reflect on the importance of collaboration and community building in my art practice, to build public consensus around political messages, as well as the role of joy as an act of defiance against cruelty.
Finally, I decided to record the trolling I received on social media during the first year of the MA course, documenting it through screenshots on my blog. I then started painting out the troll comments onto fabric. I was overwhelmed by the positive response when I shared these paintings on my social media, and kept a record of the supportive comments from my community on my blog which made me reflect on how important community engagement and ‘audience response theory’ is to my creative practice. This response encouraged me to turn the troll comments into the “Hate Dress” showcasing the online abuse I receive. This put my new sewing skills to the test, as it was the first time I have ever followed a dress pattern and created an item of clothing from scratch. I then took the “Hate Dress” to CSM to film footage with my videographer for documentary videos, including a performance of the song ‘A Thread of Empathy’ – the response from other students made me realise the power of this dress as a performance artwork in engaging attention and unashamedly speaking out against online abuse as well as asserting my right to (quite literally given the size of the dress) take up space and refusal to be silenced by the trolls.
In addition to my developing work in textiles, I have also been working on a portrait research project exploring representation of identity through symbolic use of colour. I have been developing my linework portraiture, to try and effectively capture expression of personality and character through my drawing. As well as creating portraits in watercolour and oil pastels, focussing on the effective use of colour to represent and celebrate diverse identities. I also created some test portraits in oil paint, to improve my technique and finalise the style for the final portraits, which I have now begun work on.
Learning Outcome 2: research paper and all the different elements of research that connect to itArticulate a thorough understanding of your research and establish an informed critical position.
Although, I don’t think that my research paper has anything particularly profound or innovative to contribute to knowledge, it has been a very useful exercise for me, both on a personal level (in terms of helping me to process some harmful relationships), as well as informing my creative practice and inspiring new artworks. The installation I created to reflect on psychological abuse, was directly informed by my reading of ‘It’s Not You – How to Identify and Heal from NARCISSISTIC People’, which I reference in my research paper. From the book I learned the term “Doormat Syndrome” (to describe people-pleasers who let abusers “walk all over them”) which inspired the idea to create a doormat and pair of gold (because narcissists always put themselves in first place) boots decorated in terms from the book’s glossary which list psychological manipulation tactics. In my research paper, I explore these domestic abuse tactics in relation to the tactics deployed by oppressors on different scales, which helped me to understand the connection between the work I create reflecting on personal relationships to my fascination with cults and to my work reflecting on cruelty on a national scale, in contemporary politics. The research paper also helped me to identify the common theme between the seemingly disparate lines of enquiry of my creative practice; power, control and cruelty - and how creativity can counter these systems of oppression by celebrating diverse identities, whilst supporting the free expression of the autonomous individual. My reading of ‘Trauma and Recovery; The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror' also emphasised the role and power of community to support victims of abuse in healing from trauma, and helped me to understand how the telling of personal stories supports the recovery process and how victims recover most successfully by finding purpose in their traumatic experience, for example by taking social action. This along with researching other activist-artists, including Sharon Hayes, Yael Bartana and Barabra Kruger, and the Craftivist Collective, has influenced the creation of works such as “The Hate Dress” which loudly communicates my personal experience of online abuse and has helped me to gauge support from my online community as well as raising awareness and empowering others not to be silenced by abuse.
For my portrait research project, which aims to celebrate diverse, autonomous identity; I have recruited ten participants, who are all migrants with diverse nationality and ethnicity, including three members of the LGBTQ+ community and two refugees, who I have been interviewing (these blog posts are all protected for reasons of confidentiality and consent). This is proving to be an insightful opportunity to mine the wisdom and unique experiences of my research participants and develop my understanding of social power structures, the psychological impact of cruel and prejudicial treatment and the value of cultural diversity in societies. My participants’ varied responses to my demand on them to select colours and symbols to represent their identity (some chose their colours with ease, whilst others really struggled with the concept, switching their selection multiple times) has also been enlightening as to the potentially reductive nature of portraiture. This has proved to be even more the case with regards to my experimental idea to create flags to represent their individual identities, which came from reading ‘Worth Dying For? The Power and Politics of Flags’. The concept of creating individual flags has prompted conversations with my research participants, including Lora who described flags as a “flattening of identity” - which has led me to reflect a lot on national symbolism and oppression of the autonomous individual through the imposition of dictated cultural identity – which I discuss in my research paper.
Learning Outcome 3: your reflective thinking and writing on your blogAnalyse and critically reflect on your practice and its context.
The main difficulty I have been struggling with throughout the course, is the disparate nature of my creative practice, both in terms of my chosen media and my varied lines of enquiry which vary from; propaganda and nationalism, to migration and identity, to mental health and psychology, to celebrating cultural diversity. By reflecting on literature I have been reading and the rationale behind the work I’ve been creating, I’ve started to identify the connecting threads and deepen my understanding of the work I create. This has helped me to identify the central theme of my creative practice to be power, control and cruelty: How abuse of power, with a specific focus on psychological manipulation, impacts upon identity and sense of self – and how art can counter this abuse by celebrating cultural diversity, valuing the autonomous identity of the individual and by bringing communities together.
I often doubt my ability because my creative practice is so unspecialised, with diverse media; song-writing, performance, music videos, documentaries, drawing, painting, textiles and costume. But I’ve realised through reflection that for me, these media are all functioning as methods of communicating my ideas, beliefs and values to my audience. The importance of words in my visual, performance and protest artwork has become particularly apparent, specifically the power of combining engaging imagery with carefully chosen text to deliver impactful messages that resonate with people and build public consensus. I have always approached my work in social media management by focusing on “organic engagement”, using communication to facilitate a community conversation, and as such, audience response theory has been central to informing and developing my creative practice. I have been trying to facilitate discussions, exchange of knowledge and perspectives, both online and offline – and then use the insights gained from those conversations to inform my creative practice. I have been using the blog to document and reflect on these interactions, to help me better understand the impact of my work and consider how to develop my work going forwards.
My work with my art collective, Dare to Care, focusing on the mental health of artists and the challenges of working in the creative sector led me to reflect on how the realities of working as an artist have impacted my own mental health. Specifically, I realised that the online abuse which I receive in response to my creative activism has been hugely damaging to my mental health and well-being. The collective provided me with a safe space to talk about my experience of trolling and sexual harassment, and the opportunity to create and present work responding to those experiences, as well as facilitating workshops to engage a community dialogue on the topic in a collective healing process. I found it especially empowering to present my work with Dare to Care at a webinar for the organisation who funded our workshops in Bologna and thereby connect my creative work on mental health with my political advocacy work.
Reflecting on my portrait research project has emphasised the role of story-telling in my creative practice. The interviews (in my protected blogs) provided me great insight into the experience of migrants, particularly focussing on the psychological impacts of their life experiences and exploring with my participants how to represent their diverse identity through colours and symbols has made me realise the importance of participant engagement in my creative practice.
Finally, using the blog to reflect on my reading of literature for my research paper as well as my creative output has helped me to understand the importance of joy as an act of defiance to abuse of power in my creative practice. Using humour to respond to the cruel treatment of governments, as well as to raise awareness of and ridicule online abuse. It has inspired me to create joyful and beautiful costumes which unashamedly express my identity, despite receiving online abuse which intends to silence and supress my autonomous expression.
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