Degree Show Documentation and Ideas.
A lot of my work this semester has been directed by my preparation for the degree show so much of it appears in my critical reflection. I have tried to present everything as clear as possible by documenting planning and degree show-related reflection here - with the work itself, along with research which determines my work, in my critical reflection. I will make it clear when parts which may be relevant are in different sections.
Scroll through this gallery for images/sketches of planning.
These are rough plans of installation ideas I began preparing for at the start of the semester, with the intention of showing this at the Degree Show. The ideas contained exhausted plates which had been etched into and screen printed on, the plates would be so deeply etched that they would appear degraded and in places fractured. One idea involved free-standing plates that would be welded onto pipe or angle section and replicate placards. I thought that the previous plates I had shown in Unit 2 had worked well on the wall but I wanted to scale the entire work up and believed I could do this by creating more and have them free-standing. This composition would mean that, in order to see each plate up close, the audience would have to maneuver through the work, which would mimic navigating through an actual crowd. This would provide a sense of discomfort for the viewers, which I wanted to achieve in order to make the work more impactful and gritty. The work would be in conversation with the protests happening at the time regarding the exploitation of workers in reference to labour and elements of labour like wages and working conditions.
At the Bargehouse exhibition in Unit 2, I made a decision to display one of my etching plates close to a digitally enlarged version of the print which the plate had made. I received feedback on this which made me question this decision and had this in mind moving forward. (This was a different plate to the ones I mentioned in the previous paragraph).
As mentioned, the plates I was making were to be exhibited as plates in a sculptural way, but I still wanted to make prints from them and would have to make a decision on how this could work, based on the feedback from the previous semester. I decided that, firstly, my plates could be screen printed upon, giving them a new form whilst maintaining their exhausted aesthetic and adhering to my concept. To add to that, I had seen an exhibition named "Silent Coup" by Peter Kennard, which displayed prints using scaffolding(beam) clamps and steel rods. I began to consider how such components could effect my own work and how if I displayed them like this, I could display the prints separately from these plates but maintain collaboration to one another through a use of industrial materials and forms.
Images of Kennard exhibition and how clamps and rods were used to display work.
My initial feedback after our proposals, was that my work was going to be too polite in terms of scale. This is definitely not what I wanted to achieve. The size of the acid bath was an obvious limitation to the scale of my work, but I wanted to solve this issue by creating a large amount of plates. This proved troublesome as I could only etch one or two plates at a time and kept on overworking the nitric acid itself. This meant I would simply not have enough time to create this installation in this way and decided I would have to come up with a new idea regarding the installation. I did however, already have ideas for prints and decided I would develop these ideas and use them for the plans which are stated above. The prints above were to be scanned etchings and enlarged, before printing digitally, similarly to how I presented work in Unit 2. I felt in Unit 2 that I had not scaled the work up to a large enough size and had that been done, the work would have had more of an impact in its space and in relation to other works around it. I decided because of that, I wanted to print these images as large as possible and would eventually create a triptych of prints scaled at 300x450cm.
I have documented processes and contextualized these prints in my critical reflection. They are named Toilworn, Abraded and Many Suffer. The three together as a triptych are named Toilworn (Spent and Consumed).
Toil Worn (Spent and Consumed) - Digital print, 3x300x150cm
Although the initial idea of etching into plates, eroding them away so that they are decayed and fragile, was not going to be possible at this time for me in terms of the impact I wanted my work to have and the time I had to do it in, I could still approach this method in a slightly different way. I decided that I could etch into my plates with images containing elements of existing decomposition such as withering posters and billboards. For me, there is a shared sense of fatigue and neglect between these spaces and workers under capitalism. I think it has something to do with layers and layers of exhaustion being patched over with tiny elements of passive revolution such as a free pint after work or a slight pay rise every 12 months. Textures ripped away, revealing older textures, as well as the labour-intensive act of reapplying posters upon one another. I still have not quite worked it out, maybe it is just a slightly shallower idea of a shared sense of fatigue, but maybe there is something deeper.
Below is the image I chose to etch into plates for my installation and an example of it as a surface for a screen print.
This meant decision meant I could progress with my plan to exhibit plates as plates and screen print upon them, I had however altered how I wanted them displayed. I decided that, to make my work appear less polite, I could make up for the limited size of the plates with another, much larger steel structure, to which the plates would be attached.
Although I altered the sizes of the structure, above is the drawing I made before I fabricated it. The structure was built to resemble industrial components like scaffolding or metal-work jigs. In my previous job, I worked as a welder for Caterpillar, a company which makes tractors, and the jigs which were used to build the steel bodies for these tractors had parts of box section protruding randomly from the sides, I chose to mimic this and opted to have the box section at different lengths because of this.
I have detailed further my specific processes and thoughts behind this work in my critical reflection.
The work was situated on a large wall at the end of a room where it could be viewed from a distance. The size and materiality of the work meant it was enough to stand alone in this space and was accompanied only by a smaller print on the wall next to it. To add to that, the plates contain striking imagery and large bold text, which was used to draw the viewers attention and pull people in, borrowing characteristics from the newspaper headlines it contained. The work also contains smaller detail, including information about Gramsci's notions of 'common sense' and offers the viewer opportunity to witness how this effects the present-day working class in a wider social and political context. In my opinion, the feedback I received regarding my initial plans, which suggested they were "too polite", benefitted the work and I feel like it says what I wanted it to say, in the way I wanted it to say it.
I have spoken about the composition of the plates in my critical reflection, but should I have the opportunity to make this work again, and in the space provided or one similar, I think I would experiment more with the structure, perhaps fabricating multiple frames and all different to one another. I would fill out the wall and have different sized plates and images. These plates would converse with each other and become louder in the room and more striking. I could experiment more with the structure itself, adding in more protruding steel or even make the work more 3D. The structure could be chopped up and reshaped and could situate in different spaces which may be more aesthetically beneficial. Steel can be galvanized which means it becomes rust resistant, or perhaps rust could play a part within the work, should I have an opportunity to exhibit outdoors. I see this piece as a starting point, now that I revert back to it I see it as simple and basic, but will be using this as a reference when applying for residencies or open calls where it could evolve.
As mentioned above, in the end, the prints I displayed were not made from these plates and I wanted to exhibit them in the same space. I still believe that had this happened the work would have been stronger, having more of an impact with two large-scale works taking over and becoming almost immersive when capacitated between the two. Due to limited space, unfortunately this was not possible and my digital prints ended up in a different building (Wilson Road). I feel that this disconnection between the works impacted their relationship. To add to that, the clamps which I intended to use would not be efficient as I had not considered their impact on the creases in the paper, a lesson learnt for future installations.
I am very happy with the work which I showed in the degree show as individual pieces and maybe I am being too hard on myself, but I would have liked the works to have some sort of conversation with each other which involved the audience and I do not feel I achieved this on this occasion.