This post follows the process of Working With Hart, analysing the decisions throughout the design process, with further exploration of the success of The South London Story Lab.
Mini-task SLSL Poster
One of my media aims for this project was to improve my digital editing skills through Photoshop. For the South London Story Lab we had to work collaboratively to market and organise our event, so I decided to use this opportunity to experiment with some digital designs I could submit for the poster competition. I decided to focus on collage as it fit with my own work with Hart Club for the SLSL.
I aimed to collect images relating to stories being told - such as reading, telling and listening - combined with found imagery of South London. The first design needs a lot of improvement in terms of skill, something I improved on in the second design. The final design is a reduced text version as peer feedback told me there was too much text making the poster too busy.
Hart Club Workshop
As discussed in the previous post we decided to run a collage workshop for The Great Grey, asking them to make some collages in response to the question "How Does Art Make You Feel?" We ran two workshops: the first using my own technique of taking found images and text from magazines, giving the group the opportunity to also work back into their collages with felt tips. The second workshop focused on Elina and Tracey's strengths of using shape, colour and texture, using more basic materials to encourage the group to create their own imagery.
In just the first session I had 14 pieces of work. Knowing we were already stretched for exhibition space, this meant if I were to display the works in a framed exhibition format, I would have to cut out some participants work. This we didn't want to do as it went against our whole premise, everyone can be an artist, as we would be judging who's was good/bad. We therefore decided as a group to instead transform the project into a publication, or magazine. We felt this would be best as we could then include our interviews with Cress and Helen, pieces of our own work, and also information about the film the other members of my group were making. We felt this would tie the film and the studio work together, as we could use the magazine to discuss the project as a whole. As you can see the work was incredible...
While creating the work we spoke with the artists to gain further insight on Hart Club's impact on them and on how they experienced the creative process:
"I began coming to this group for my friend after her diagnosis. I never saw myself going to a community group, and honestly never expected it to be something I would enjoy. But now I love coming, I'm very close with the whole group, and I look forward to coming each week."
"This group has really helped me, I come just to see everyone for a natter, we are all friends."
"I mainly come here for my husband because of his diagnosis. We have been married for sixty-three years. Yes, it really helps me, I just get to have fun."
We also spoke with Helen Ralli, the founder of Hart Club, for an interview which you can read more about here.
Workshop Responses
From my survey response and the workshops with Hart I began creating some similar collages that would represent some of the main themes that came up when discussing how art makes people feel. I decided to use digital collage, feeling this would help me strengthen this area of study.
I really like this collection, I feel I have massively improved my digital skills since the beginning the project and my pieces are looking more professional. This study was mainly to develop digital skills, so I only used found imagery, in future projects I would like to collect my own images when creating collage. Furthermore my main aim for these collages was to be large scale prints but due to COVID-19 I never got the chance to print them in a different format to the magazine.
Editing the workshop results
I was really happy with the work collected from The Great Grey workshop, I think the group did some amazing work at a very professional standard. The main concern when using other people's work is how to incorporate your own style. My aims for this project was to act as the magazine editor and designer, digitally enhancing the designs from Hart would help them coordinate with my own collages. I used similar grain effect as used in my own work, and enhanced the colours where needed; I also named the pieces based on what the artist had told me about what their piece was. - Also notable that in order to publish this we had ech member of the group and/or their carer fill out a consent form, consenting for publishing on the blog, for marking and for display at the SLSL event!
Creating the Magazine
When creating the magazine I wanted to show the work of the entire group throughout the project in order to tell multiple stories. I wanted to use the interview with Helen and Cress to tell the stories of Hart Club, the collages from The Great Grey to tell the stories of art and dementia, and the works from the group to tell the different stories of art and mental health. I conducted interviews with each of the group members and made them each a magazine spread exhibiting their work. This gave me an insight of working in a real world context in terms of working with clients, as each page needed to be ran through with the 'client' before I could format the final design - this meant a bit of back and forth when it came to quoting people and how they wanted their work presented.
I also created a front and back cover for the magazine using found imagery I felt represented the project.
Happy with all my pages, printing was a bit of an issue. I originally tried to print at university but the printing quality was bad. I then had to get it professionally printed, which cost quite a bit. Although I was happy with the quality I had to trim each page as it came out with a white border, and also remove the back page as it wasn't divisible by four.
After speaking to my peers at the event most people suggested I try going to UAL Chelsea to print - which is something I will consider next time!
South London Story Lab Event
We had a couple of issues before the event regarding space, which is the main reason I decided to make a magazine, not an exhibition space. But our space looked great. While I had been making a magazine my group had been working on a film, we also had a folder of work from art and a feedback box asking the audience how art makes them feel.
Tutor Feedback:
"The work is great, it looks fab and its really emotive, however the printing needs to be improved."
After the tutor feedback I removed the white overlap from the magazine, I initially was scared to do it because of the cost of printing, but felt it looked a lot better with the edges cut.
Audience Feedback:
To measure the success of my communication in this piece I asked my audience - How does art make you feel? The intention of this was to establish if I had made the audience question the emotional impacts are can have.
This feedback showed me my audience had mixed emotions of how art made them feel, some of the responses mirrored the views of Hart, "makes me feel like I'm part of something." This is particularly insightful as it shows the piece has caused my audience to question the community elements of illustration.
Here are some of my favourites from the event:
the first piece, a magazine, is particularly interesting because of how it is printed. The high-gloss print is something I would have liked my own piece to use. It adds a professional published look to the outcome, which is something I want to explore in my own work.
The second piece interests me because I like the simplicity of it. With my work from this project a lot of the pieces are overcrowded with a lot of visual imagery, this piece has inspired me to make something more minimalist.
Assessment Evidence
Evidence of; a substantial amount of research to enable completion of the two project tasks. I have completed two research blog posts which explore artist research, concept and context research, along with further research such as surveys, audience testing and interview. Big Family Press and South London Story Lab Evidence of; development work exploring and developing your outcomes and your methods of delivering them to the public. For the Big Family Press I conducted exploration and development here, i also tested my outcome on a similar audience, by letting my younger brother have a go at using my worksheet, before I enhanced the final design.
Evidence of; participation in organisation & presentation of an event at Peckham Levels, where you will gift your story to the public. This assessment evidence is shown in this blogpost, discussing my failures and successes during the SLSL exhibition. Evidence of; any other platforms or locations where you are able to gift your story to audiences of any kind: This can be gathered up till the date of the U8 assessment in late May Sadly due to the coronavirus pandemic my plan to re-exhibit this piece with Burst London fell through, Burst London are hopefully coming back in the summer when I will get back in touch with them. Evidence of; ongoing written reflection on your process and learning. This has all been collected on this blog, where I have documented: Initial project aims, project briefs and project proposals; Initial research such as artist research and research of context, this is then supported by further artist and context research to develop my practical work; analysis of my process and creative production; consideration and testing of final designs; evidence of final designs with personal, peer and tutor feedback; and conclusions and aims for future projects. Evidence of; gathering feedback from the public and reflection upon that feedback. Consider feedback from your audience Again this was collected in this blog post through my feedback box as part of the SLSL exhibition.