Pop-up show: curated dialogues

This afternoon was our pop-up group show for our collaboration projects on curated dialogues. Nancy and I finished our book an hour before and we were excited to present it as we had it neatly bound with our matching Lettraset artist statement. It was a great feeling to put forward our shared piece and to look around other people's projects especially as they were so varied. 

Zoo, By Fruzsi Toth and Emma Traynor

This collaborative project was discussing Emma's interest in the relationship between animals and humans and Fruzsi's intention to illustrate P.L. Traver's Mary Poppins, combined with their joint interest in children's narrative.They portrayed their ideas through a pop-up scene that combined characters from both their chosen subject matters incorporating their interest in role reversal to involve different viewpoints. This role reversal was projected through two scenes, one with animals in the zoo with children watching, and the other with children in the zoo and the animals fulfilling human roles. I really enjoyed their project as the theme was fun and unique as well as nicely executed; the final piece looked professional and enticing with its sweet minature characters. They created the piece through mono-printing which allowed them to display lots of different textures for the animals fur, concrete floor and surrounding environment. The only down side was that I felt their accompanying photographs didn't portray the success of the physical piece as they were badly lit with odd angles, which highlights the importance of photographing our work well to document it as successfully as possible and allow our illustrative skill to shine through. 

       

Portraiture, By Alicja Jarzynska and Toby Price

Alicja and Toby decided to concentrate on portraiture and the task of reflecting people's individual 'personalities and characteristics through visual representation and combination of different style and media.' The wanted to capture these personalities in a unique way, making the images almost 'surrealistic'. The above pieces show Alicja, top and Toby, bottom through self portraits portrayed in a book with accompanying text. They used some really unusual viewpoints such as Alicja turning away and Toby's face represented by a nose and mouth as if in shadow. The two styles are fun and unconventional but I would have liked to see them draw each other or combine their styles on one piece so they could have worked more collaboratively.  

'The Cats Couldn't say Anything' 

By Gabby Walker, Holly Horn and Ellen Rockell

The collaborative project above was based around the issues of reportage basing their conversation in a vintage setting that was audio-recorded. This was then divided into what they intended to discuss, what tangents their conversation evolved into and the external influences and overheard voices from within the setting. The final piece was created through 50's magazine images that reflect elements of the conversation, with tracing paper used to show 'the layers and depth to a discussion'. I think the piece was really successful as the booklet was clean-cut and professional with clever layering and humorous imagery to create a modern take on their discussion with a vintage twist. As a team all three of them helped to create the imagery and because of the combination of collage technique and old magazine materials the overall style flows well.

The feedback on our own work was positive with people feeling we encompassed our narrative discussion successfully in a narrative format. The overall comments liked our use of texture and character, but one comment, which I agree with, said we should scan in and print our pieces for a more professional finish- we didn't do this at the time as we wanted to portray the way the layers of texture and image built up together. We were very pleased with someone's comment that they want to buy our piece as it reads well as a guide to narrative! 

Overall the pop-up show was a great way for us to share and reflect on each others work and a lot of us seem to have benefited and learnt from working collaboratively. This workshop has also proved how fast and productively we can work in a 2 week time slot to create something professional and finalised which will spur me on over the next few weeks towards deadline.