Tutorial May 7th - presentation presentation presentation!

Today we focussed on presentation of our for the upcoming exhibition. Unfortunately the media students were not there, so we aren't sure exactly how they are planning to exhibit their work. Sue is planning to use a second-hand suitcase to showcase her labels and photographs, which will be at the end of Safia's hanging journey, a series of labels each representing a journey she has made that will be stitched together and hung from fishing line.

I had a few different ideas for presenting my work, but wasn't sure which way to go forward. I liked the photographs taken around MSA, and thought that I could possibly put a large photo on the wall, and attach lots of small origami boxes to it, replacing the ones seen in the photo. After discussion with Hannah, I realised that this would probably confuse the 2 separate elements, and do both a disservice. 

arches photo with small origami pieces added on

Another idea was to present the photo on the wall, but to arrange many boxes on the floor in a pile. I think that randomly putting the boxes together wouldn't make much sense in relation to my research, as each colour and pattern has come from a specific place and the shapes are ordered.

arches photo with origami pile below

Thinking along those lines, I considered stacking the boxes in a more regimented way, as I had when taking photos, but to form a silhouette of the new art school building alongside the old ones along the wall. This would definately fit my project but felt too obvious somehow, as if too much was being dictated by the art school - shape colour form and presentation.

structured origami boxes forming a silhouette

We talked about the fact that in a couple of the photos, the scale of the origami wasn't immediately obvious. I hadn't really noticed myself, but Hannah had assumed that the arches photo had been altered on photoshop to make the boxes large, instead of a simple photo from an interesting perspective. 

playing with scale

When she discovered that they were small she was surprised; this was a good reaction as I think that people want to see something unexpected or new that makes them alter their approach to viewing work in future. I want to give other people that surprised feeling, and in order to do that I need to include a few carefully chosen photos that play with the idea of scale, and a few of the boxes so that the 'trick' has a reveal and viewers know that it is an illusion. Maintaining the subtle feel of the photos is important, so  stacking some origami boxes against a wall should demonstrate the actual scale without taking over. 

The colours based on the pantone decades no longer seem to fit with my project, so I will abandon them for now, focussing instead on the patterns and colours based on my school of art photos. Similarly the matchsticks will have to take a back seat. I plan to select out the origami pieces that fit in with this project and take more photos on location, with an emphasis on scale. The matchsticks and other other colours could definately be taken in other directions and would make a good extension to this project.