Collage and Ephemera

For this task we had to create 8 collages based around our subject. 

These were my first two collages. I was relatively happy with the first, particularly the composition of the image. I also thought the restricted colour scheme worked quite well and this is something I chose to continue throughout the rest of my collages. I was less happy with the second illustration, where I tried to combine collage with painted elements. I didn't think this was particularly effective (maybe I should have continued with the grey and blue colour scheme), maybe because I didn't put enough thought into it, or perhaps I wasn't comfortable enough using paint. For the rest of my collages I stuck with using just collaged elements.

These are the rest of the collages I made. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the results considered collage isn't something I've ever really explored much. I think the restricted colour scheme works quite well, and helped me to focus on the image more than the colours I was using. I enjoyed the two collages on the left, where I had cut out shapes from textured colours to substitute in as parts of another object (the bones on the top image, and the pieces of the robot on the bottom image). I think collage is really useful for getting unusual textures that you would struggle to create otherwise. I think perhaps my composition could have been better for some of these, but this is something I found challenging to think about when arranging all the parts of the collage on a piece of paper - particularly when figuring out what parts need to be stuck down first.

The two collages with triangles as key elements of the design were inspired by some of the collages made by the creative studio, DR ME who did a talk in LCA a while ago. A lot of their collages had geometrical elements to them that I thought were really effective, so this is something I tried to incorporate into my work.

Tell an Untold Story: Group Crit and further research

After my interviews, I realised I needed to focus my research down further and be more specific. During my group crit, the feedback I received was to explore the idea of antiques shops and second hand shops, and the journey that objects take when they are given to different people.

I really liked this idea, and decided to go on a second field trip. For this, I went to a second hand furniture shop in Leeds called Junk Again. I interviewed the man who owned the shop, and this turned out to be the most useful aspect of my research so far.

This is the transcript:

Me: How long have you been um –

Wayne: doing this job?

Me: yeah

Wayne: I’ve been doing this job twenty years. I’ve been clearing homes. We um we go to somebody’s home whether they’ve been passed away or moving house, they just want to sell their items um and we bring them here and we recycle as much of it as possible so we don’t want anything to go to landfill. So even if I leave, I don’t know if you pass here you see stuff outside when the shops closed. I often leave stuff outside for people to take for free.

Me: okay

Wayne:  sofas, coffee tables, all kinds of stuff.

(customer walks in)

Wayne: Hey, good day! I’m in the middle of an interview, you’re more than welcome to be on the recording.

-       pause in recording –

Me: What drew you to this job? Why did you start doing it initially?

Wayne: Why did I start doing this job? Uh my brother had a second hand clothes shop and I started helping him, and then I realized that we could get bits of furniture and we could they were uh you know people wanting to recycle and reuse old furniture. So that’s how I got to do this job.

Me: Um are there any like pieces of furniture or items that you really liked and wanted to keep for yourself?

Wayne: I keep loads for myself

Guy in background: most of it!

Wayne: I keep loads for myself, that’s the pleasure of the job, that’s why you do the job. I like to keep everything, its my job ya know. But particularly I like old furniture, a hundred plus years old ya know. I like some mid century but I like really old stuff like the Georgian chair that you’re sat on at the moment.

Me: What is it about really old stuff that you like?

Wayne: Um, well its really made, as you can see theres no screws in this chair, its just made with pegs

Me: okay

Wayne: so theres no bolts, theres no screws, that is just pegged. That’s, ya know, a traditional way of making stuff, rather than a machine way

Me: okay, are there any items or pieces of furniture that you know have had a story behind them or anything interesting?

Wayne: Ohhh, I’ve had loads of pieces of furniture with loads of stories. You know, I’ve had professors stuff, I’ve had teachers cellos, ya know I’ve had items that have been missing from a family for years and that have recovered when we’ve cleared it ya know um, I’ve had little gems that I’ve took from a house and got really good money for, ya know, so I’ve had all kinds of stuff that have little meanings and stories. Ya know we clearing somebodies life, if somebody’s been bereaved and they’ve left the house full of stuff behind, its somebodies life, ya know, so whatever they’ve procured through their life you’re taking out the door.

Me: um, is it only furniture or do you sell sort of like small things at all?

Wayne: I sell everything, pots, pans, everything, whatever’s in a home. Whatever we can grab.

Looking around his shop, there were lots of interesting aspects. For example, on one wall there were lots of old photos that he had pinned up that he had collected from peoples houses. He said that he intended to cover the entire shops walls with them but had only got as far as one wall, despite the fact that he had thousands of these photos still left over. There was one person who seemed to feature in a lot of photos, particularly obscure photos. This got me to think about what Wayne had said, about when they're clearing a house they're clearing someones life. This is quite a moving and emotional thought and could be something that would be very interesting to explore for this project.

These are some observational drawings I made from visiting Junk Again. I think perhaps to further my research for this project I should talk to some people about various things that they own and the stories behind them to see if there's anything excited I could possibly illustrate or explore. I know I require some factual research for this project but I can't think what that could be besides possibly how furniture is made, or information about the historical times that these items are from. However, I don't think I can do this until I have found specific objects to focus on.

Tell an Untold Story: Interviews

For this project we were required to interview 3 people about our subject. These are the transcripts for those interviews.

I interviewed one of my flatmates- Will -first.

Me: When I say consumption, what comes to mind?

Will: So when I think of consumption I think of sort of  um mass consumerism and sort of the consumption of not necessarily edibles, but um you know technology, and sort of just materialistic things. Um, so yeah consumption for me would be linked to things like advertising

Me: And like capitalism?

Will: Capitalism, all that sort of stuff um so more consumption on like a wider sense than individual like eating or anything like that, yeah

Me: If I say consumption does that seem like something that’s sustainable to you?

Will: What, is consumption sustainable?

Me: Yeah

Will: In terms of like

Me: Like, if I say the word consumption does you think it’s like something that’s sustainable or not?

Will: Yeah, although I think it has to constantly, like consumption needs to constantly change. Like people will always want more. You kind of get tied up in consumption and it becomes like, uh yeah you kind of, its kind of a bit of a cycle, it can be a bit destructive but the more and more we’ve sort of provided with the more people will fall into it. Its like a bit of a endless cycle

Like, if you eat a piece of bread and then suddenly someone says here’s a piece of bread with butter, you’re gonna want that cause its more

Me: Okay yeah that makes sense. So you’re sort of speaking about it in a way –

Will: It’s like with celery. It’s good celery but if someone says they’ve got hummus and celery

And its also about money

Me: So its kind a greed kind of thing?

Will: It’s greed. And you invest your money in consuming stuff. Like the other day I spent an extra 2 quid on parma ham instead of normal ham. I didn’t need that, but I wanted to con – you know? It’s just the greed thing

Me: Okay

I then interviewed another of my flatmates; Adam.

Me: When I say the word consumption, what comes to mind?

Adam: The consuming of goods, whether it be food or like consumers like luxury things. Anything that can be purchased in a supermarket

Me: Um, is there any – Do you think of consumption in a non-consumerist kind of way at all?

Adam: Only when it’s being put in that context, when I think consume I would assume its being talked about consumerism or the markets. Just something to do with purchasing goods rather than consuming products

Me: Okay, um do you think consumerism has gone too far now?

Adam: Consumerism has gone too far in certain aspects, but overall it’s a positive thing. It’s increased like – yeah the economy benefits from consumerism in a way that can’t really just be like explained properly. It creates new jobs through the uh creation of different goods. Um overall it’s a positive force but it can have some negative cultural aspects

Me: Such as?

Adam: You do get people obviously that maybe have bought into consumerism too much and define themselves purely by what they purchase and what they have and don’t have but I think for the vast vast majority of people this isn’t an issue

Both of these interviews focused on consumption in a very literal sense, in terms of food and products. This is helpful because it means that this must be what people think of when they think of consumption, and this could be useful when exploring the consumerist idea for my project, but not for the sustainability and repurposing line of thought I had been going with.

After this, I interviewed my friend Seb on his thoughts on consumption.

Me: What comes to mind when I say consumption?

Seb: Consumption? Well just absorbing a lot of stuff you know? Nowadays society. To consume you know it doesn’t necessarily have to be food, it can be cigarettes, drugs you know. Consumption comes in many different forms

Me: What other forms of consumption can you think of?

Seb: Well, I think the food, the drugs and the cigarettes. Um, what else do we consume? We consume time, we could think about it more fine arty way,

Me: Comsume time, okay that’s pretty deep. What do you consume?

Seb: What do I consume? I consume mainly food, lets say. I like consuming vegetables, meat, milk, eggs, cheese, butter, chocolate!

Me: Okay, what about consumption on a wider scale? Like consumerism and that kind of thing, what do you think about that?

Seb: I think that we as a population over consume things and not only over consume things, over produce many things and then consumption becomes more of a like a wasted theme because some of this food just you know doesn’t get to the consumers and then just perishes, disappears. This is not what we used to.

Me: Do you think consumption differs like around the world in different places?

Seb: Yes absolutely I think that some people almost under consume you know they don’t have much to eat they don’t have you know much to consume anyway so they have to be more creative and they really rely on what they either you know get or grow themselves or you know what they manage to harvest or even steal you know? But we as a western world its this massive idea of the consumption so for example I don’t know in England there is so much waste food that could be potentially shipped to lets say Africa or less developed countries that actually need the food but its just not happening because you know people are thinking at a business level rather than help other humans level

Me: I think that’ll do, unless there’s any other stuff you can think of to talk about?

Seb: Hmm, on the top of my head, Czech people consume a lot of beer. Uh and its like a tradition, its almost like our nation is shaped based on what we consume. So for example there’s almost like the famous saying that father will show you the pub before he shows you the cinema. Cinemas are all around the world right, but beer you know its what really shapes us as a nation. Well, I can say that because I’m Czech but yeah. Uh and then in England theres different types of consumption in a way and you get – lets just stop it there actually.

My interview with Seb was quite interesting because he brought up a few points that I hadn't thought about. For example, consuming time was a very interesting point and not something that had crossed my mind. However, I feel like that could encompass so many different things that it would be too vague to try and tailor a project around. However, unlike Will and Adam, he began to think about consumption in a different way, in a negative way in terms of how we over consume things and how we could remedy that. This feeds into my project more because I am more focused on how we can repurpose things and be more resourceful with our consumption in order to reduce it.