Tell an Untold Story: Visual Journalist

For this part of the module, I was given the words hobbies, silence and consumption. I chose to explore the word consumption as I felt that this would give me the most space to explore the subject. 

I thought about what the word consumption meant, both in the literal sense and what it meant to me. in the literal sense, it means the action of using up a resource. To me, consumption was related to what humans consume the most of. In the grand scheme of things, to me this meant fossil fuels and energy, and food and land. The more I thought about it, the more consumption seemed like quite a dark topic. For this reason I decided to try and focus my project more on how we can limit consumption and be more resourceful.

We were told to go on a self-directed field trip for this project to collect research to base our work on. I chose to go to Hebden Bridge, because I knew it was quite an eco-friendly, 'hippie' area. In retrospect I wish I had thought more deeply and specifically about what I wanted to gain from this field trip because after the trip I realised I hadn't focused my aims very well. Despite this, it was a good and useful day.

One of the first places I went in Hebden Bridge was an independent bar that stocked a variety of beers. I was drawn in by the illustrations on the tins, and did some observational drawing in there.

  

I was intrigued in the way that art was used to sell a product. Particularly since the illustrations on the cans are so unrelated to the product they are selling. It must be very difficult to describe the taste of a beer through the design on the front so instead, the manufacturers must have decided to just make the cans visually interesting so that the consumer is drawn to them and picks them up. Although unrelated to my idea of limiting consumption and resourcefulness, it does relate to the initial idea of consumption and consumerism, and this is something I considered exploring later on.

Something else I found interesting about the shop was the stools that were there. They were made out of repurposed bottles (I think) and recycling materials, and this made me think about how we can repurpose old objects for new uses instead of throwing things away. This led on well to the next shop I went into.

The next shop I went into sold candle holders, lamps, etc made out of old materials. 

I found this quite interesting and it definitely related to my idea about reusing old objects and making them into new objects instead of throwing them away. These particularly were exciting because they weren't things you would have logically thought of making - for example, the lamp made out of an old sewing machine. 

After this, I went into an antiques shop. This is another example of things being recycled and reused only their purpose isn't changed, it's just being sold on to someone else. In there I bought some metal french pins. They were advertising products I didn't know about or had already stopped being used, so I suppose in a way their purpose is being changed. When they were produced, they were probably being used for advertising purposes but now that I am buying them years later, they are being used for aesthetic purposes. I really like the idea of the cycle of an object and it being passed from person to person and having different significance or purpose to each owner. This is something I definitely want to explore further. However, I also want to explore the idea of consumerism and advertising and it's effect on the consumer further.