Further Wicca Research:
This week I mainly want to focus on getting my book together. I want some personal handwritten messages in my book, so I thought I would reach out on instagram account to try and get some mainly female and non-binary identifying people to answer some questions about their experiences with Wicca or any other modern pagan religion. Below are the questions I asked and screenshots of the responses I received, all of whom gave me consent to use their words in my project.
Wicca/modern pagan religion questions:
How long have you been practicing/following Wicca (or other modern pagan religion)
How did you come across Wicca (or other modern pagan religion)
Were there any particular factors or things that have happened in your life that made you start following the religion?
Would you say that practicing the religion has given you a better understanding of you as a person and or empowered you?
What can society learn from Wicca (or other modern pagan religion) that would benefit it as a whole?
Why do you think there’s been a massive resurgence of the religion in the past few decades?
What are some misconceptions that people have about Wicca (or other modern pagan religion) that you wish you could change?
Do you think you would follow the religion if you weren’t female or non-binary identifying? (Not to say that men can’t follow the religion too, but does being female or non-binary have a big part to play in you practicing Wicca (or other modern pagan religion)?)
The people who gave responses that I thought were most relevant to my project I asked to hand write some of their answers so that I could use their words in my book and it be a lot more personal to people who have real experiences with Wicca/modern pagan religions:
I'm really grateful for the responses I got. I found it really interesting learning about different people's experiences with Wicca/a modern pagan religion, as all this time I've read lots of articles online and seen lots of videos about people who practice the religion but they seem like film characters to me/I don't have any connection to them, so I think it's really beneficial for me to use experiences of people who I actually know as I think it will add to the very personal message of the book.
Luzene Hill Retracing the Trace
After receiving such personal responses to my instagram post, it made me think about the very personal message that I want to reflect through my work in this project surrounding my experience with sexual assault, and so thought it would be good to look at another artist who has explored a similar message with their work. This is when I came across this installation titled 'Retracing the Trace' by Luzene Hill.
'Hill visually represents the number of rapes that go unreported in the United States in every 24 hours: 3,780. Her performance installation begins with the artist lying on the floor in the center of the gallery, her arms and legs bent, as 3,780 red khipu style Incan knots are poured over her. She then rises, leaving behind an imprint of her body, similar to the one left in the park where she was assaulted in 1994. After rising from the gallery floor, the artist proceeds to spend the next 60 hours individually pinning each knot to the walls, slowing forming a red ring around the room. For Hill, it is important to touch, recognize and account for each knot, she describes this process as “the gradual removing of a violent trace, into a reckoning,” https://wam.umn.edu/2017/04/10/7-artists-using-their-practice-to-address-gendered-and-sexual-violence/
I had a deeply emotional response to Hill's work when I first saw this piece. It's such a poetically violent depiction and representation of rape and sexual assault, which is so often dehumanised and lessened through statistics, but the way that Hill has so vividly displayed this work and use the crime scene looking figure in the centre makes the whole thing feel incredibly raw and powerful. I similarly want to portray a very personal message but in a powerful way, and the way Hill is so unapologetically vulnerable and honest has really inspired me.
After seeing Luzene Hill's installation piece, I wanted to try and edit my own work to give off my message more explicitly. I thought one way I could do this would be to use very scientific images of the inside of female reproductive system as textures and overlays in photoshop because one, the female anatomy is so often taken advantage of and objectified, it feels like we live are lives under a microscope, and two, because the act of sexual assault and rape is so inhumane and animalistic it feels like perpetrators view the female body and female genitalia as just another bit of flesh. Below are some images I've found online that I thought would be perfect to use:
Below are two of my attempts to incorporate some of the above images into my own photography. Much like my previous edits, I tried lots of different filters and blending options to bring the different photos together. There's definitely a fleshy, scientific feel to these images which it was I was going for when I started editing them. However, as much as I like them and think that they definitely have a more raw feel to them, I'm not so sure that they fit the folk horror aesthetic that I want, they look more sci-fi to me. Also after taking it to this extreme, I've decided that I want to be a bit more subtle and lees explicit with my message and my narrative, especially after re-visiting Marco Marzocchi's work last week. So, I'm glad I tried out edits as it's made me much more sure of how I want my photo book to look, and it's not like this!
Another way I thought that I could emulate a similar vulnerability and power to Luzene Hill's work would be to find photos of the person who assaulted me and digitally destroy and cut into them as a bit of a 'fuck you' sort of statement. Honestly, it's been quite traumatic and painful going through and finding these photos, but the process of basically graffitiing on them has been pretty therapeutic. I tried two different kinds of collage, as seen below. The one on the left I did first, but I think it looks too much like a shrine and appreciation of the person, almost like a girl scrap booking their favourite celebrity, which is definitely not what I was going for. So for the second one I manipulated and edited into the photos a lot more, layering all the images on top of one another so it felt busy and vivid and then experimenting with different blending options to give the neon, x-ray feel. I then added the text and tried out layering the collage onto an image of an old piece of paper to try and give it more of a folk horror feel. I'm not sure if any of the edits particularly fit the look I'm going for, but there's definitely elements I can use in my book, especially the hand written text as it gives a much more personal and raw feel to the image. So yes it been very difficult for me emotionally putting these together, the more neon and colourful look of the collage doesn't fit the aesthetic I'm going for either but there are elements of them that I would like to use for my photo book so I'm glad I tried it out.
Alternative edits:
After doing the previous edits and realising that I want a much less in your face look to my work, I thought I would try more subtle and earthy inspired edits to try and bring it back to the folk horror aesthetic I've been looking at throughout this project. I definitely think these edits are much closer to the look I've been going for. I tried to layer some old paper and different grainy textures over the images, seen in particular in the image on the right, as well as enhancing the original colours of the images with green being dominated in the image on the left and blue being dominant in the image on the right as the folk horror aesthetic very much celebrates earthy tones. I'm a lot happier with these edits and thing it a good starting point to start piecing together my photo book.
Photo book draft 1:
After playing around with different digital edits and experiments I thought it would be good to physically alter my photos and try to put my book together by hand, especially keeping in mind the work of Antonio Palmerini who often paints and or uses other painting techniques to manipulate and his photographs and further enhance the dreamlike quality of his work as well as the very personal message I'm aiming to express through this photo book so I think it will be good if I'm physically trying to piece it together.
< to the left is an image of me try to arrange the order of my book by laying the images out onto my bed.
Below are scans of the first draft of my photo book which I made by sticking my images into an old scrapbook
For a first draft, I'm pretty happy with how this came out. I hand stitched the front cover title in a purposefully messy manner to further emphasise the personal feel of the book and I used a runic looking font to get across the folk horror look of the book from the get go. I decided on the title 'You will not take my power' after I wrote something similar at the end of my blog post last week and it really resonated with me and perfectly encapsulates the message I'm trying to project, one of power and strength in recovery from sexual assault. I was very much thinking about the book 'Oyster' by Marco Marzocchi when I was making this, so really wanted to give it a sketchbook feel much like his work as I really like the very intimate and raw effect that is created through using this style. I tried to do this myself by visibly sticking down the images with masking tape, layering the images on top of one another and including little hand written sections throughout which are a mixture of my own words and quotes from the responses I got to my instagram post. Now that I've mostly figured out the layout of my photo book I'm pretty confident that's it's going to look really strong when I digitally put it together.
Front and back cover making process:
After making the hand embroidered front cover, I wanted to experiment with some other options for the front of my book. As this book has been heavily inspired by Wicca and modern pagan religions, I though it would be good to look at some of the symbols used in these religions to see if I could use any of them on the covers and throughout my book, particularly focusing on symbols for Mother Earth and female power. Here's what I found:
Ceres (astrology)
Ceres is described as the Earth Mother. She is associated with health, nutrition, agriculture and fertility. Her symbol represents, transition, motherhood and nuture.
Earth (Pagan & Wicca)
In the four classical elements, earth is considered the ultimate symbol of the divine feminine. In the spring, at the time of new growth and life, the earth quickens and grows full with the beginnings of each year's crop. The image of Earth as Mother is no coincidence -- for millennia, people have seen the earth as a source of life, a giant womb.
The Triple Goddess (Wicca - symbol of waxing, full and waning moon)
Traditionally in Wicca, the Goddess is seen as the Triple Goddess, meaning that she is the maiden, the mother and the crone. The mother aspect, the Mother Goddess, is perhaps the most important of these, and it was her that Gerald Gardner and Margaret Murray claimed was the ancient Goddess of the witches. Certain Wiccan traditions are Goddess-centric; this view differs from most traditions in that most others focus on a duality of goddess and god. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiccan_views_of_divinity
Berkana ᛒ - “Birch'“
Berkana is the rune of birth. It represents the Birch Goddess and so indicates fertility and creation, not just of an actual birth (its traditional meaning), but also of projects, partnerships and rebirth. It indicates mental and physical growth, and a regenerative power and liberation of spirit. Reversed it can point to family troubles, anxiety, carelessness and loss of control. https://www.twowander.com/blog/rune-meanings-how-to-use-runestones-for-divination
Different versions of my front cover using different Wicca and pagan symbols:
I hand drew some of the symbols that I found and imported them into photoshop to see what they would look like as part of the cover of my photobook. I also experimented with changing the background to make it a lot darker to fit the more earthy tones of the folk horror aesthetic. I quite like both options, I think it's been good to research Wicca and pagan symbols and try and incorporate them, especially considering how much they've influenced my project. I think it's just a case of seeing which version I prefer when I put my book together on Indesign.
Photo book draft 2
New Pages:
For my digital photo book, I wanted to create some more pages to make it look a bit more polished. I started off with experimenting with the scanner, moving and flipping some of my printed off images as the scanners censor moved to distort the image. I wanted to include an element of distortion in my photo book, as I think it would be a really symbolic way for me to represent how completely disassociated I felt to my body in the first few months of recovery after I was assaulted, and using the scanner has skewed the images in a very unpredictable way that I don't think I'd be able to achieve just in photoshop. So I definitely want to include some of these scans as pages of my book. I've also created a lot of other new pages, as seen below. The main one I want to discuss is the double page spread with the photo on fire, I think this will be right at the start of my book. I knew that I wanted to include the face of my assaulter somewhere in this book, I tried using collage as seen earlier on in this post, but decided to take a photo of me burning an image of his face, and I think that this is a lot more effective and fits with the overall aesthetic of the book better. I also think it's a lot more symbolic, physically burning his face rather than digitally manipulating pictures of him to represent the title of the book in visual form that he will not take my power. I also decided to very bluntly and clearly state the date that I was assaulted. I think that this is quite a powerful move on my part, especially having the next being centre of the page surrounded by white you can't miss it. One of my aims of this book is to encourage people to share their stories and not shroud themselves in shame for things that have happened in their lives which they had no control over. I want to show that it is possible to find your strength and power again, even after someone tries to take it from you, and by having this page at the start it completely shapes the narrative of the rest of the book which otherwise might just seem like some nice pictures of the sea etc.
Here is the second draft of my book. I've put it all together in Indesign and slightly changed the layout from my first draft, cutting down the pages and creating some new pages digitally as seen above. I really liked the look of the masking tape in my original version, so tried to incorporate that into some of the pages to still give it a scrapbook feel.
Virtual mockup:
I don't think I've quite made the finished version of my photo book yet, but it's definitely close. I like this version so much that I decided to see what it might look like printed, so used a site called Issuu where you can create digital mock ups of books. Click the link below to have a look.
At this point I'm not sure I'm going to have time to get my book professionally printed, so I think it's good to have this option as a my final outcome.
Week 11 reflections:
I've had a very up and down week this week, but it's certainly been very productive, going from no book at the start to now having a new finished work. It's been difficult emotionally forcing myself to look at images of the person who assaulted me again, but I've definitely used my creativity very therapeutically to work through some of that pain. It was really useful looking at the work of Luzene Hill as it re-focused me and reminded me of the true purpose behind the work I have been creating for this project. I'm pretty happy with the latest version of the book I've made, I'm still not 100% sure about the covers and would like to add some text to the empty pages at the start of the book, but that will be a job for next week. So overall I'm pretty proud of the work I've produced this week because, due to the fact that I've done more experimentation, I've been able further whittle down how to finally achieve the look I've been going for all this time.
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