Initial idea generation/responding to brief:
Mindmapping
After mind mapping I've decided that my chosen word for this project is going to be futures. I think these word/theme would give me the best opportunity to create some really interesting creative outcomes as well as giving me the opportunity to explore and research more about queer futurism and the idea of queer utopia, both things I've recently been very interested by. (For future reference, I'm using queer as an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender/those who identify within the LGBTQ+ community).
Ideas for futures project mind map:
After doing this more in-depth mind map I think I'm definitely interested in making a zine for the final outcome of this project which I'm currently thinking might include photos I've taken of my fellow LGBTQ+ students in halls in their bedrooms and get them to all tell me what their version or their own queer utopia would look like.
Initial artist research/artists I find exciting
These are both artists that I recently started following on Instagram and am really enjoying seeing their work on my feed. Thought it would be useful to look at artists on social media considering I'm currently thinking that I want my final outcome for this project/the end user context to mainly be shared and supported online.
I really like the very playful and childlike aesthetic of iscreamcolour (the artist on the left) but their work is very similar to stuff I was looking at for the previous photobook project. Shalvan Nikvashvili's work (on the right) on the other hand I think is really exciting. The way they morph and distort the face through prosthetics and very cleverly created masks I think is really clever. I love the wacky sometimes confusing outcomes in the photographs and this very unconventional and twisted aesthetic is something that I'm definitely considering using for this project as I've seen is a lot in queer art and art created by queer artists.
Early end user context research:
I'm currently thinking that I want my final outcome for this project to be a zine that would appear and be shared online. This would mean that the work wouldn't have to just exist in a pure zine form, photos from it could be shared and published on fashion and youth sites such as ID or on one of the online zines that I really like/aspire to have my work included in such as polyesterzine.
Initial Project Framework:
- I aim to create a zine exploring the idea of a queer utopia and the theme of queer futurism. This zine would include photos of fellow LGBTQ+ students that I live with in halls and through their words and my photographs I'd hope to educate the audience on the struggles that queer youth face today and how a queer utopia would benefit everyone.
Initial Photos:
To properly begin my project I thought that I would do an initial photoshoot to figure out and play around with how I wanted to express my message of queer utopias and queer futurism. I wanted to particularly experiment with gender in this shoot so styled my model, my boyfriend Robbie who identifies as genderqueer, in an outfit and makeup that made them feel gender euphoria (the feeling a trans person gets when he/she/they are able to start presenting as the gender they identify as and people start treating them accordingly). I juxtaposed this with a quite masculine setting, posing on top of a pool table, a typically masculine associated object. I made these choices along with the strong down lighting to show how powerful Robbie feels when he presents in his true gender expression, metaphorically squashing and being on top of the masculine expectations that he's felt trapped by.
For an initial shoot, I actually think I was able to create some pretty strong images. Below are my favourite images from the shoot:
I think what made them so successful was my use of lighting, with the shadows making some really bold contrast on the face and isolating the figure from the surroundings. I've been playing around with long exposures and movement a lot in recent shoots, but it was quite nice to just focus on capturing such still pictures as best I could but still make them interesting by playing with angles and poses to create different compositions. This was a good place to start if I want to take more photos of fellow LGBTQ+ students as I was able to figure which setting and lighting works best in this shoot, so this hopefully wouldn't be such a worry for my other shoots for my zine.
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