Write a Statement of Intent that clearly contextualise;

• What you want to explore?
• Why it matters to you?
• How you wish to develop your project?
• When and where you intend to begin your study?

Make sure you describe how you interpret the exam themes; UNION, subject-matter, topic or issue you wish to explore, artists references/ inspirations and final outcome – zine, photobook, film, prints etc.

In this project I’m wanting to focus on my grandparents marriage, their love story and their lives. Focussing on the exploration of the union between them and what it was like coming from two very different cultures at such a vulnerable time after world war 2. Cultural differences is a key theme for this topic due to my grandmother being German and grandfather being from Jersey. However for me I interpret union to be about coming together despite differences weather that’s cultural or personal differences. Which my grandparents love story is all about. I believe their marriage to be very special and they fought hard for it after having their wedding/marriage stopping 3 times.

I will be taking lots of inspiration from Christian Boltanski and Carolle Benitah when delving into this project. Christian Boltanski tends to on exploring/researching about these families when he creates his work. Whereas, Carolle Benitah uses her own family photos to try find herself and her identity. They’re reasoning behind their work resonates with me as part of the reason I choose this theme was because I wanted to find out more about my grandparents. I’m interested in learning more about their life together; their life apart; their families; their marriage etc…

For this project I’m interested in recreating some of the family photos that I have access to. Potentially even editing some photos to use both the original and my new version. There’s a photo of my grandmother standing in front of a lake with her reflection looking back at her which I would be interested in recreating and changing it so that I’m looking into the lake and she’s looking back at me or vice versa.

Christian Boltanski

Christian Boltanski is a French artist who used many mediums painting, sculpting, photography, and filmmaking. However, he’s widely known for his photography. His work tends to centre around the ideas of life and death where he often focuses on the Holocaust due to personal affiliation of his father being Jewish and experiencing what it was like to be Jewish during WW2.
What makes Christian Boltanski stand out compared to other artists is how he displays his work. He’s most known for when he enlarges his images and prints them onto fabric where he then uses hanging lightbulbs in order to make this interactive experience for viewers. Boltanski leaned into conceptual art and liked blurring the lines between fiction and reality.

One of my favourite of his exhibitions would be Luck also known as ‘Wheel Of Fortune’ from 2011. This exhibition focused on the ideas of fate and luck. He expressed this though using random images of new-born babies to represent the idea of the ‘lottery of life’. Similarly, he like bringing attention to our growing population and the fact that the worlds birth-rates are exceeding death rates. Boltanski actually has a really effective way of demonstrating that through simply presenting his audience with the daily statistics and numbers. Something that Christian Boltanski did say is that he wanted to make the audience question things like their existence with this exhibition.

Image Analysis

L’ Album de la famille D. 1939-1964

I find this image to be very visually interesting. He used 150 of his friends’ family photos to create this piece. He arranged it very symmetrically, and although each photo is so different; they all appear to be very cohesive together. He was able to create this effect purely through visual repetition of the same-sized photos and their all being in black and white.
When you look closely at this piece of work and the images within it, you start to see the imperfections of the pictures. Some appear to be blurry, not framed perfectly, etc. However, that’s a big part of the piece. They were perfect. They weren’t taken by professional photographers; it was just that family capturing their lives and their experiences.
It’s said that he created this piece as he knew little to nothing about his friend’s (Michael Durand) family so he wanted to try and reconstruct his family’s story. He liked the idea of learning about his friends family, learning the relationships between people, learning the order of pictures taken. However it did not have the effect he expected. He believed it would bring him a connection with his friends family but instead it just made him think of his own family and his memories.

Carolle Benitah

Carolle Benitah is a French Moroccan photographer who was inspired by pervious family portraits which were taken around 40 years ago. She decided to delve into ideas of her childhood so she could explore and define her identity at the time.
She spoke about the photos provoking a lot of emotion as there was “something both familiar and total unknown” surrounding these family photos. Part of her work that made her unique was the embroidery and needlework she used on these family portraits. One of the reasons she decided to explore the idea of using needlework with her images is because within society it can be considered quite a feminine skill to have and could be seen as a paragon of virtue. In her culture, it was quite common for girls to be taught by their mothers these skills in order to be seen as the “perfect woman”.
She’s manipulated these photos to re-interpret her family history. “With each stitch, I make a hole with a needle. Each hole is a putting to death of my demons. It’s like an exorcism. I make holes in paper until I am not hurting anymore.”

Image Analysis

le déguisement (the disguise), 2009

This photo has to be one of my favourite of her work. It creates this very haunting and unusual feel to it. She was able to create that atmosphere by adding the renowned red stitching. Additionally she’s intentally added these red masks on all the children’s faces whilst having them all connected together in this chaotic loop leading back to that one girl. I think it works so well because there isn’t a set way to interpret that so every individual can resignate with it weather they believe she’s trying to erase them or to show them being controlled etc… Carolle Benitah’s work completely defies stereotypical aesthetics however she’s made it her own and its now a key part of her style and its what makes images like this recognisable.

Dadaism

Surrealism

Cubism

Futurism

Expressionism

Its said that expressionism started to take off after world war 1 with many German, Austrian, French and Russian artists becoming prominent after producing work based on their experience and response to the war. However many people in Europe delved into this art movement during the 19th century due to the rapid industrialisation as people were unhappy and struggling and wanted a way to express that emotion.

Expressionism is said to be a art movement which generated in Europe in around the 20th century and it initially took the form of poetry. Expressionism aims to create an emotional response to objects or events. Artists will often achieve this through distorting their work; using strong vivid colours and having exaggerated lines. A great example of this would be Edvard Munch’s painting ‘the scream’. Expressionism tends to be a lot more individual and personal this could be because expressionism is about expressing your emotions into this new form.

Relating words-

Community, alliance, agreement, marriage, partnership, joining, merging, combining, harmony, club, brotherhood, organisation, coupling, gathering, grouping, combination, assemble, reunion, coalition, conjugation, trade union, pairing, connection, uniting 

Potential ideas:

• Union between people- ​

People coming from different locations, upbringings, backgrounds, cultures etc…​

(as a society we are good at creeating theses communties dispite these differneces)​

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• Union within nature -​

How nature relies on its collaboration within itself in order to survive​

(flowers need rain, sun, nutrients in order to grow and survive)​

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• Generational union-​

Bonds between grandparents, parents, children family trees ​

(this genration wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for previous generations ​

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• Opposites​

The idea that union doesn’t purely mean harmony but rather coming togther dispite differences ​

(fire and water, Feminine vs masculine, Humanity vs technology, Hero vs villain