Pop Art

Pop Art, which surfaced in the UK and US throughout the time of the mid 1900s, is a vivid art movement that mixed traditional art styles with pop culture. Pop art was strongly influenced by things such as advertisements, comic books and mass media, like television, newspapers, social media and radio. Pop art’s main target / idea was to challenge traditional fine art by using images from popular culture. There were many artists who had a huge impact on enlarging and creating the movement. Artists like Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton and Roy Lichtenstein had this impact on the movement. This movement still exists to the present day, Artists like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami as well as many more continue the legacy of pop art through graphic design, fashion and many other ways.

Present Day Pop Art

Richard Hamilton`s list of the ‘characteristics of pop art’

Pop Art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business

How Pop Art Links To Union

Union:

According to Oxford Languages the definition of union is the following:

1. action of joining together or the fact of being joined together, especially in a political context.
2. a society or association formed by people with a common interest or purpose.

Synonyms For Union:

Joining, Uniting, Merging, Association, Combine, Mixture, Blending, alliance, group, club, society, partnership, combine, pairing, wedding, marriage, protests, agreement.

Antonyms Of Union:

Seperation, Parting, Divorce, Discord, Conflict, Rivalry, Isolation, Disintegration, Division.

Initial Mood Board

Above is my initial mood board, I commenced with finding images which show Union. I was looking for images which showed connection, culture, relationships, groups and identity, when selecting which photos to use in my mood board I carefully chose photographs which had symbols of union, like holding hands and crowds / protests and images which aesthetically just appealed to me. This mood board is a good starting point for my project as it helps me decifer which category of union I want to choose narrowing it down to a smaller group of ideas. From this mood board I will go on to find a main focus point and create a more specific mood board, targeted to the theme of choice, gathering more inspiration.

Mind Map

Once I had completed my initial mood board, I then went onto making a mind map which was narrowed down to 3 sections, narrowing down my choices from the initial mood board. The three sections which I branched out to when making my mind map was: Relationships, Cultural Union and Fashion & Identity. These 3 topics stood out to me when looking at photographs of all kinds of union in the initial mood board. Relationships was one of my first ideas when I initially found out the theme was union, it sprung to mind quick because relationships wether they are friends, family, teams or a romantic relationship, they are appparent and clear aspects which show unity and fit in perfectly with the theme of union. Even though relationships is an interesting path to go down, I want to focus on something more abstract and experimental, challenging views and provoking thoughts. So the other two themes under the category of union which stuck out to me were Fashion & Identity and Cultural union, these categories stood out more to me, as I could explore how fashion can be used for self expression including cultural backgrounds and etc. In conclusion, I have decided to combine both Culutural Union with Fashion & Identity because I think that they perfectly blend, showing how cultural expression can be shown in fashion and how they both work together to showcase a persons identity and unity in the world.

Final Mood Board

Above is my final mood board, this mood board is focused on fashion & identity as well as cultural union. In the centre of the mood board, in big, I have 2 main images which are what style and theme this project will mainly consist of. These two photos are taken by photographers: Hassan Hajjaj and Omar Victor Diop, these two photographers are a huge inspiration for this project and I will take my own images inspired by them. In this mood board you can also see cultural patterns, I have included this in my mood board as an idea of what patterned clothing the models could wear or for any shots of just the cultural pattern. I also have included photos of modern, streetwear clothing because I could show the difference between the past and present or even blend both of the cultural clothing pieces with modern clothing pieces, blending culture with modern fashion showing off diversity and unity. In conclusion my mood board is a great visual representation of my ideas and inspirations of how fashion can join with cultural influences, allowing people to express their identity.