week 1

On Tuesday, I started my research week by trying to visit the british museum. I was unable to make it inside because of the crowd, so I took this opportunity to walk around the area and observe instead. Doing this led me down a more nostalgic path than expected. As I was walking away from the museum, I stumbled across a store I had completely forgotten about. The last time I had been there was my first time in London, and it was to buy my grandfather a cane. He passed away a few months ago, and having the memory of the moment was bittersweet. It was inspiring to come across a forgotten memory and I kept it in mind while continuing my research.

On Wednesday, I visited another museum and did some experimental research. I visited the fashion and textiles museum with very low expectations. I thought nothing would come out of the experience because I knew I didn’t want my piece to go in a “fashion” direction, but I went anyway so that I could see if there were any textures/colors that inspired me. I was surprised by what came out of this research, and I used a lot of it for my project. The exhibit I saw was about quilts, which gave me an insight to storytelling that I hadn’t considered before. Using imagery, I was able to get a sense of being watched, as well as being a watcher. I was mainly inspired by the quilts called “watching” and “levitate” because of the perspectives that they pushed. After seeing them I knew I wanted to give viewers the illusion of “peeking in” to my project, because I wanted to highlight the idea of performance for an audience. The experiment I did went along with the idea of performance. I set up a camera to record me dancing, something I am uncomfortable with, because I wanted to force myself out of my comfort zone and show how performance can correlate with exploitation and exposure.

On Thursday, I visited the exhibit “people make television” because I am trying to gather insight about television before it became what it is today. I found the exhibition to be empowering but at the same time not, because it showed a unity of people fighting about issues which I found inspiring, but a lot of the issues were ones that still require activism and work today, showing how nothing and everything has changed. I also found that the individual channels were a good starting point for any project, and pushed me in a new direction. I continued my research by doing another experiment on my discomfort, this one relating to how I felt about sensory issues. I set up a camera, and documented myself getting wet in my clothes. I found this difficult because I had to deal with the sensation of cold water, the weight of clothes that were not meant to be wet, as well as the exposure of my body because of the water. I think this helped me get a better idea of how to express myself in my project.

FMP reflection

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