Choice of paper

I chose to print my photos and text on standard printer paper. There were a number of reasons for this choice:

Personal feel – I wanted my work to have a personal ‘raw’ feel to it, and therefore wanted to give it a scrapbook kind of feel. I decided that printing the work on photo paper would make the work to ‘nice’ and presentable and not convey the work in the way I wanted it to be viewed.
Cost – Because I needed to print photos for the top and bottom of each layer, with each layer having multiple photos, the cost of getting them printed was not realistic
Easy to work with – Because of the thin feel of normal paper it meant that it was easy to work it, being able to overlap it, bend it and apply it to the sculpture easily. I wanted to tear the images to once again give it more of a personal feel, and using printer paper allowed me to do this

Test Images

‘The reflection in the mirror isn’t me. On the outside I am smiling. Underneath, I am suffocating. I’m juggling so much pain; physical, emotional and before you know it the cracks start to show.’ I paired this image with the quote to show the idea of reflection. Within the quote I talk about the suffocation, and the fact that I am not clear within the image portrays this. Not being to see my face, and therefore any emotions shows how I hide how I am feeling. The black sillohette symbolises the negative aspects within my life.

Layered sculpture design

After struggling to think of ways to construct the sculpture with layers, i’m going to put it together using invisible wire. This will allow each layer to hang separately so that the pictures and writing can be seen, still enabling the shape of a person to be made.

The wire will go through each layer, and the sculpture when presented will be hung up. When the sculpture is not hung up it will simply collapse together, meaning the sculpture is only visible at certain times.

Sculpture Design

As well as experimenting with the method i’ve already previously spoken about, in which I create layers that would make the shape of the ‘body’, I also want to experiment with using paper mache to create my sculpture.

With the idea of pulling out layers, I am struggling to find ways to attach the layers together, as well as creating something that allows me to remove each layer and slide it back in. I also think that simply sticking photographs and words onto each layer isn’t as creative or as interesting as I would like the project to be.

Using paper mache to create a ‘body’ shape will allow me to easily cover the sculpture. I would look to cover the main body in words and quotes that I have personally written which describes social anxiety, and from the head have ‘stem’s’ representing my thoughts, in which I hang photographs off.

Below is a basic mock up of the how words would look covering the main part of the body, and as I go onto mock the work up for real, I will then add the stems in which the photographs can be attached.

Basic mock up of text on the main sculpture

Project development

When I started this project I looked into using decopatch as a way of placing photographs onto an object. Although I wasn’t exactly sure at the start of how I wanted to represent this, I knew that I somehow wanted to use a mask which I had previously used within my last project.

Since researching into other sculptures that have been produced regarding the issue of mental health, I have found that using the body in some form as a sculpture is a popular way of representing mental health. I have moved on from the idea of using a mask, and instead am looking into a way of producing a 3D sculpture of a head to show the link with the invisible problem of mental health.

I also jotted down keys words and ideas that I wanted to incorporate within my work. They are as follows:

Sculpture
Layers – Different parts of my life that contribute and represent my social anxiety
Personal – Keeping the project personal to me and my own battles with mental health
Decopatch
Photographs
Childhood – The way in which my upbringing and childhood could have contributed to my mental health
Writing and quotes – Using my own writing to talk about my personal experience with social anxiety

I wanted to create something that somehow incorporated all of these different thoughts. The one that stood out to me most was layers. As somebody who suffers from social anxiety i’m not good at expressing myself to people and talking about why I suffer from social anxiety and how it makes me feel. There are lots of different things that contribute to the disorder, creating this idea of layers. Combining this with the idea of creating a sculpture based around the human body has made me think of a new idea for this project.

I am interested in creating a 3D model of the human body as previously mentioned, but almost directing it into layers. On each layer will represent a different aspect of my social anxiety. The work will incorporate both photographs and text which will be written by me. Although the project is once again very personal to me, I want the work to also be a help to those going through a similar thing and will be something that they can relate to. My next steps is to look into what the actual sculpture can be made from and to best produce the layers within the work.

Project 84 – Mark Jenkins

84sculptures_close-1024x683

Project 84 was a campaign produced by This Morning to represent male suicide. The project was created to ignite a conversation surrounding male suicide, with 84 sculptures being placed on top of studios in London. 84 men take their own life every week within the UK and each sculpture represented one of these men and their stories.

The project for me is quite shocking, especially if you were to see this in person without expecting too. However, I believe that this is needed to make people notice and talk about mental health, instead of ignoring the issue. The project was a collaboration between This Morning and the mental health charity CALM. Using both a charity and popular tv show meant that the campaign could reach a wider audience, something that is important to think about when thinking about how my work can reach a specific audience.

The work not only included the sculptures, but a website in which 84 men who have died from suicide were named, with some going as far to share their stories. Adding this personal touch to the work makes the sculptures and their stories a lot more realistic and harder as a viewer to deal with. I want to incorporate a form of writing and personal experiences within my work, giving a real life insight into what it is like to suffer with social anxiety.