Stuck - Personal Evaluation

Throughout this project I have chosen to explore how lockdown has affected motivation using the body as a vessel and manipulating how the body appears to convert these emotions of sadness which so many will be feeling currently. Using black and white imagery throughout all my materials/pieces to present the bleakness of life along with the negative space being used to communicate sadness. Within my first shoot I used my body as a prop and went through my house propping myself up against the wall, still standing but barely due to the lack of motivation and boredom which surrounds us within lockdown. The emptiness of the walls around our house are becoming more noticeable, what was once comforting is no longer due to being trapped within our home for so long. The negative space used presents discomfort with being trapped in the home along with the lack of motivation due to the body being propped up against the wall, still alive but have little energy left. To take this idea of lack of motivation further I chose to embroider this first photoshoot imagery onto pillows to use the idea of the exhaustion that goes along with lack of motivation. Wanting to sleep to escape the stresses and emotions which are caused by the isolation of lockdown. By using a pillow, I feel it's appropriate materials to communicate exhaustion which is felt. Within the embroidery it was hand stitched using a fine black thread presenting the outline of my photoshoot imagery, I chose to use this thread to then further exaggerate the negative space surrounding the imager. Along with this it also shows some fragility due to the thin threads presenting the ideas of fragile, emotions within lack of motivation due to lockdown. Each pillow took a day to stitch which I thought it was ironic considering my work is about lack of motivation it was a very time-consuming task. However, they came out successful within communicating my ideas of exhaustion. To the finalise my ideas I used these pillows to create my final photoshoot of a body sat down slumped into the pillows with the pillows obstructing the body. I chose to position the figure sat down to show complete exhaustion and using the pillows as a prop to rest on to further exaggerate the lack of motivation and exhaustion lockdown is causing. Personally, I believe my work has been successful in communicating lack of motivation due to lockdown with further support of my research into other people's experiences along with artist research for material/techniques to use within my work. Anja Neimi was a large inspiration throughout my photo shoots as she uses the body to manipulate the emotions within the images along with the body being a dominant visual element throughout each image. I used this as inspiration as I wanted to use the body as a vessel and make it appear lifeless due to being stripped from motivation. Further using the body Harrison and Wood used the body as a vessel and further manipulated and appear as ’limp’ to show the lethargy of which many are currently experiencing. Harrison and Wood focus upon moving the body in particular ways around a room or object to warp and audiences opinion or manipulate the atmosphere of the piece using their body which is what I have used to take my photo shoots further within inspiration. I find these two artists to be relevant within my exploration of exhaustion. However, within my use of embroidery I chose to use Sarah Walton as a material reference due to her exploration of capturing images using a fine black embroidery thread which I have used within my work. By looking at each of these artists it has allowed me to gather relevant research and inspire the creation of my work along with using my own personal feelings towards the current lockdown as well. I feel my emotions are heavily reflected throughout each photoshoot which is why I chose to use myself as a model. Even though my materials were restricted, I feel that I would not have created this project in any other way. My outcomes are successful within how I want to communicate my message of lethargy and the use of black and white throughout is also highly successful within creating this atmosphere further.

Overall, I feel my use of the body within my photography and understanding how that can convey emotion is a skill that I have learnt – taking away the face can be a powerful way to suggest negativity. I believe my response to the brief is highly successful along with my outcomes.