ART EXHIBITION PROPOSAL
“Buy One Get None Free”
Showroom Workstation
This exhibition aims to examine various types of poverty and the effects of consumerism across the world. It studies our own culture and what we consider to be "the other".
We hope to make others aware of problems bigger than their own, making them aware that solutions to problems are out there and hopefully enlighten the audience of how certain aspects of our life affect others and the world we live in. Our ultimate goal is to communicate a message of hope amongst desperation.
Ultimately indirectly promoting independent and fair-trade businesses, we will ask the audience to think about what the difference between need and want and responsible spending.
The exhibition aims to swing between easy and extreme views conveying the schizophrenic attributes of the paradoxes of the world. Influenced by a range of artists, global issues and personal accounts, this promises to provoke and tickle!
Features work from; Toni Childs, Christina Mooney, Kirsten West, Georgina Christian, Sophie Reed, Sophie Muir, Naomi Everett, Mark McGowan, Moss Green, Ben Pearce and possibly Rahul Bhatt.
Coordinators
Toni Childs (Head), Georgina Christian, Christina Mooney
Production
Sophie Reed, Sophie Muir
Marketing
Kirsten West, Naomi Everett
Artist Statements
Toni Childs
I base my work around feelings of rejection, exclusion, involvement and acceptance in the comparative cultures of Chesterfield and anywhere I travel. My work incorporates the visual representation of strong contradicting feelings aiming to evoke a sense of empathy in a generally apathetic society that ignores issues, pain, suffering, achievements and triumphs of myself, others and the world around them.
Wanting to distance from direct didacticism and exoticizing the way I chose to represent my work is very careful especially depending on which medium I’m using. In painting I find it liberating and easy to “paint” how feelings adding other materials to these collages. Photography is more of a challenge that I have met with critical thinking and an array of experimentation and creative risk taking, as it is too easy to take photographs of people and commercialize and display them as “the other” making them look like they’re in a charity appeal.
After many years of struggling to communicate with an audience about my experiences of being maltreated, distressed, lost and yet full of ambition and hope, volunteering in developing countries has given me the assurance and optimism that people and situations can change and that nothing regarding the human spirit is irreparable.
I continue to make work that challenges people to ask themselves if they can empathize and relate with others effectively and what they believe in.
Georgina (George) Christian
As a mixed-media artist, I combine elements of paint, photography, print, sculpture, textiles and text. The use of such materials allows me to convey the discovery of emotion within my work. My creative process begins with subconscious drawing from my photography. This develops into layering with the use of materials and then I break these drawings back down into a reworked creation by which I am often inspired.
“The media promotes and reflects the current mainstream culture's standards for body shape or size and importance of beauty. The media reflect images of thinness and link this image to other symbols of prestige, happiness, love and success for women. Repeated exposure to the thin ideal via the various media can lead to the internalization of this ideal. It also renders these images achievable and real. Until women are confronted with their own mirror images they will continue to measure themselves against an inhuman ideal.”
For this exhibition I aim to create a large installation piece, conveying the honest truths about fashion advertising. I want to provoke an audience by unveiling the truth behind advertising and possibly exposing the subliminal messages which control the population into materialistic lifestyle.
Naomi Everett
I am currently exploring a range of different artistic styles and methods of working. Central to this theme is motifs and iconography from Japanese culture both old and new with a particular focus into traditional Japanese crafts. Interested by the unknown and unfamiliar. I am currently making 1000 origami cranes which is said in Japan to make a persons wish come true. I am interested in the process of making a piece of work and in the labour and time that is put in and believe that this journey can often be more important than the work itself.
Leading on from this thought of ‘labour’ I have begun looking at the globalization of developing countries, with particular focus on the conditions that some workers are forced to endure. In a report by the Guardian M&S, Gap and Next were all found in the “centre of a major sweatshop scandal” which included excessive amounts of overtime and underpayment. I am interested in how physically and emotionally demanding these conditions must be and if the end product is actually worth all the work put in.
“Brands like Coca Cola, Nike and Sony have become a part of the fabric of vast numbers of peoples life’s.” It is interesting to think how a single object can affect so many different people in so many different ways and how people’s life’s can be linked without them even realising it. In which I am focusing on the relationship between the factory worker and the western consumer.
I propose a performance piece in which I plan on knitting from 9am to 10pm 7 days a week while documenting my progress. My aim is to provoke while providing a greater understanding into the actual conditions workers face in developing countries, which in turn enables our consumerist lifestyle.
Christina (Tina) Mooney
Over the years, I have used art as my way of expressing my feelings and letting my frustrations out. I prefer to channel my emotions through my work as I find it difficult to talk about my feelings. To me, art is a subject with a lot of freedom, which I find useful as I have quite a wild imagination, which needs to be free to work.
In the past I stuck to painting, but over the past two years I have moved onto other mediums such as video, sound and installation. I prefer to work with different mediums every now and again as it excites me and gives me more of a variety within art. I always carefully choose what mediums would best suit my ideas, because my work is based on my emotions, I’d like to make sure my point gets across effectively.
My current practice is based around consumerism and how I feel the world is today. I am focusing on how we, as people, live our lives on a daily basis, which is the main issue of my idea. To me, the world is going in one fast spin and turning into a blur. Our lives are going so quick and we are doing nothing different, we do the same thing everyday. Sleep, eat, work, shop and sleep. I want to create a video which will show the audience the truth of how we live today, emphasising the greed, laziness and selfishness of our world today. Instead of thinking about ourselves and buying unnecessary objects to fill a hole in our lives, we could be helping the third world countries and saving lives everyday. We need to make this world a better place, and we can start doing this by making the audience see where the world has gone wrong.
Sophie Muir
My current practice is based around what society classes as normal and the reaction people have to the abnormal. Through my own fascination with beards i have focused my work around the physical image of people with facial hair and I have started out by looking at bearded women. As my research has progressed it led me to looking at Ana Mendieta performance piece in which she stuck human hair onto her face to create her own beard. I decided to replicate this performance repeatedly though I would only use human hair once as for the other times I would use seemingly random substances. I documented the work through video. However the final image would be the photograph of the finished beards. I also took inspiration from the grooming and styling that many people have done with their beards and/or moustaches. This led me to finding the photographer Dave Mead who photographed 30 men all with different styled facial hair.
The medium I use varies between drawing and photography. For this exhibition I intend to create two large A2 size images. The image will consist of women with a beard. My aim of these images is to make people think about the way they really see people who look different, the social class we have placed ourselves and others in and the way in which we buy into what advertisement/consumerism/society tells us.
Sophie Reed
I am primarily a self-taught artist. Painting and drawing has always been a natural form of expression for me. I take inspiration from what I see, feel and hear around me and view everyday objects or occurrences as pictures waiting to be told. We can take pictures with a camera and pass them around our friends, but they only see what is reflected, like a mirror. As an artist I am able to see much more with my eyes and my heart. Even the smallest things in the eyes of an artist can capture beauty, even if it is hidden from sight. I use drawings to express detail and tone, whilst using paint to evoke and express emotions through colour and texture.
For this exhibition I intend to illustrate how important it is to challenge consumerist values. We are stuck on a treadmill of production and consumption and the alienation of work causes people buy things to make themselves feel better. As the world continues to work this way we unknowingly condition and manipulate future generations into similar values and morals. I am going to create a large painting to be hung within the exhibition, which will hopefully convey a strong message, influencing the audience to react to consumerism in a negative way.
Kirsten (Kris) West
My art practice aims to highlight issues I come across within British culture and daily life, using humour as both an anchor and a uniting element for the viewer. Using the mediums of video, inks and photography, I make pieces that are aimed for a reaction. I combine my creative processes with current technologies, such as social networking and blogging to involve a mass audience to interact with my work.
For this exhibition I am going to turn mass media to my advantage. By making works that use subliminal messages and hidden jokes, I aim to challenge what others value about what society tells us about trade and consumerism. We as a people are subject to unrelenting advertising and messages of attainment and excess; leaving us as consumers, not human beings. I aim to expose this idea to the viewer and leave them questioning where they stand within this consumerist society.
Exhibiting Works
With the exhibition, we hope to make an impact on the ideas and issues involved in trade, with an eye on global and British markets. As students studying Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University, we are right in the focused sector of young consumers that are targeted by companies everyday and are able to turn the media on it’s head to expose the issues involved with today’s attainment-focused culture.
We are booking a guest speaker to speak on the issue of ‘Trade’ and getting somebody from Divine Chocolate to come set up a stall to sell chocolate at our exhibition and maybe other fair trade companies.
Individual
Sophie Muir - One or two drawings/photography of a2/a3 size.
Kris West- Video pieces and poster(s), small TV’s, 2 or 3
Sophie Reed - One oil paining a2/a3 size on plywood
Tina Mooney- video art on TV in interactive “lounge area”
Naomi Everett- Performance piece requiring very small space
Toni Childs- Selection of small paintings, a2/a3 size, sculptures of different size no bigger than 50cmx50cm and 7 small ads.
Mark McGowan – Video piece.
Rahul- Photographs
Collaboration
George Christian & Kris West- Installation piece on control through advertising (see Barbara Kruger as an influence), will need large wall/ceiling/floor space.
Ben Pearce & Moss Green- Global Arts Project, paintings dimensions to be confirmed.
We also possibly require space for small trade stalls.
The exhibition will run from Wednesday 16th to Saturday 19th March 2011.
A collaboration of contemporary artists explores the issues and agendas of trade and consumerism. What do we buy? Why do we buy? Is consumerism the new religion?
