Dress Code - Task

As part the dress code project witch me and my group are participating in along side our unit X project brief we have been asked to create to bag ideas; as a group we are trying to recreate this symbolic image take from White Chapel. We are each to design two bag  ideas than can be created to come as a collection and be shown on the street for the olympics.

The Metal Art gallery - Liverpool Art prize 2012

I as well as other members of g4 attended the Metal Gallery at Edge Hill Station. The evening was for the preview of the Liverpool Art Prize. We were there to support Robyn Woolston who we are collaborating with on the Dress Code Project. Robyn is one of the short listed artists, along with Alan Dunn, Tomo and The Drawing Paper's, Jon Barraclough and Mike Carney. 

Robyn Woolston

This installation was amazing,  there was a Silver Birch Tree situated in the centre of the room, which was in total darkness, and floor was then covered in thousands of plastic utensils making a disorienting and uneven surface. The public were allowed in the room and so it was very interesting as then plastic knives and forks where breaks and being misplaced.

The Drawing Paper

Alan Dunn

Tomo

The images show the work of all the short listers for the Liverpool Art Prize, the work of all artists is at a very high standard but i especially love Robyns work. 

Robyn Woolston

                                                        45,000 reclaimed plastic bags

                                                       132,000 plastic knives and forks

We have been working along side Robyn Woolston as part of our dress code project and i was really please when she took time out tell me about her work. Her pieces are amazing she uses mass amounts of recycled products to create installations. My favourite of the work i have seen is the 45,000 reclaimed plastic bags the piece looks beautiful and really reminds me of shells on the beach you would never guess by looking at that image that she had used recycled plastic bags. Robyn has also been short listed to be a winner of the Liverpool art prize 2012 and me and the group will be travelling to support Robyn at the opening.

Pin Up

As a group we went to hotspur house and had a pin up day. We created our own little space for us to come and work. I think the pin up worked really well as we could all see where each other ideas where heading after the easter break. We also collected the recycle bins and sorted through all the clothes that we had been donated.

Platt hall

Art Gallerys

For the past week or so i have been feeling a little lost in my personal project, i felt i had loads of ideas to being with but now have got a bit stuck and not sure where to take my project next, and so help me out i have decided to visit some Art Gallerys over the next few days to week and see if i can get some inspiration! 

Group workspace - Hotspur house

As a group we have created a workspace at Hotspur House. We have brought down to the venue all of the garments that have been collected and donated so far and have started to display them in the space. It has made it easier for us to view all the garments and begin to choose the items that we would each like to work on and experiment with.

Project: Dress code

Robyn and Jay two artists that are based in hotspur house have gave everyone involved in unit x the opportunity to help with this project; Dress code to help them with ideas and inspiration. Surprisingly it was only our group and another in wearing it that showed much interest to this opportunity. It will be a great experience to work with other people as well as professionals. Dress code is working with the olympics and the end creations will be presented on white chapel road weeks running up to the olympics. An added bonus is that the brief ties in perfectly with our groups ideas. I am really excited to find out more about this and start coming up with ideas and contributions. 

Campaign poster

This is my poster for the campaign, i used recycled magazine letters to relate to the recycling of clothing.

Collection

These images show the bins that we left out for people to donate there old clothing into its easy to see that we got great response to the campaign. We have a great variation on things to choose from so i will be good to see what we have to experiment with.

Campaign

To get the community aware of the campaign we decided to put the posters up around Manchester in and around the university and mentioned donating points, we put together bins for people to put the donated clothes in. We each designed our own poster for the campaign so we had more to hand out. For our end piece where we will be using the donated clothing we are hoping to invite the people of manchester and students back to see what we have done with the garments.

Stop Motion

One mans trash is another mans treasure

Recycle Centre

As a group we went to the Manchester recycle centre as we are looking into making new clothing collection from used items. I found the trip really interesting it was a lot different to how i expected it to be, but i think it was a good experience and has defiantly helped to motivate the recycle ideas we had for our project. 

Wearing it - Group 4

Make do & mend - research

The make do and mend movement played an important part in the daily life during world war two.  The war caused a shortage of supplies which was down to the sinking of ships trying to bring supplies across the channel to England. Another reason for a shortage of clothes was that „clothing manufacturers were commissioned to manufacture uniforms as a priority instead of civilian fashion and the introduction of “clothes rationing“ in 1941. Everybody was given ration books which had coupons inside them which had to be used in order to buy clothes or food. “Everybody had the same number of tokens so people could not buy more than their fair share. Everyone was given 66 coupons a year – which was later reduced due to intensified shortages. A women’s blouse was 12 coupons for example and head wear such as hats were coupon free.
Because of this shortage of clothes and through publications/campaigns like „Make Do and Mend“ by the Ministry of Information in 1943, which intended to help women to get the last possible ounce of wear out of all their and their families clothes . People started making new clothes from old ones and from all other household linen. During the world wars women became masterminds of make do and mend, so resourceful they fashioned up sexy knickers out of parachutes" Clothes now had to last longer in order to save precious coupons , they needed to be washed and ironed more carefully, were turned out & renovated, and even unpicked and knitted again in order to save materials. Nothing was thrown away, especially if it could be made into something else.Making stuff was a way of life because daily necessities like clothes were not so readily available to buy.

I found the above information at http://make-do-and-mend.org/make_do_mend.html its a great website and i have found a lot of my research from it.

I am fascinated as to how much society has changed since the Make do and Mend era, now if something gets a hole in we will throw it in the bin and if something goes out of fashion we will send it to the charity shop. I find it so surreal how little they had but made the most out of everything. My personal research of the Make do and Mend is linking brilliantly to the community couture, this is exactly the message i want to come across in my work, i want to show that clothes can be remade weather its mending a hole or combining garments together to make a completely new piece.

'Waste not, Want not'

Throwaway Society

'The throw-away society is a human society strongly influenced by consumerism. The term describes a critical view of  over-consumpition and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items.'


Today we live in a society where we see everything as waste once we have used something we don't think twice about then throwing it in the bin on sending old clothes to a charity shop, but we never stop and think if they really are useless to us. During our project we want to look more into waste and as a group we are taking a tip trip to Manchester's recycle centre to see why recycling has suddenly become so important and councils are getting more into it by making communities aware by providing bins for house. I am interested to see what becomes of the products we recycle!

A Trendless World?

As a group we want to solve the problem of fashion in the future. We believe that due to climate change and the increase of recycle clothing that the fashion industry will be lost along with all current trends.We want to make a statement and cause the people of Manchester to react, we will be campaigning to involve the people of Manchester to come together as a community and we are going to ask them to donate clothing they don’t want and reuse them to make new garments, by deconstructing and reconstructing the clothes into new pieces of clothing and new fabric samples, creating a future trend.