Ideas

So, I’m quite a bit further into the process of developing my concept. I originally started this project looking into Northern Ireland’s current state socially/politically, and then the history of N.I.. While this will still be a part of my project, since looking more into the Punk movement during the Troubles, my specific area of interest has evolved.

Currently, my essay question is sounding something like this, “How can fashion/art be used to unify people” or “How can fashion/art be used to unify people; looking specifically at Northern Ireland” depending on how broad I decide I want it to be.

I plan to discuss and compare different times/places where fashion/art has been used to unify people, with the Punk movement in the 70s in N.I. as one of my historical/contextual examples. I then want to discuss another historical/contextual example, and then one contemporary example, and this is why my question may differ. I could use the Women’s Rights movement in N.I. as my other historical/contextual example, and choose a current social/political/cultural issue in N.I. as my contemporary example, in which case my essay would use Northern Ireland as a case study. However, there were a lot of (civil rights) movements in America or other places in Europe (France for example) so I could leave the question broad and compare a more diverse range of examples. I’m going to look into all of the above before I decide, research further whichever I choose, and then I should hopefully feel prepared to write my essay.

Using 3 or more examples in my essay also allows me more room to grab inspiration from different decades/culture for my practical, which will help with the ‘synthesis’ section of my essay, as well as hopefully improving my final practical product, which will be a zine.

I want to use the zine as an example of using art/fashion to unify people with a common cause, to show how it can be done. I plan to do this using photography and some editorial writing, to grab peoples’ attention by shocking them with the photography or just drawing them in with the visual aspect, and then using the editorial to educate and send the message.

I’ve started concept boards etc for my practical which I’ll post soon, as I want to do a couple more for each era/example in my essay. I want to get this research out of the way asap so I can start to plan some of my shoots. I’d best get on with it!