Sticking to the theme of emotion, i wanted to explore emotions in this project, through photography and video and maybe even text.
I had been looking at Jeremy Deller’s work over the summer, and I like how he used an event, something that had happened in the past, something controversial, and then used this to create emotion to the viewer. For example, in the Battle of Orgreave where he created the a re-enactment from the miners strike, where the miners are being chased and beaten my policemen, and also in ‘It Is What It Is’ where Deller travelled around America with an american solider and an Iraqi citizen towing a car that had been blown up in bagdad in a suicide bombing, and invited people to talk about Iraq.
He is bringing something up for discussion, conversation, but also the work creates such a variety of different emotions, making some viewers feel angry, sad etc. This emotion provoking is something which i wanted to work with so I decided to take an event from my life which was particularly emotional and use it to create a piece of work and portray an emotion to the viewer.
The event I am working with:
On Friday 21st August at about 05:00am I woke up to a phone call from my brother who was on holiday with 3 of his friends in Laganas, Zante. The phone call consisted of a very drunk, scared and hysterical Taylor who was crying down the phone telling me that he needed help, that he had been beaten with poles by some serbian men in an alley and that i needed to get my dad.
Luckily enough he had managed to get himself to the medical centre, but he was alone. I managed to get hold of his friend charlie, who ran straight down the the medical centre and stayed by Taylors side.
All day friday i was constantly on the phone to different hospitals as he was transferred from place to place having scans and x-rays.
He had to have scans on his head to check for brain damaged or any injuries to his head, but luckily enough that was all fine. Then we were told that he had broken his Eye-socket, jaw, nose, and hand.
Mum and dad flew out to be with him the next day, but there were only two seats on the plane, which meant that i had to stay at home.
The thought of the four of us being split up made me feel sick, but i just wanted to get my brother home. Mum kept getting upset and i kept telling her, don’t worry about me, just get taylor home safe, thats all that matters.
While they were over there they were told that Taylor could come home on his scheduled flight sunday, so then i had the task of trying to find a way to get mum and dad home. There were no flights, i was stressing out, i thought they were going to be stuck there. Then they went and sat at Zante airport and waited for a cancellation for a flight to anywhere in england. Luckily enough they both managed to get on a flight in England.
I picked my brother up for the airport and the minute i see his face as he walked out i nearly cried, such a relief. I got him in the car about to drive home and i remember thinking ‘Im never leaving you again’
Using this as a basis, I want to look at the emotions felt by each of us, my mum, my dad, me and my brother, i want to interview them and have their version of the story and how they felt. i then had the idea of videoing each of us and displaying them on four monitors side by side at the same time, thinking of the likes of Bruce Naumans work, where the videos are played at the same time, causing the audio to all get mixed up, then creating a feeling of anxiousness, which is the feeling we all had when it happened. It was a hectic and crazy time and I want to get this across to the viewer. I also want to incorporate some of the photos from the incident, maybe as a separate piece of work on a slide show with taylor speaking over the top of them on audio.
I would also like to really look at taylors story to what happened and how he felt when he was actually beaten up, and maybe portray the fear he felt in a piece of work, but I’m not sure how i will do this yet.
This is one of the images i might use:
