Recently I’ve been working on some ideas for my degree show. This post is going to concentrate on a few designs that I’ve been working on for a while. They all have evolved from some of my ideas and art works from last year where I started to create boxed environments for canvased animals to inhabit. This year, I have been working on taking this idea further and have started to think and create environments for humans within a zoo environment – through the use of installation.
This image is a design I took to my tutors right at the start of this Uni year. It depicts both an indoor environment with a bed and an entertainment area and also an outdoor environment for a human to live in. With this design I wanted the viewer to be confronted with a small environment with minimal living appliances and gain a sense of entrapment and wonder.
Whilst undertaking my dissertation, I read Why Look at Animals? by John Berger, where he describes through 8 short chapters about the usage of animals in historical and presnt society, from the days of cave paintings through to modern day zoos. For my dissertation there was a couple of points that Berger made that related to some of the artists I was looking at, but also related to the work I am creating now. Over the next few days I will put up a whole post on John Berger, with specific examination on the section apart zoos and the tokens they use – and how these will relate to my upcoming works.
