Collaboration Project

Whilst working on my first project, responding to the Bradford brief I had the idea to project moving images onto a model, in order to explore the idea of a digital print design constantly changing and also the idea of playing with the surface in which we design for. So I decided to talk to one of my friends (Holly Spence) who is on the photography course about coming together in a small collaboration project. Holly’s unit of work required her to produce a photobook, so with such a wide open brief we decided that this would work well. We came up with the idea to use a range of my print designs to inspire different portraits. The first shoot we did was a basic initial shoot, painting directly onto the models, using my kaleidoscopic prints from the Bradford project as inspiration.

This shoot went fairly well and produced some exciting outcomes, so we decided to do a second shoot with different painted designs. To produce a range we also decided to use some of my more recent work from the self-initiated unit to dictate the paint on the models, looking at a more abstract painterly mark. We decided to do this shoot inside the Whitworth gallery, providing context for Holly’s work she played on the idea of identity distortion and removing the humanity of the model and turning them into simply just a piece of artwork. The shoot again felt really successful, and I was enjoying playing with the idea of my print designs coming to life on a new form of surface. One image in particular that I like used one of the Whitworth’s art installations to project more colour onto the model and in the background. This is when we then decided to do a third shoot, moving back to my initial idea of projection. 

The third shoot focused on projection, and whilst I feel it was the lesser successful of the three shoots it was still really exciting to get in the studio, playing with my print designs and transforming them in a new way. The whole collaboration process was fun to experience and has helped me gain the confidence to take on a project like this on my own in the future, the idea of trying another projection shoot in the future on a new project is something I would definitely like to consider.