Ming Xi photographed by Nick Knight. Image found on Google.
My Final Major Project is about capturing a feeling, emotion and/or memory through colour and movement, initially inspired by Nick Knight's photography. I decided that I would explore a specific memory from my own life, so I started to think about certain events that stick in my mind from when I was a child. One of my best and most memorable experiences was a time when my dad (who is gay) and my step-dad (his partner) took me and my older brother to Gay Pride in Brighton, where they now live. I'm looking mostly at the colours and the atmosphere I saw and felt at Gay Pride and also how the LGBT community resonates with me as a young adult. I want to capture both my memory of Pride, growing up with an open mind, and the atmosphere of LGBT communities in my final photographs.
I started off by researching the concept of movement through art, dance, and fashion photography. I looked at work by Nick Knight, Tim Walker, Rebecca Horn and also at articles focusing on dance & photography or fashion. After presenting my initial idea of looking at the movement and manipulation of the body to my tutor, she suggested an exhibition to visit, named 'If You've Got the Feeling Jump Across the Ceiling': An art exhibition by Gabrielle de Santis at the Limoncello gallery.
I went to the gallery the day the exhibition ended, so I was expecting it to be packed full of people seeing the exhibit last minute, however it was the opposite. The gallery was in a remote and covert place, the only indicator that I was in the correct place was the two signs. One said 'Limoncello' and another said 'Russian Club'. I was wary of entering the building at first because it looked as if it was just someone's flat, so I was a little confused. Once I came into the gallery there was hardly anything there, just concrete walls with some art and a large room where I could hear people bouncing on a trampoline or soft surface. A worker told me to take my shoes off before entering the room as the floor of the exhibition was effectively a giant trampoline.
I really liked the idea of having such an interactive exhibition that invites the participants to have fun while observing the artwork, as, for me anyway, it will make her work memorable in my mind even though it was a small and obscure gallery. The actual artwork was about capturing things in movement, with dolphin shapes made out of marble mounted on the wall with a 3D plastic hoop beside it. Dolphins were a dominant feature in the artwork and it was a nice touch to have the bouncy floor, making the participants feel as if they are joining the dolphins in their movement.
A few more young people joined in with bouncing on the trampoline, and what I liked about it was that everyone who came into the gallery had more fun and spent more time bouncing with their friends and getting worn out instead of observing the artwork. I decided to take as many photographs as possible, making sure I was focusing on movement in every image so I could use them for experiments with colour later on. After spending about an hour or so having fun on the trampoline, I put my shoes on and left to explore East London a bit more. I think the exhibition definitely helped me to solidify my theme of movement, which I will make sure is consistent throughout my project even if the ideas change slightly. It was great fun and will definitely stick in my mind.
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