Over the course of the ten weeks the students focused on ideas of personal and social identities, pop culture, home life, and favorite objects. Through interviews and workshops with the children we explored ideas of clothing, gender,femininities, clothing-fashion codes and the intergenerational gap of interpretation of young girls and boys. We wanted to consider the symbolic meaning of brands, the links that children form between individuals and their clothing, music,toys, social media and any connections with the children’s view of themselves and their future.
In week two the students were shown the work of artist Dawn Clements. Clements is known for her large scale drawings which depict long journeys on trains or scenes from movies. We wanted to introduce scale and group work early on. The students brought in personal objects to work from,many opted to bring in photographs, and others brought introphies or rosettes. Some brought in dolls and knick knacks.Each student explained what they brought and why and each object, although to the viewer it may appear as just an object, to the child this drawing had a heavily weighted personal and symbolic meaning.
In week eight the students were given hands which were constructed using expanding foam making them lightweigh and cartoon-like in shape. The students were asked to personalize these. We discussed social and personal identities and the students identified many things which made up who they are and how they want to be perceived. whether it was there family, there cultural background, their physical traits or the things they loved.
The project allowed for engaging and unpredictable outcomes, allowing the students to question and respond to these ideas. It questioned issues of identity and the presentation of one’s self as well as challenging structures, boundaries and stereotypes.
The complexities of youth vary between genders but technology takes up a large proportion of their time and concern. Many of the children have their own, as well as access to, YouTube channels and even idolize “YouTubers”.
They also have a strong connection with pop culture, which forms their main identity. When asked to personalise their work many of the students often opted to personalise it with common media branding, which we have found to be a heavy influence for them.
However, when asked to create images in other drawing based workshops on ideas for example “What would it look
like if you could eat your own face?”, (based on artist Dana Schultz’s the face eater) they came up with imaginative,exciting and original possibilities. This shows that their identity is at the forefront of the material world but their imaginative response remains honest, original and true to self.
