Studio Practice
Talk with my partner
Over October 2 week break
Today I had a small chat with my partner on ideas around tattooing and concepts as I been struggling with my ideas and linking it more to the project brief of counterculture, I have also been feeling like while i like my idea that it isn't strong enough and i would like to make it stronger or see if there is another ideas that i can work on that is stronger and i will enjoy more.
This chat was very productive and I now have a more clear idea on what idea/concept I would like to further explore.
My partner also helped me with research on the Japanese Criminal tattoos, where I found out they was more used to just mark someone as a criminal and where they are and less on specific crimes they have done. This is what helped push my next idea, having a better understanding on what these tattoos mean make me feel more confident on using them in my work and using as a starting point for growing ideas.
My partner had the idea of creating a prison that shows one of the locational markings along with small men, also with those marking (the men are being a carry on from the work I started to explore before we broke up). I used this idea as a starting point to develop my idea, I think it will be interesting to explore the concept of these criminals taking back there own identity and control by covering these markings and using the prison as a home, or exploring the idea of parts of a prison being used as a farm or something helpful (an abandoned prison? - can also look at it as outcasts who have moved in to the abandoned prison/building over specifically criminals).
This can be looked at as people who committed their crimes in a way of survival, being a subject of the way they been forced to live, then on the people who are generally bad/evil people but due to having no way of clearly marking this it could just be seen as criminals generally. It could also people who cant escape their mistakes, no matter how small or how regretful they are for them, this can create the sense of world where everyone has to always be perfect and if you make mistakes, everyone will know forever, being unable to be known as anyone other then your mistakes. - In relation to the small film i was planning to make (making men out of clay), i feel like this idea still likes to this. The film can be about how everyone is made the same and how everyone has imperfections even if just small.
These are some things my partner has said in relation to his idea and what I now want to do -
'Explore the idea of how in Edo Japan they used tattoos for control and to identify criminals.
My plan is to explore a made up counterculture around the idea of taking back control/identity from those in authority. This counterculture can be seen as both negative or positive, as the people taking taking back there power have been labeled as criminal. On one hand this can just be seen as bad people who dersver to have what was done to them done, acting out. But it can also been seen as everyday people taking back what was taken, these people being wrongful accused, having the crime done out of nessatiy to survive or being a subject of their circumstances, not meaning harm/being sorry for what done or making a mistake.
I will be taking inspirations from Japanese criminal tattoos from the Edo period, that was used to mark someone as a criminal, as well as looking at Traditional Japanese tattooing, as this from of tattooing was developed among the working class community as a way to reject the idea that they cant own art/anything that shown their wealth. I will be exploring this idea through different materials and techniques such as ceramics and film.
Some things I would like to make is a short film of making small men by hand, this showing that not everyone is the same and we all have flaws. As well as a ceramic piece/a painting showing the taking back of a prison, having a prisons purpose changed into something that creates freedom then take away.
