Dialogue Ignites Change, Sustainability

Dialogue Ignites Change has been my current brief that i've been working on for a few weeks. We had to get out and interact with people to get inspired enough to ignite a change in us. The only requirements were that we had to create something that wassustainable, looking at WW|| for some inspiration.  At first I thought that this brief was going to be really quite difficult as we could create what ever we wanted and there wasn't a lot of restriction so I felt I would be a bit lost for ideas. This however was not the case as we visited many places and talked to others to get ideas. In no time we had a plan as a group to create WW|| inspired crafts, this let each of us have our own paths to follow whilst all keeping to a theme to keep us working together.

 I made two patchwork cushions which were inspired from a patchwork cardigan (from Staircase House) made by an eleven year old girl who used old materials that she collected. The cushions were sustainable as I up cycled old unwanted material to make something new and useful. I also made a series of collages that I really enjoyed creating. These were made from old scrap paper I had lying around and any collected leaflets I had, I based the collages on my feelings that I had throughout the project. I imagined that I was going to be evacuated and I put together a staged photograph of what I would take with me in a suitcase. This was really hard to do as I had to limit myself, but it was still so much compared to the little amount that the real evacuees of WW|| took. 

I looked at artists such as Susan Stockwell, Jennifer Collier and Natasha Kerr for inspiration as they use a lot of paper materials and reuse old unwanted things to create beautiful collages and items such as clothes. Some of these artists I have posted on this blog but most of this research can be found in my sketchbook.

I feel as though I have learnt a lot form this project as i've become quite educated in WW|| and upcycling/make do & mend. If I had more time I would create a patchwork quilt as a map and include my feelings and thoughts of the whole brief. Also I would continue with some sample pieces that I experimented with where I melted plastic bags and stitched them together. I would make more of these samples and create a patchwork style plastic bag dress, which is something I can look to creating in the future.