researched Great Lakes fisheries (2 hrs)
conversations in IP studios & printed some of my photos (1 hr)
writing and organizing my thoughts and writing proposal draft (2 hrs)
looking at grad student Sarah Berkeley's work (15 min)
editing draft (1/2 hr )
Discovered/accomplished: Building off of last week's photo experiments in the Huron River, I decided to experiment a little bit more with light. I placed my light source and cut-outs behind the plastic and then kept my camera on the same manual settings as I moved the light source backwards, inch by inch. I created this image to explore the possibilities of the quilt as a screen. This image is a composite of 20 photographs:
Having to write a draft proposal really forced me to face the conceptual background for my project. I think to some degree it is hard to explain or justify why you are doing what you are doing... and I think Sean & Erica had both begun to point this out to me in their comments on my posts. I feel like they were both saying that I had to decide whether I wanted to take an activist stance or not. But even if I don't want to become preachy, I still have to look at whether or not I am sacrificing my passion for environmental issues by not deciding to influence my audience in a specific way. So I began to write my proposal with those things in mind.I also know that I am interested in water and human relationships with cycles occurring on earth, but I keep coming up with ideas for installations that involve either fish or plastic (maybe I am just drawn to an aesthetic idea that I see coming from these two subjects). When composing the draft I wanted to come up with a more unified idea for why I am interested in looking at these two subjects. I began to think about water in this way:
-Water as a food source/basis for all food & life
-Water as a disposal system/waste returns to water systems
(ultimately it's kind of a "don't shit where you eat" problem). My new analysis of this issue influenced how I wrote my proposal:
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Project Proposal (w/ edits after peer review session)
I intend to explore human relationships with water by creating surreal visual experiences for the viewer. Human beings are made out of the same fundamental elements as all other living creatures, yet our extraordinary manipulation of the world around us causes me to question our role in the environment. I wonder whether or not we have removed ourselves from nature, making our processes "unnatural". I am especially interested in two areas of focus. The first being water as a supplier of food and our subsequent abuse of that food chain, and the second involves the transformation of our oceans into an enormous waste disposal system.
At this moment in time there is a huge disconnect between basic human processes and the environment. Many of us have risen above the basic processes of production and disposal to the point where these things become invisible and unimportant. This disconnect is important for us to acknowledge and understand. I want the viewer to be confronted by a surreal picture of the world that in fact reflects real problems we face as a society. In a way I am hoping to make the invisible become visible, and therefore important.
To complete my project I will be creating a series of temporary installations, which I will photograph. Since I will be exploring water related environmental issues, it is important that I make work outside and/or in water sources such as rivers, lakes & pools. With unlimited time and resources I would travel to a variety of locations worldwide to create underwater installations that would be photographed or filmed. My realistic challenge may still involve traveling to various locations around the state of Michigan. I hope to create a series of photographs based on my own temporary installations. I could also envision these final photographs being displayed in a gallery space, along with the resources I use to create my installations. With a much more limited time frame and restricted budget I would likely focus on one very specific installation and try to complete it in a public space.
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DO: -I want to compile a list of the installation ideas that I have been thinking about and decide which ones are the most important for me to accomplish.
-I am going up north this weekend and I want to create a new installation outside... I have felt like the images I have created thus far are just experiments leading up to larger projects. I need to really focus in on creating the type of things I have in mind... or seeing if they are going to work...
-Go to the Institute for Fisheries Research on campus (next to natural history museum) and speak to someone about the largest problems they feel we are facing in the Great Lakes.
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