This week I feel like I’ve been a bit slower compared to Week 1 where I was go, go, go, but I’ve taken the time to review the lectures and look at other projects and to build a base. That’s just as important!
What I’ve done
- Researched other projects, like Font li Beirut, Vernacular Typography and Lightboxes and Lettering
- Organised myself using a post-it note wall
- Contacted potential local partners, such as Artillery Arts and Paekakariki Press
- Considered how I can promote the project in the local area (below)
What I plan to do in the future
- Conduct interviews with local people, like above
- Work towards first submission
- Progress with the workshop and get feedback on them
We had a great peer-to-peer this week, with the group pulling together to talk through each others’ projects. We focussed on a few individuals who felt they had reached a brick wall and teased out new perspectives in their interest area to follow. I think it was a really productive meeting and know that if I feel stuck the group will help me too.
A glimpse at a community board where I have been looking at groups I can involve in the project, and promote it too.
I also spotted this addition to a piece of street art on the High Street:
Everyone has been hit hard by the pandemic, with jobs and livelihoods lost, with jobs cut from small businesses that cannot afford to compete with the big global companies, and yet those large companies have been shedding jobs too. In my project I need to be aware of the difficulties people are experiencing and not to appear to take advantage of it. I want to show Walthamstow life as it is. This is a perfect example of that: the council has asked an artist to brighten up the high street with an uplifting message. It is tolerated and even welcomed, but when life changes around it, its reception also changes, hence the addition to the piece. In contrast to the original piece, which is highly designed and in formal English, the addition is in spray paint as if it is graffitied and uses ‘4’ instead of ‘for’, highlighting its popular roots. I am not criticising the addition at all: I think it is a fair show of how people are feeling in the situation and that those feelings are so eloquently added to the existing art is very powerful.
Anna Robinette 