After Gillian Wearing

Our photography experiment was inspired by Gillian Wearing, and took place outside of a classroom, enabling us to approach a variety of people, where it was the member of the public’s story or expression that was captured. We simply the question “What were you thinking?” and presented the questioned with a blank page and marker pen. While most responses consisted largely of, “I’m cold!” or “I’m freezing!” some of the responses were thoughtful and it was these that made the approach worthwhile.

However, even the brief encounters gave us a lot of information about a person; whether they were shy or confident, how they spoke and what was important to them in life at the moment. My favourite response was that of a man who took a long time to pen the words: “Just going to call my girl to say ‘I love you’”. He, like many others, seemed to find the project really interesting – at one point all the people on the bus were staring at us while we were talking to a mother and child. I suppose while it wasn’t such a normal thing to see on the street, it was the only place to get some real responses and interact with people.

I really enjoyed this project, as it not only provoked some interesting responses in an artistic sense, but helped build confidence personally.

Gillian Wearing

In the past we had all done a live art piece based on Gillian Wearing, however the one we had done was restricted to certain questions. This time around it was open and the participants were free to write anything that they wanted whether from how they were feeling that day to what their reactions were to the live art piece; one man asked us was this really art.

At first I was a bit unsure if anyone would participate because I know how I am when I am approached by salesmen but all the questions that we were unsure of, wouldn’t be answered until we went out their and did it, and surprisingly enough people participated. Once in our first spot we scanned the people to see who we would think take part, already we a having expectations of whether a person is going to do it and what they may say. As a group we tried different approaches, somewhere straight to the point and others more detailed. One that often worked was firstly saying ‘Hi’ or ‘Hello sorry to disturb you, but…’ once we had their attention we then went on to ask if they would take part in out live art piece, it will only take a minute. In some cases we had to write for them as they were in a rush for the bus or to go on with their day bringing live art and it’s meaning together. The more people we asked the more easier it became, the sites were also important we had a lot by the bus stop and by Tesco Metro however I feel it would work a lot better in central London. Overall I really enjoyed the experience and I would look at different ways of approaching people to possibly gain more responses.

students shelter from the rain

Year 10 GCSE Art & Design students draw from bunk beds to shelter from the rain

On 3rd December Year 10 GCSE Art & Design students visited Tate Modern, where they experienced Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Turbine Hall installation; TH.2058 and explored the Idea and Objects and the Material Gestures Collections.

Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s Turbine Hall installation TH.2058 looks 50 years into the future, as inhabitants of London take shelter in the Turbine hall from never ending rain mixed with a collection of homage’s to artists who have exhibited in the past in the Turbine Hall.

The students wondered the installation, crawling under giant sculptures of flowers and spiders and climbing into bunk beds to draw what they could see! There was plenty discussion whether what they were experiencing, particularly the bunk beds, was art or not and whether it was important whether the artist made all the pieces themselves or employed assistants.

Next the students visited the two collections, paying particular attention to the works of Paul McCarthy, Sophie Calle, Martin Creed and Marlene Dumas. Many students found McCarthy’s work shocking and ‘rude’, Creed’s work clever but pretentious, Dumas’s work beautiful and Calle’s work fascinating. There were also comments made by students at the end of the trip that despite enjoying their visit, they preferred the Brit School’s Strand Visual Arts & Design Year 13 show, which was quite a compliment to Year 13, (well done!).

Gillian Wearing: The Aftermath

So, our task was to go out and convince the lovely inhabitants of selhurst to come and aid us with our project. Our project being the re-creation of the work of photographer Gillian Wearing. Armed with a camera, a large stack of paper and a marker pen, we headed towards the daunting prospects of talking to people that weren't from school (a nightmare, i know).
In retrospect, it went really well; we emulated the geurilla art aspect of Wearings work to a good degree, and I think this was what made it so good. The range of people we managed to drag in to participate is reflectd well in the answers we got e.g. ''SUZUKI GSXR 1100''...Perhaps standing outside Halfords for participants was not wise, a lot of the answers were vehicle based.
I think that Wearings use of composition, coupled with her subjects, creates impact through a single image. I would hope that we have given justice to the way in which she works, and now I know never to say the line...''Hello, I'm an art student, could I have a few minutes of your time.''

After Gillian Wearing.

In our lesson we decided to go down the road to a big road junction and do some art research in a similar style as a survey. We copied the style of Gillian Wearing's art by walking around (in and out of shops) asking people what was on their mind/what they were just thinking of and then getting them to write it down so we could take a picture of them with it.

First of all we decided how we could go round asking these questions without having people run away from us or just walk straight past. We thought the better way of getting peoples attention was to ask them if they could quickly write down what they were thinking on a white piece of paper for our art project. This got most people interested then after this we asked if we could take a picture of them holing up what they had written.

After this we set off down the road to see what was on peoples minds. Most people seemed open to having a go but didn't necessarily get the whole point and most just wrote down that they were cold or that they were thinking about getting home or would do something completely different like draw a little picture.

We found that men and people in shops were more open to doing this. I'm not too sure why this was, maybe women are more busy and have places to be on a Thursday around 4 o'clock or maybe men are just less scared of a group of teenagers.

Overall I thought it was a good exercise and we got some very interesting answers, I'm now thinking of ways I can incorporate this with my work.

After Gilian Wearing

As a group we explored Wearing’s techniques of live art by asking random people on the street what they were thinking and writing it down and then taking a photo of them.
The purpose of this experiment was to practically explore another form of live art. This type of live art engages with a wider audience and we could find out quite a lot from people by the answers they wrote down for us.
We approached different types of people to get a varied response: black, white, Asian, old, young. We approached people at bus stops, in shops and at garages to get a wide range of people. We did not approach people who seemed busy, stressed or had children with them because we did not want to draw too much attention to ourselves as this could distract others away from us.
I felt that the experiment was very successful and it proves that live art can connect or engage with everyone unlike something personal like a painting or a 2d or 3d object.

After Gillian Wearing

This activity was interesting and enjoyable we had the chance to work with the community and find out a bit more about the different people who live in the area. We tried to keep our question as open ended as possible and tried not to probe people to direct there answer in any direction. This was a good activity to start us of with getting used to working with the public. Often we judge people by how they look which makes us think they will respond in a certain way, this activity shows the opposite the people you think that would respond in a negative way where the most positive and enthusiastic. This enabled us to meet and talk to new people and find out a bit about there character.

This work was inspired by Gillian Wearing who uses this method within one of her live art projects, I found her photographs very compelling and they really inspired me to create some work with similar connotations. It would be interesting to pursue this social experiment further, using different ages groups and areas to see what sort of responses I get.