My theme was inspired by the performance “there’s no escape that I can see” by artists John Wood and Paul Harrison that I had seen before. A man trapped in the screen struggled to keep his head above the water as he tried to escape. As the title suggests, the man is in a desperate situation. This work of art suffocates me. I felt like I was there, trying to struggle and escape this small space. I took this piece of performance art as my inspiration and explored it further.
People are struggling to escape in a small confined space. During this process, you will experience suffocation and distortion of body, face, and skin. It also reminds me of escape magic. I’m going to use magic as my initial research. When people are trapped, their survival instinct will try to escape. The whole process is not only nervous for the trapped people, but also brings excitement to the people watching. But the hope of release and freedom in the process of escaping is why I think it becomes lovely.
Originally, it was the sense of restraint brought by glass containers. With the in-depth research, I converted the glass containers into high-elasticity fabrics. Turn hard into soft. Turn a seemingly unlikely struggle into a visible hope. The human body creates graceful shapes and lines in the process of struggle. I am taking this as my further research. I found a lot of books about the body in the library, and went to see Hayv Kahraman’s exhibition as my first-hand research material. I named this project “Soule Dance”, which is a kind of in-space but out-of-space research in this space.
I would like to choose pattern cutting as my BA course choice. I attach great importance to the early research process. It’s a fun process to drill down on a topic, and I enjoy it. To further investigate, I stitched a high-stretch fabric myself to create and simulate an enclosed space. I struggled in this space, trying to break free. I recorded my struggles. This experiment also gave me more ideas for the subsequent refereeing work. I am looking forward to the future work.
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Bibliography:
Werkleitz(1996) Werkleitz Biennale (Museum of. Available at: https://werkleitz.de/en/theres-no-escape-that-i-can-see/ (Accessed: 30th March 2022)
Herschdorfer, N (2022) Body. London: Thames & Hudson
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/584834701622897527/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/584834701622897521/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/584834701622897508/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/584834701622896937/