Installation – Final Outcome
So I was surprised I only had enough prints to fill one wall, and originally my plan was to fill the room. However at this moment in time one I can’t create any more prints, and I think with the work I have done it is enough to show where I wanted to go with the installation/exhibition.
I actually believe that this lockdown has forced me to think about what is necessary with this project. I wanted to print the lines on black paper as well. I wanted the emboss the text pages with the string because I love how it looks on the back on the other prints. However now having it all up on the wall I have realised that a lot of this was unnecessary. That I need to learn when to stop. Another aspect of this and the lockdown providing opportunities to think and adapt, is placing this up in my living room. As soon as I realised this was my only option, I realised it should have been the decision I made in the first place. As it works with my theme of domestic abuse, and placing it in a domestic environment works. If I was having a show/exhibition. I think it would best work with filling the room completely with prints, to make it quite oppressive, but then with the contrast of a home, with sofas, or a bed, tv the whole lot. To set it up as a living environment I think I would be extremely successful. I am really proud of myself and the work and the end result of this project.
I am going to leave the work on the walls for a few days, and I want to experiment with photographing it in different lighting and see how that effects the mood in the environment. But also take some better quality photographs in daylight.
Letterpress prints
As well as my photo etching, I have printed a series of letterpress prints, each very simple with a line of text which is something which was said to me in my abusive relationship, these have also been printed onto the backs of my photo-etchings. This will help tie the installation together, helping to give context.
Above is just a selection of the ones I printed. When arranging my digital mock-up of the installation I pieced them in with the grid pattern on the photo-etchings. However I have 40 prints of these with 12 or so different phrases. I am going to see how I can integrate more when I actually put these up.
I was planning to print on black paper as well to match the photo-etchings on black paper, however before Christmas, in the end I only had time to print on the white paper because the press I was using broke, the crescent in the roller snapped, and we spent an hour trying to figure out what was wrong before swapping to another press not long before the workshop was closing, and that meant I had two presses to clean. Plus I had to re set up another press which even though I knew the lay out, because it was a smaller press still needed adjusting, and like with everything in letterpress, both are time consuming processes. I was hoping to print the ones on black now, however because the university is now closed due to the pandemic, I am not able to. I have looked into other options, however printing on black paper at home is difficult. The best option I have discovered at the moment, however I am still waiting for a quote, is to get some stamps made and then use a heat embossing process to create white text on black paper. However I think I will still be able to achieve a great installation without it and my concept still obviously works, however I would like to see if I can still create the vision I anticipated and imagined.
On the same note, after printing on the back of my photo-etchings, I was looking into debossing the wool onto these letterpress prints, because I loved the impressions on the back of etchings. I have so far done a little experimenting, however now I have a stack of the same paper I used for my letterpress prints, and some advice from Klara, the Letterpress technician, I going to experiment further to see if I can get the desired result.
Digital Mock-up of Installation
After collecting my work from university yesterday, I scanned every single print, not all are displayed above, and I started to work out how I was going to arrange the prints when coming to a physical display and installation. I started by working out 6 2×3 grids, by jotting it down on paper very methodically, which meant each item was never in the same place twice, and then arrange the colours to make sure I didn’t have the same print twice. This was before creating a grid with photo frames in InDesign, to make sure each print in the grid was the same size. I then took my letterpress prints, and I experimented with positioning, to work out where they looked the best but also didn’t didn’t interfere with the methodical layout.
Now I have a guideline for installing them physically. Originally before lockdown I was going to install them in the IVM studios at LCC however now that is obviously impossible. Therefore I am going to install in my flat, just very simply with blue tack, so I don’t ruin the walls. Originally I thought this would be a disadvantage, and therefore was going to move all my furniture out the way to get clear walls. However now thinking about it in context with the subject matter, I believe doing it in my flat will actually enhance the installation. As my subject matter is about domestic abuse. Placing it in a domestic setting, taking an environment which is suppose to be safe and secure, and then making it feel overwhelmed by all these images I think could be highly successful.
With the I am inspired slightly by Tracey Emin’s, ‘My Bed’ by the fact I don’t want I tidy flat, I want it to seem lived in because otherwise there is no point doing it in this environment intentionally, because it would look like a show flat otherwise, and not an environment which feels domestic, and everything a home should be. I am going to experiment with the over the weekend, including which rooms to include, will it just be the living room. Because I think the bedroom would have interesting connotations.