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Final Post

Over the last four weeks we have been collecting research on homelessness within New Zealand. From our research we were able to gather a better understanding of the issue that is homelessness, and the widespread scale that it is throughout the country. We have discovered the classifications of what defines a person as homeless, the amount of homeless people there are and the reasons behind why people become homeless. When beginning looking at the topic of homelessness, the two of us were aware that homelessness is an issue within our country, however throughout our research we gained a more in-depth understanding into the huge reality of the issue. While there is a percentage of people that become homeless due to drug and alcohol abuse, many end up homeless as an implication of their backgrounds and family orientations. We have discovered that a reason behind homelessness being an issue thought to be smaller than is, is due to the fact many go unseen when sleeping ‘rough’ or on the streets. The understanding by the general public of a homeless person is of the stereotypical idea of someone who is a nuisance on the streets begging and causing passer by to feel uncomfortable, leading to the assumption that all homeless people are ‘trash’ or considered non-human. However this is not the case and together we are creating an art piece to make the audience realise the incorrect stereotypes they are placing upon a huge portion of New Zealand’s population. Our piece of visual activism in response to homelessness (displayed below). Our artwork addresses the issue of homelessness by creating awareness to the public about how the homeless are viewed by society and pushes them to confront how much of a serious issue it is. Taking inspiration from visual activit artists who highlight issues of homelessness in their work. The slogan, “Homeless; Not Hopeless” is intriguing as it gives an insight from a homeless person’s point of view, coursing the audience to feel a sense of sympathy and consider the misinterpretation the public has towards the homeless community.

The artists we looked into for this assignment create works that impact the viewer directly, creating awareness towards the issue. We have learnt that visual activism can be depicted through different art forms (e.g. photography, sculpture, painting, film etc.) to create a different impact and respond to a particular issue. Both Maxwell Rushton and Skid Robot create powerful forms of visual activism through their art. What drew our attention to these artists was their ability to make something so simple yet so effective in terms of compelling the audience to react to the work which then draws their attention to the issue of homelessness.

Good artists/designers can create simple artworks that are powerful enough to move their audience. Our final creative work is a combination of inspiration taken from both artists we have researched. We were interested in the simplicity of the works created and wished to use symbolism in our work to simply but effectively get a message of awareness across to the public.  

In doing this assignment we have moved from a general understanding of world concerns to having a more in-depth understanding about the issues. By posting in the G+ Community we have not only shared what we have learnt about our chosen issue with our peers, but have gained knowledge about issues our peers have been researching. The G+ Community has been an informative platform where we have learnt about different forms of visual activism, ideas of solutions to world issues and strategies artists take to try to create awareness of these issues.

The series of lectures from activist artists, designers and writers helped us to stop to notice the small things that surround us in our everyday society. Throughout the past four weeks we have come to realise that there is constantly art surrounding us and it is not always created for the aesthetic, but can hold a powerful message within it. We can now see that in the 21st Century as an artist/designer it means much more than just being able to make something visually pleasing; but rather there are many ways in which we can have our say and impact the society around us simply through our art.

 Overall we feel like we have successfully gained more knowledge about homelessness and feel as though it’s something we want to participate more in helping to change by doing small things such as creating awareness and donating where we can. Being are fine art students, we particularly enjoyed being able to make an art piece as a response to a world issue because it’s  an area in which we succeed and we found it a unique way of responding to an issue.

Although this topic was incredibly interesting, if we were to research an entirely different world issue, we would go in a completely different direction and look into something like body image which could fall under the category of a cultural and/or social issue depending on which angle you decided to research it from.

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Week 11: Creative Response

(Figure 1)

(Figure 2)

(Figure 3)

For this assignment we have been interested in making some sort of sculpture taking a 3D approach in response to the issue of homelessness. We have been looking at Maxwell Ruston (Figure 2)  and Skid Robot’s (anonymous graffiti artist) work (Figure 3) which has inspired us to make something that forces the viewer to confront the issue of homelessness. Both Rushton and Robot make simplistic street art that abruptly captures the attention of the public and forces the audience to interact. By doing this the artworks are forcing the public to face the facts of the issue and consider why so many are forced to sleep rough, by bringing awareness to the issue it begins to get people to act to make a change. The brainstorm (below) shows ideas and our thought processes we went through when figuring out what our artwork will be. We like the idea of illustrating a simple symbol such as a bed or the layout of “a home” to show the lack of basic living needs a homeless person possess and their harsh reality of living their daily lives on the streets. We have decided to go with the idea of using a rubbish bag as a support to represent the homeless community. The use of the rubbish bag goes with the idea of people considering and associating homeless people with trash/rubbish and viewing them as non human as they rarely own few possessions compared to the average person. The homeless are viewed by society as having to rely on the waste of the public and live off what they can find on the streets to meet basic living needs. With this idea in mind we have not only included the use of a black rubbish bag as our main component but have also surrounded the bag by rubbish to reinforce the concept that the homeless are viewed as trash.

Our artwork forces people to confront the issue of homelessness and how society treats those affected and brings attention to the fact that change needs to be brought about as homelessness is an increasing issue, particularly in New Zealand. Although there are many homeless people on the streets that the public see everyday, there is a significantly concerning amount of families and youth that are unseen by the public combined with the lack of awareness throughout the country, there is not enough being done to support those in need.

Works Cited:

Figure 2:

Rushton, Maxwell, Left Out, 2015 – 2016. 60cm (W) x 60cm (H) x 60cm (L). Jesmonite cast encased in a bin liner. http://maxwellrushton.com/projects/left-out/  

Figure 3:

Robot, Skid, Untitled, October 5th 2014, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/skid-robot-104

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Week 11: Visual Activism Art

Homelessness is an incredibly relevant issue and is becoming more concerning everyday. Through our research we have found a couple of artists who put visual activism into practice in their work. Maxwell Ruston was an artist Francesca came across last year on her facebook feed who really moved her and I thought he was a good inspiration for this assignment. Known for his most famous work Left Out, Ruston creates a social experimentation piece that forces the public to interact with it. Not only did Ruston make this sculpture but he then placed it on the streets of London where he filmed the public walking by. It was incredible the amount of reactions and non-reactions this artwork got. Because the work looked so realistic, some people went up to it, thinking it was a person to check whether they were okay because it was such a shocking thing to see. However, it was quite shocking to see the amount of people that chose to just walk past and ignore it. This goes to show how the homeless population are treated within our society. Another artist that Sian came across was Skid Robot, an anonymous graffiti artist based in Los Angeles who incorporates homeless people into his pieces. Robot creates frame like works around homeless people to create a kind of simple fantasy world which most humans have but homeless people are without. Not only does he create street art, he also does a lot of campaigning to help spread awareness about the growing population of homelessness in our world. When we looked at his work we found it especially powerful because it looks as though it could make a homeless person’s day just through some graffiti. Robot feels that through his art he is giving back to homeless people as best he can. Through visual activism, both of these artists involve either the public or the homeless population directly by create moving artworks that are a response to the issue of homelessness.

  Works Cited:

The Big Issue. “Left Out”. Maxwell Ruston. Web. 26 May 2017: http://maxwellrushton.com/projects/left-out/ Robot, Skid. “SkidRobot”. Tumblr. Yahoo. 1 June 2017. Web. 27 May 2017: https://skidrobot.tumblr.com 

Pardes, Arielle. “This La Graffiti Artist Incorporates Homeless People into His Pieces”. Vice. Vice. 15 October 2014. Web. 27 May 2017: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/skid-robot-104

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Week 10: Homelessness - A Crisis

During week 9 we grouped up into around five person groups to collectively construct a brainstorm (figure 1) with specific categories about different world issues which bother us (what grinds our gears). On the brainstorm we had a large list of economical, political, social, environmental and cultural issues from around the world as well as solely New Zealand issues that we discussed and shared our personal opinions. Making the brainstorm and having the group discussions got us thinking deeper into issues and learn new facts based on what the others in our group already knew. From there we then decided on concentrating our project on a New Zealand based issue. We chose to focus just on New Zealand as it is directly impacting our society and communities we live in. For this assignment we have decided to look at an economical issue: Homelessness and how much of an issue it is in the everyday community. Even though most people know that homelessness exists, it seems to be an issue that people just ignore and brush under the rug. We want to also examine this idea of “Homeless not Hopeless” by incorporating it into our art piece. We are interested in the idea of uncovering the main reasons people become homeless and move away from the stereotypes people relate with homeless people (drugs, alcohol, aggression.) Beginning our research we have found the short film putting homelessness into focus by kate amore. This was our first realization that homelessness in New Zealand is on a much larger scale than we first believed. The film highlights youth around nz that have had trouble at home, either with violent families or lack of education. As well as youth, Kate Amore talks about the large amount of families that have gone through huge financial struggles leaving them homeless, yet as a country we do not recognise this due to the families hiding away living in empty housing and the lack of public attention surrounding the issue. From this we gained more of an understanding of the people most affected within New Zealand. Parliament of New Zealand state the definition that clases someone as homeless in NZ  is to be without shelter or living via makeshift shelter, temporary housing (overnight shelter or 24 hour shelter), sharing/temporary housing and uninhabitable living conditions (New Zealand Parliament) For many within New Zealand this is a reality, although there are shelters and temporary homes available around the country there is not enough to support the mass amount of people forced to live ‘rough’. In 2009 New Zealand Parliament recorded 8,000 to 20,000 in temporary accommodation. (New Zealand Parliament) During our research we came across an article of a man going from a psychology university lecturer to now living on the streets within auckland city. His depression and deteriorating mental wellbeing was the course of him losing his job then apartment. Unemployment is a leading factor surrounding homelessness and combined with New Zealand’s lack of affordable accommodation makes it nearly impossible for those that become homeless to then get back into a financially sustainable life, therefore leaving them in a constant cycle.    

Works Cited:

Amore, Kate. “Homelessness - The Invisible Housing Problem”. New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services. Web. 17 May 2017: http://nzccss.org.nz/work/poverty/the-real-housing-affordability-issues/homelessness-the-invisible-housing-problem/

New Zealand Parliament. “Homelessness in New Zealand” (Table 1: Selected national estimates for and severe housing deprived). New Zealand Parliament. New Zealand Government. 17 July 2014. Web. 19 May 2017: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/research-papers/document/00PLEcoRP14021/homelessness-in-new-zealand

Figure 1

Figure 2

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Week 9: Te Ao Hurihuri

Response to Mirzoeff’s afterword “visual activism” from his book ‘How to See the World’

The afterword section to Mirzoeff’s book discusses this idea of visual culture and how the visual world impacts the way we think about and respond to issues. He talks about visual activism in terms of people using it to outline concerns of identity, cultural representation, political issues, environmental issues and economical crises. One example Mirzoeff mentions is South African photographer, Zanele Muholi who defines herself as a ‘black lesbian’. Through her work she makes “visible the tension between the freedoms offered by the South African Constitution of the realities of homophobic violence encountered by the LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, Queer or Questioning and intersex) people every day.“ (Mirzoeff 290) She highlights the need for legal protection of all sexual orientations through her photographic activist work. As well as talking about her work, Mirzoeff talks about how she uses herself as another form of her visual activism and she incorporates particular elements such as her clothing to represent her culture and her identity.

In contrast, Mirzoeff discusses using art in museums as a place to highlight world issues. Mirzoeff mentions artists Megs Morley and Tom Flanagan who created the short film ‘The Question of Ireland’ after the Financial crash in 2007 which lead to “unemployment, emigration and a widespread sense of crisis in government” (Mirzoeff 292)  throughout Ireland. The film is another form of visual activism where Morley and Flanagan create a reinterpretation of a famous political speech by Karl Marx. This film highlights that Ireland was considered a new nation less than a century ago, yet has failed in reaching the potential greatness the country could possess.

 There are a few concepts within this afterward section that could be interesting to explore for this assignment. It gives us ideas of how we could portray a form of visual activism and the different mediums we could use further along in our project when creating our artwork. Some topics Mirzoeff discusses that could be of interest to this assignment include researching into the LGBTQI community and the challenges they face in society everyday. We are of a generation that consists of a huge amount of the LGBTQI community, so therefore this topic could be extremely relevant and a relatable issue to us and our peers.

We also found the idea of some sort of economical issue, for example homelessness or the housing crisis in New Zealand interesting because they are significant issues within our community which we feel necessary to understand more clearly.

Works Cited:

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. How to See the World. Great Britain, Pelican Books, 2015, Print.