#starterproject

[lo-kom]

Starter task research appointment with Alessia

[lo-kom]

[lo-kom]

The Gentle Author

"This April, local historian the Gentle Author is launching a Spitalfields walking tour. The aim is to promote a more ethical tourism in the East End.

The tour was created as a better alternative to the exploitative tourism exhibited in the sensationalist serial killer tours of east London, which, he tells me, “monetise misogyny”.

The Gentle Author is the biographer of Spitalfields’ culture and history. He is known for leading successful campaigns to save community assets, for instance the Marquis of Lansdowne pub and Bethnal Green’s 500-year-old Mulberry Tree."

Research- who is The Gentle Author?

[lo-kom]

Some images from my final publication (summer starter project)

[lo-kom]

This is London: Life and Death in the World City

Book I dipped in and out of over summer. Each chapter was marked by a new area of London that the author and journalist Ben Judah had lived in, amongst a variety of migrant communities. With each chapter Judah gives his own brutal running commentary of the peple around him and his experiences (all too far from the realms of journalistic neutrality) moving from hushed conversations with a police officer in Peckham McDonald's, to glum living in an overcrowded council estate along the A406, from Fore Street and Edmonton Green to Chelsea and Belgravia...

I think the biggest thing I took from his writing was that unconcealed bias and strong opinions don't always have to ruin a piece of non-fiction. This is something in direct contrast to what I think of when I consider what 'academic' writing looks like, and (despite this text being far from an academic source) I think there is still something I can still gain from expanding the range of writing I am consuming by reading sources such as these. Instead of playing into the idea that the author sole responsibility to guide and hold the reader's hand through a text, Judah choses to trust in the intelligence of the reader to form their own opinions and decide where they fall on an issue.

This is something that I would like to test, experiment and push when I come to write larger pieces of text this year such as my dissertation. I think taking more risks and practicing more writing exercises could pay off with an overall more engaging (even entertaining???) written outcome.

[lo-kom]

What is my 3rd year project about & why am I doing this as my final project?!

Mindmap from a couple weeks ago

[lo-kom]

Some photos documenting my final outcome for the summer starter project task (pre-unit 9)

Some final photos of market publication prototype 1

[lo-kom]

Thomas introduction tutorial 28/10/23

Takeaways from first tutorial:

Should keep developing photography series- see what links between images I can make especially across double-page spreads. What kind of new rhythms, narratives etc. you can create

See where I can go in terms of different types of markets- different cultures, niches etc.

Should work on re-making my starter project publication- get a better finish on the pages, hardcover etc.

Reference to look into: Luigi Ghirri- Kodachrome. Line of sight in each of the spreads continues to create a really beautiful rhythm and narrative

[lo-kom]

My design for the SLG family day celebrating the Lagos, Peckham Repeat exhibition

[lo-kom]

CNN Peckham Market/ SLG exhibition: There's a spirit here': Exhibition shines a light on London's 'Little Lagos'

“There’s a spirit here,” said filmmaker Adeyemi Michael who was born in Lagos and raised in Peckham. When he was growing up, Michael skated up Peckham Rye to buy groceries for his mom, and says he felt embraced by the Nigerian community there. “The high street reflect(ed) my experience growing up as a Nigerian-born South Londoner,” he recalled.

“I’ve been moving around a lot these days,” Michael added. “Whenever I come back, I’m always met by the soul of this area and the people who still remain here, most of (whom) are immigrants and people who come from different walks of life.”

Folakunle Oshun: “For way too long the migrant communities in the UK have always taken a back seat. For this show it was really important to give the artists that voice and create a show that’s super empowering for years to come.”

Margot Heller, South London Gallery’s director, said the exhibition uses Lagos as an entry point to look at wider issues around migration, shifting senses of identity and the idea of home.

She explained that over the last few decades there has been significant growth in Peckham’s Nigerian community, coming in waves throughout the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, with people purchasing property and setting up businesses.

“Peckham became known as a kind of second home for people visiting the UK from Nigeria,” she said. “Some of them staying, and some of them returning, which is very much part of the exhibition concept.”

Initially, “Entitled” was born out of frustration, Michael explained. He felt his mother was being side-lined in a job she worked for 25 years, because she was a first-generation Nigerian immigrant.

He began looking at Napoleonic images of people considered conquerors, and researched Frederich Lugard who furthered British imperialism across West and East Africa. Michael wanted to portray his mother as having the same kind of power, in the clothing of her Yoruba heritage (one of Nigeria’s three largest ethnic groups).

“When you see my mum dressed in traditional Yoruba wear on a horse in Peckham, it’s a statement,” he said. “I did that for her, for other people too – it means something.”

[lo-kom]

final publication bibliography

[lo-kom]

Updates 03/10/2023

Main updates since last post:

Spent all of the week before we went back frantically trying to complete the pagination for, bind and produce a hard cover for my publication. The pagination was an absolute nightmare but I eventually figured out that I could do it digitally if I paginated first in Indesign (file>>print booklet (make sure to go to print settings and turn on 'keep blank pages' so I won't have to spend hours regretting my decisions! )) and then reverse every page in Adobe Acrobat everything works out fine

Had my first week back. Monday's lecture Emily outlined a rough structure for the year, expected outcomes etc.

The time I spent on my publication ended up paying off and I got a lot of compliments on my final publication (even though I didn't actually get to print on the paper I wanted to and the edges weren't cut clean etc.)

Had my first tutorial with Thomas on Friday and was given the guidance sheet to start working on my dissertation question. He also said outside of this that I should consider re-making my final publication for my starter task (better execution etc.) to put into my portfolio

Filled out the sheet yesterday and started to consider some of the key words I might use in my question (ie. 'interrogatory' verbs, what the difference between 'to what extent' vs 'how,' and how this might change how I should write my essay, the angle I use etc.) Came up with a few potential questions I'm quite happy with and could continue developing:

Some variations

How can print publishing re-examine depictions of the East End market trader in the 21st century?

2. How can street photography re-examine the role of contemporary East End market traders in London?

3. To what extent can print publishing help to preserve and promote London's street market culture?

Spent Sunday this weekend taking photographs for a Paella stand on Walthamstow Market. The images were also very relevant for my documentation on market life so it was quite nice to feel like the freelance job was also feeding into my final project

[lo-kom]

Photo credit: Tolu Elusadé

SLG Lagos, Peckham, Repeat Exhibition

Drafting my final design for the family trail map design I went through quite a few iterations looking into the Nigerian diaspora on Peckham market. I didn't end up going with this version of the design in the end but it's definitely a niche within my wider area of interest that I would like re-visit.

Above: some variations of the trail map design as well as the final one+ photos included from the SLG family day held for the launch of the Lagos, Peckham, Repeat exhibition

[lo-kom]

Stage 2: Consider

"Carefully consider the visual/ written language of the texts and images you have chosen, including the content and style of writing, the colour, medium, rhythm, form, size and content of images etc. Why have you chosen these particular written and visual works? What is it that attracts you? Are they something you normally work with?"

Progressing further into my research around my my theme of 'British market culture' I wanted to look deeper into Martin Parr, who I already knew for his Last Resort Series. His work acted as a great influence in the primary phase of my research, especially how he is able to add his own brand of humor to the portraits he captures.

Similarly the collection of images in 'Shit London 2' seem to dripping with irony. I feel like I'm brought closer to the author/artist and their outlook on the world through these series and they each brought a unique humor to Englishness that I thought was really clever.

Alongside this line of research I was also interested in Cockney traders and their history within the East End (London). Having been directed to the Bishopsgate online archives by Alessia I eventually ended up on the Spitafields Life blog, which led me to the book I took out of the library and also to the blog. I think I found these resources interesting because of my own connection to the East End (having grown up spending weekends along Walthamstow Market listening to the Cockney fruit stallholders calls). The East End as I know it has always felt vibrant in many senses of the word- in the people I've met and the characters along the market, in the sounds, the smells and the colours, in the tales that each person carries with them- where they've been before and how they've come to trade on the market, what they see for their futures etc....

The images I've chosen have all been taken from photography series/publications. Although this format is one that I have always admired it's not really one that I've been able to work with that much. I'm hoping that going into the new year I'm going to be able to get up to a lot more of this since I feel like it is endlessly versatile and engaging.

[lo-kom]

Stage 3: Connect

"You will need to research each item and understand it deeply. Consider who made it, when, why and in what context. This will help you to identify the links between them. "

Analysing my visual works made me realise just how much our associations with a place are also wrapped up in a particular space in time- that each image has a temporality attached to it- a particular moment caught in 80s Britain capturing subcultures, London on the brink of major social and economic change with the Olympics, capturing the exact second on film just as the rain breaks out and plunges everyone into chaos.

[lo-kom]

Stage 1: Choose

Mindmap of the passions, influences, and concerns that engage me as a designer.