PHEW …!!!

All packed up and ready to deliver, at last; it’s been a hectic few weeks, partly accentuated by a family hospitalisation that has required some time, energy and commitment. The pressure is self-inflicted, to an extent. It was only in early December that I decided, with my tutor’s agreement, that taking my submission beyond the basics and into a new, further manifestation of the New Photographic Chemistry project, was a good idea. Making that happen in just a few weeks, with Christmas intervening and the aforementioned personal commitments arising unexpectedly, has been a challenge. And, truthfully, I have ended up cutting a few corners and progressing without the level of planning, preparation and attention to detail that I normally expect to apply. The concept of what I’ve done is good; and I have brought it to a decent outcome; but there aspects of the quality, in the detail, that I might have done differently, with more time.

So, what’s in the plastic box in the foreground, above? Assignments and Tutor Reports, of course, and a small handwritten ‘occasional journal’ that has run alongside this blog; but there are two other ‘items’ that it’s worth illustrating. Let’s start with the ‘Exhibition in a Box’.

Lifting the lid reveals this, a 1:33 scale model of the micro-exhibition at Bank Street Arts – a micro-micro-exhibition!

It isn’t the one I produced when planning the event but a newly-made, more accurate representation of the exhibition, just as it was laid out back in September/October at Bank Street. It was my main publication and the key outcome of the work and the module, so the model is a way of sharing that, in three dimensional form, with the Assessors (and the big black plastic folder in the first illustration, at the beginning of this post, has a selection of large prints from the event, too). Here are a few more illustrations of the Exhibition in a Box:

The second new element of the submission is the Assessors’ Book, which incorporates a section called Exhibition in a Book. The book is hand-made, bound, and constructed by ‘yours truly’. The cover pattern is one of mine – Acutance – and is printed onto a new material I’ve just managed to source – self-adhesive, inkjet printable canvas (A3 size). I’m pleased with the way it looks from the outside.

The paper I used for most of it feels good but hasn’t printed as well as I would have liked; and I haven’t had the time to mess around and resolve that situation. It’s ‘OK’, but only ‘OK’!  And my bookbinding skills were tested somewhat when combining cover and inserts – again, just about ‘OK’. Some of the pages are illustrated below.

But I have sought to build some visual elements into it. For example, I’ve created a fold-out timeline/flowchart, which presents my progress through the module visually.

And then, I have tried to bring some elements from the exhibition at Bank Street into the book.

Printed fabrics from the project

Sample, burned, page from the old textbook; the derived image, as it was presented in the exhibition; and a scrap of fabric that appears in the image

 

Pop-up pages

 

A fold-out, A2-size, version of ‘Useful Exposure Range’

 

The book also includes reference to some new work from another old book that I purchased back in 2014. It’s early days with this work and I haven’t made any of it public yet but it’s useful to refer to it in the submission.

 

Shades of Duchamp in all this, of course, which I fully acknowledge. His ghost seems to have stalked my progress through L3 – and I thank him for that!

And that is probably it on this blog, for a while. Might be back in April to reflect on the outcome!