Blue Sky Thinking Project

Another image to illustrate Chris' idea. She wants the under 5's space to be fully adaptable to any fantasy scenario, such as projecting a forest on the walls of the space.

As this is my second year of participating in unit X I knew from the beginning that the next few weeks would be unpredictable and I did not know what I would end up producing. As a Fine Art painting student I thoroughly enjoy this prospect as it allows me a brief time to work within a group and explore different media. I find it refreshing to clean the slate of the previous work I've engaged with in the past year and engage with different practitioners. 

This year's unit X has not disappointed. I have had the opportunity to work with a very diverse range of artists from throughout the art school with the brief to rejuvenate the under-five's space and the yard of the MOSI site. We instantly threw ourselves into the brief but found ourselves branching out the possibilities of regenerating aspects of MOSI.

As I had been previously interested in artists that revolve around making sensory installation spaces and revolved my own work around producing images with childlike humour and aesthetics I aligned myself with the under five's group. I quickly found myself collaborating with Chris Woodcock having found common ground on wanting to produce a soft sensory space. 

By looking at artists Pipilotti Rist, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, and Yayoi Kusama I decided I wanted to create a light/sound installation projected within a space. Further inspiration came from the idea of 'Wunderkammer' and work by artist Mark Dion, leading me to create projection 'peepboxes'. With these I wish to engage children with sights and sounds of the MOSI sight whilst providing a whimsical experience with the aim to inspire wonderment and play towards child-like curiosity.

I connected this with my previous practice as I have frequently used matchbox pinhole cameras as an analogue photography method. I felt these would be appropriate as it combines old media with new digital media; incorporating modern technology whilst in-keeping with MOSI's industrial and historical context. I took images of various buildings and exhibits around the site and combined them with field recordings to make a visual/audio film, with the idea to project this within the peepboxes.

I demonstrated this is the Blue Sky Thinking exhibition, collaborating once more with Chris to create a projection peepbox.

Working on images for the presentation.

Seeing as I've already made a few of these for mine and Shaun's ideas I'm making some for Chris' too. This is to illustrate her idea that the textiles boxes she's been making will be made on a far grander scale so that the children can play in them.

As a last minute addition I used various matchbox camera images i'd previously taken to be projected behind Victoria's garden space for the exhibition.

Mine and Chris' exhibition at the Self Made gallery.

With hindsight I think we could have perhaps made it on a slightly bigger scale, however this relates to the size I'd propose to fill the under 5's space at MOSI.

The blue sky thinking group have been given the opportunity to display their group work at the Self Made gallery at Bench, Northern Quarter.

I would like to demonstrate an example of a 'box projection' such as what I envision for the under 5's space. I am hoping to collaborate with Chris in producing a specifically made fabric box onto which I can project my image and sound film.