#explain the unexplained

Inspiration for Explain the Unexplained

I’ve really enjoyed this project and it all occurred through my in depth research into The Dancing Plague. A completely unbelievable phenomenal event, professionals in the field can never confirm their theories of why the event happened. This is what gave the subject so much allure to me; I was so curious as to how it would of happened, how it felt, what it sounded like, the sheer scale of it. 

History has always been one of my key interests and this was just an excuse to absorb myself into it.

I was very interested in looking into Picasso’s line drawings and George Grosz’s crowd scenes, both artist convey a grotesque realism in their artwork. Their characters deformed in their movement and passion I wanted the same feeling. These people were consumed by a feeling to dance with no explanation, their fear, confusion, disgust and pain must have been written all over their face - this is what I wanted to apply to my drawings.

I really enjoyed working in my sketchbook for this project, my pages flowed well and I was proud of them. However, in all my research the fact that scale was such a huge aspect meant that I had to break away from A4. I created some stick and ink drawings on A3 and here’s when the ball really started moving.

It was great timing that I next had my critique, I was at a critical point in the project where I could start moving onto thinking about a final piece. I was given some really great feedback. 

Basically I was encouraged to keep adding scale. I mentioned that I wanted there to be a mysterious quality to my final outcome, because the event itself was so mysterious. We talked about there being something which could grow outward to explain the event - something like a book or a print which could be folded and unfolded.

I set my brain to work considering what could be used for this. I was eager to do more book binding after two inductions in it so thought I would start there. I had a concertina book that I had made and wondered whether an A2 sheet could fit inside it.

I began to design the A2 poster which would fit inside the book, later to be revealed while unfolding. I had to consider content an what was most important in terms of hierarchy. For me this was the peoples faces and movements, I also focused on the symbol of feet. I read that peoples feet would bleed through the constant dancing. For my piece I combined these into a visually busy piece, which had the facade of joy over the actual reality of death by dancing.