“These Four Walls”
Within this project I will be looking into the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on individuals within society, looking at aspects such as job loss, money worries and mental health problems. Myself like many other individuals have been affected by the virus in more ways than one, not only was I no longer able to attend university to finish my degree but had also been laid off from work with no means of income. It was here that I have decided to make my project personal about my own experiences during this time. I have already begun this project by making a mini project ‘ The Box’ and where ‘These Four Walls’ was started. ‘The Box’ included research, statistics and facts about the COVID-19 virus. As part of my research I also began looking at news articles and academic journals to further my knowledge on the subject.
Due to the virus we are required to remain in lockdown until further notice, this now means that I will no longer be able to use other individuals within my project, and so have instead decided to make this project a self-portraiture piece, for this series of images I will be using myself as the model. In order to shoot this project I will be using my back garden as the studio, a black backdrop for the background, myself as the model, my canon DSLR camera along with tripod to take the pictures and natural lighting to light my images. I will also be required to carry out some postproduction using photoshop in order to edit my images, to achieve the desired effect that I will be after.
As part of this project I will be creating a virtual exhibition, this will be in place of the exhibition that we were supposed to be displaying our work in, however due to the virus this is no longer possible. Creating a virtual exhibition will allow to display my work to a much larger audience base, and will allow me the possibility of having my work recognised.
To increase my research base, I will investigate artists whom have carried out work similar to my ow, these will include:
• Cindy Sherman and her work ‘Signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say’.
• Dorothea Lange and her work ‘Depression – Era America’.
• Jo Spence and her two projects ‘Crisis Project / Picture of Health? (Property of Jo Spence?) 1982’ and ‘The Highest Product of Capitalism (after John Heartfield) 1979’
In order to further my knowledge about the pandemic and the affect that it has had on a variety of individuals as well as a society I have been looking at a various different news articles, such as 'The Independent' as well as academic articles including: 'Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Women: Health, livelihoods & domestic violence' (Malik and Naeem, 2020)
