"GIRLS" Exhibition
In November 2017 I collaborated with my fellow artist and Surface Pattern student, Laura Wiggans, in planning and hosting our own exhibition. We titled the exhibition "GIRLS" in reference to the contents of the show, we based our artworks on our own experiences of being women. The event celebrated womanhood and highlighted feminist issues in Western society.
My artworks included a series of photography pieces, focusing on female youth and the ever changing vision of beauty linked with age. These photos consisted of a set of milk bath style photos, to represent the disappearance of youth and beauty, and a set of floral photos to link the natural world with human beauty, the flowers being so delicate with their short lived beauty, linking to that of the beauty of adolescence. I had my two younger sisters model for me to link myself to these pieces in a way that not all viewers would be able to link.
I also created a set of embroidered knickers, two showing depictions of the female genitals as a way of normalising these and giving women a sense of empowerment, and the other two showing facts stitched into the fabric that I as a woman relate to. These facts read "90% of women will experience verbal abuse or catcalling" and "1/3 of female students have been the victims of sexual assault".
One part of this exhibition was dedicated to Laura and I's involvement with the company "Proud Pads". We were asked by this company to come up with two new designs for their sustainable reusable sanitary pads, and were each given a brief to work towards. These designs were displayed alongside information about the company in the show, and will be put into production within this year to be available to buy.
As well as this I created two different screen printed designs that I chose to print on to hand dyed t-shirts and tote bags to sell at the event to raise funds to cover the cost of creating the artworks and advertisements such as posters and leaflets given out at the event.
This exhibition was popular within our social sphere but perhaps if I were to undertake this type of event again I would spend more time on advertising the show to bring in more of the public. It was interesting to be able to plan the whole event, from booking the space to creating the artworks to manning the area over the week, and i feel it has given me valuable and reusable skills.
