Inspiration of the Week - Shoes on the Danube Bank

Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay to the Holocaust victims killed by firing squad along side the Danube Bank in Budapest.

This heart felt tribute to those who were made to strip down in front of the river is really poignant and has a great impact to those that see it.

These shoes are cast in iron and are made in different styles of the time and in different sizes to show the range of people that were selected to be shot.

These shoes represent those lives that were lost an their memory that was left behind.

Although I am not dealing with a subject matter as dark or serious as this I am still looking at different ways to represent human marks that are left behind and I think that shoes, or any other piece of clothing is a good way to represent a person as it also shows a little bit of their personality and who they were. 

NB - all photographs here have been taken from :

http://visitbudapest.travel/articles/one-of-budapests-most-moving-memorials-shoes-on-the-danube/

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.


Until next time
byyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x

Inspiration of the Week - The Fallen 9000

The Fallen 9000 was a project organised by Andy Moss and Jamie Wardley, the project saw outlines of 9000 bodies draw in the sand to represent the lives lost during D-Day in the Second World War. 

Each of these stencils represents a person that died in the D-Day landings, be them a civilian, a German soldier or a an ally soldier, each of the died before their time and had a family, loved ones and things they cared about.

This is a very poignant piece as the amount of space that each of these drawings take up really illustrates the point the artists were making well, as 9000 is just a number when we hear it however when we see all the bodies laid out like this we are able to see just how big a number really is. 

The reason that I am looking at this proect is that I am looking at the idea of remembrance and looking at the marks we leave behind. 

I also want to leave behind my own temporary marks within the environment and thought about using sand to do this as over time it would disintegrate and should cause too much harm to the surrounding area.

This project demonstrates the idea of remembrance pretty well and has a great deal of impact on the viewer.

NB - all photographs here have been taken from the project site:

http://thefallen9000.info/

I do not own any of the pictures on this post.


Until next time
byyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Róisín -x

Protest is over!!

So I know that I haven't blogged in a while but life has been quite stressful these past few weeks plus I'm currently ill at the moment, so fun times. I have managed to stay on track so far and completed everything for my protest hand in. My essay is also pretty much done, I just need to look over a couple things then it's just a case of printing it, binding it and submitting it, which can be done tomorrow worse comes to worse, but that's fine. I have also got an extension for my integrated project, so my new submission date is Monday the 8th. I'm glad that this is the date that I got, as it gives me two full weekends to blitz it.

Anyway the main point of this post is to show off my protest final. The title of this series is 'V is for Victory'

The main point of this piece is to show that in war there are no victors. As even on the 'winning' side, there is still death and destruction. I used the 'V is for Victory' stamp, as with war the victors often stamp that war as 'won' and that is it, case closed. We forget the pain and death that comes with war and focus on what we gained from atrocities. The wars that I focused on were WW I, WWII, Iraq and Afghanistan as I have lived through both Afghanistan and Iraq  and grew up with images of these wars on the news. And WWI and II are obviously the most infamous and are taught in school and had the biggest effect on the world, so these are the main four wars that have had some sort of effect on my life, and are the wars that have spawned my anti- war protest. I am really pleased with how this final piece turned out, I just wish that I had a little more time to work on the drawings, but I think that they are still good.  I also like how this is a series that I can continue, as this 'V is for Victory' Stamp can be applied to any war.

One of the main things that I learned from this process was problems that can arise from a stencil. Because I decided to put the writing on my drawings one after the other, the last couple look pretty grubby. So I think if I was to use a stencil for something else in future, I would either give myself enough time between painting for the paint to dry, or get a stencil that I can clean.


So that's all for now, I will keep you updated on how my integrated project is going over the next few days.
Byyeee!
Until next time -
Róisín -x