Body Adornment

Native American Adornment 

The origins of knitting comes from the Egyptians, and the very first pieces of anything resembling knitting we know about were socks, found in Egyptian tombs dating back to around 3AD, a time when Egypt was part of the Roman Empire. Regardless of the strong link to the origins of knitting and the Egyptians, I think that their fashion is fascinating. They were architects of fashion with their garments filled with a variety of colours and adorned with precious gems and jewels.  They highly valued personal adornment, and jewellery was worn by both men and women of all social classes. Statues of kings and gods were adorned with lavish jewels, and the deceased were sent off into the afterlife ornamented in the jewellery of the living. Jewellery was very popular in Ancient Egypt, no matter the social class. It was heavy and rather voluminous. The Egyptians became very skilled when making jewellery from turquoise, metals like gold and silver, and small beads. Those who could not afford jewellery made from gold or other stones would make their jewellery from coloured pottery beads.One creation that was specific to ancient Egypt was the gorgerine, an assembly of metal discs worn on the chest, either over bare skin or over a shirt, and attached in the back. Earrings, bracelets, armbands, collar pieces, rings and anklets were all common types of adornments worn in ancient Egypt. Jewellery seemed to be the most important factor of an Ancient Egyptians wardrobe. I plan to take this concept of making accessories a focus point in my photo shoot, but styling them in diverse ways. I wish for the accessories to be placed in unconventional ways in place of a garment.

African Adornment

Africans have ancient traditions for decorating and accessorising the body in rich and varied ways. Traditionally, many African people wore little to cover their bodies, leaving their skin exposed and available for decoration. Africans adorned themselves in four general ways: scarification, body painting, beadwork, and jewellery.

Scarification involves deliberately cutting the skin in decorative patterns that leave permanent scars. Scarification can be in the form of grooves cut down in the skin or welts that stick up above the skin in raised designs.

Body painting is a colourful art used by various African cultures to celebrate, protect, and mourn. Traditionally, body paint was mixed from natural ingredients and smoothed on the skin with fingers, sticks, or grasses. Oil, clay, and chalk were the most common paint ingredients, but the Dinka of southern Sudan have in the past used ash, cattle dung, and urine to make their face paint. Some wear body paint to indicate their age and apply full body decorations as a kind of daily outfit.

Jewellery of many sorts is worn throughout the African continent. Both women and men wear necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, nose rings, and other jewellery. Jewellery serves as both an ornament to beautify and, in some cases, a protective guard against evil spirits. Ndebele women of Zimbabwe beautify themselves by stretching their necks with tight rings of brass called dzilla. The Berbers of northern Africa wear silver ornaments to protect themselves from illness and evil spirits.

Prompt 3 - Workshop & Exhibitions

Prompt 3: 

As a group, identify a series of materials/objects that you associate with your designer.

Using the processes explored in the Week 3 lecture & workshop, use these materials/objects to create a series of images which represent your assigned designer's aesthetic.

Experiment with non photographic processes and methods in your constructions, such as collage, drawing, painting, screen printing etc.

I visited the Tate Modern a few weeks before we were set the 3rd prompt which was to use chosen materials/objects to create a series of images which would represent our designers aesthetic. I visited the retrospective exhibition displaying the works of Kazimir Severinovich Malevich. Malevich was the founder of geometric abstract art and the originator of the avant-garde, Suprematist movement. 

His early experiments as a painter led him towards the invention of supermatism a bold visual language of abstract geometric shapes and stark colours, epitomised by the Black Square. One of the defining works of Modernism, the painting was revealed to the world after months of secrecy and was hidden again for almost half a century after its creator?s death. Visiting this exhibition really helped me to think out side the "photography-box" and consider representing our designer through collage and different mediums. Iin the workshop I feel like I didn't illustrate Paula Gebase's work, but what it did help me do is work freely with different materials. I later came home and  reflected on my visit to the Tate modern, it helped me to create images that depicted geometry and simplicity through collage. These two aspects are highlighted in my designers work, as well as tactility, and to exploit this concept i decided to simplify previous images used for the project and replace the simplified line drawing with mixed media. I used a verity of different materials such as paint, print, pencil, pen, corrugated card, fabric etc? I feel that utilising and exhausting previous experiments is useful to create new ideas, I ended up rather happy with my personal final outcomes for this prompt

(Authors Own - First Attempt at Representing 1205s Aesthetic Through Collage)

(Authors Own Edited Response Representing 1205s Aesthetic Through Collage)

(GROUPS FINAL IMAGES, Highlighted Red - Authors Own)

After visiting a number of exhibitions together we got a feel for the type of images is we wanted to make. It was the general idea to stay away from photography seeing as we has already explored that area competently. As some people in the group were more able than others to create physical imagery rather than technology-based imagery, it was a real learning curve to some of us. We think it really helped our group as a whole because we all had completely different ideas of what to create, where to start and what to base it on. Some people, admittedly had no experience in this field what so ever so found it difficult, but as a group we all helped out to ensure that everyone had a say in the final images.