Statement of Intent
I am planning on creating a body of work that consists of obituaries of children. The obituaries are going to consist of the death of children that died in BC in the year 1991 between the ages of 0-18. I am planning on screenprinting at least 26 obituaries, one from each letter of the alphabet.
I am going to be screenprinting each obituary at accurate proportions. The reason for this being that because obituaries are so small it will force the viewers to move closer to the work and read at least one obituary. I am creating each obituary from scratch because then they can all appear in the same typographical manner. I am choosing to screenprint because I feel like I can obtain more depth and more realistic-looking effect to the obituaries, as they are supposed to appear as if torn from a newspaper.
Last semesters work influenced this body of work because I am also focusing on children and tragedies. Last semester concentrated on the generalized child during world-renowned disasters and how history has a lack of information on them. This body of work focuses on closer-to-home tragedies. They are children that have died within this province and are not over the age of 18. By having their name blocked out, I wish to keep some of the same generalization as last years semester by not letting the viewer know who the actual child is. Instead of having the events are “out there”, by having the deaths in towns that the viewers know makes the tragedies more relatable than worldwide events.
I have already chosen a wide selection of deaths of children in BC. The selection process consisted of children that died in 1991, then varied down to one male and one female whose family names are from each letter of the alphabet (from A-Z). The choice for a male and female depended on the town they died, those that passed away in the Okanagan got priority, and from there it was the most tragic ones. There aren’t any deaths under the age of 2 because they are not listed in the archives. I will start with only one child per last name, and hopefully I can accomplish all 52 children I have chosen, but only if time permits.
The artists that I am fashioning this body of work after are Arnaud Maggs, Jenny Holzer, Christian Boltanski, and Ai Weiwei. Arnaud Maggs, as I have explained before, did a few series with the same title of “Notifications” which consisted of a typography of envelopes with an “X” on them, a notification that told the families of soldiers that their loved on had fallen. This work is similar to Ai Weiwei’s “Snake Ceiling” in which he acquired over 5,000 names of children who died in an earthquake in China that was covered up by the government. The magnitude of both of these works is beyond my capabilities in one semester. Both artists use a method of anonymity to the people, which is what I wish to accomplish, by using Jenny Holzer’s method of blocking out information. By blocking out the names, everything except the first initial of their last names, the children remain anonymous. Christian Boltanski’s work on memorials applies to this work more than it did last semesters work because each of these obituaries is a type of momento-mori.
Lastly, these obituaries will be displayed in a grid. They will have about an inch of a boarder around each one so that it contrasts the newspaper quality of them. As for organizing the time, I plan to print 3 to 4 obituaries per week.
I am planning on creating a body of work that consists of obituaries of children. The obituaries are going to consist of the death of children that died in BC in the year 1991 between the ages of 0-18. I am planning on screenprinting at least 26 obituaries, one from each letter of the alphabet.
I am going to be screenprinting each obituary at accurate proportions. The reason for this being that because obituaries are so small it will force the viewers to move closer to the work and read at least one obituary. I am creating each obituary from scratch because then they can all appear in the same typographical manner. I am choosing to screenprint because I feel like I can obtain more depth and more realistic-looking effect to the obituaries, as they are supposed to appear as if torn from a newspaper.
Last semesters work influenced this body of work because I am also focusing on children and tragedies. Last semester concentrated on the generalized child during world-renowned disasters and how history has a lack of information on them. This body of work focuses on closer-to-home tragedies. They are children that have died within this province and are not over the age of 18. By having their name blocked out, I wish to keep some of the same generalization as last years semester by not letting the viewer know who the actual child is. Instead of having the events are “out there”, by having the deaths in towns that the viewers know makes the tragedies more relatable than worldwide events.
I have already chosen a wide selection of deaths of children in BC. The selection process consisted of children that died in 1991, then varied down to one male and one female whose family names are from each letter of the alphabet (from A-Z). The choice for a male and female depended on the town they died, those that passed away in the Okanagan got priority, and from there it was the most tragic ones. There aren’t any deaths under the age of 2 because they are not listed in the archives. I will start with only one child per last name, and hopefully I can accomplish all 52 children I have chosen, but only if time permits.
The artists that I am fashioning this body of work after are Arnaud Maggs, Jenny Holzer, Christian Boltanski, and Ai Weiwei. Arnaud Maggs, as I have explained before, did a few series with the same title of “Notifications” which consisted of a typography of envelopes with an “X” on them, a notification that told the families of soldiers that their loved on had fallen. This work is similar to Ai Weiwei’s “Snake Ceiling” in which he acquired over 5,000 names of children who died in an earthquake in China that was covered up by the government. The magnitude of both of these works is beyond my capabilities in one semester. Both artists use a method of anonymity to the people, which is what I wish to accomplish, by using Jenny Holzer’s method of blocking out information. By blocking out the names, everything except the first initial of their last names, the children remain anonymous. Christian Boltanski’s work on memorials applies to this work more than it did last semesters work because each of these obituaries is a type of momento-mori.
Lastly, these obituaries will be displayed in a grid. They will have about an inch of a boarder around each one so that it contrasts the newspaper quality of them. As for organizing the time, I plan to print 3 to 4 obituaries per week.