WW1 + Joan Littlewood's 'Oh, What a Lovely War' Exhabition

2014 saw the anniversary of the 1^st world war, and one of the top theatre makers, Joan Littlewood’s birth. In 1963 she developed a stage adaption of ‘Oh, What a Lovely War!’ – An epic musical that highlighted false ideologies / propaganda about WW1 in comparison to what it was actually like. Our college teamed up with RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) where Joan Littlewood attended, to produce an exhibition for the local community themed around WW1, ‘Oh, What a Lovely War’ and Joan Littlewood’s biography. We were required to develop ideas for and produce a theatre-related product for this display.

The plan of the exhibition i.e. the layout was a collaborative process between our entire Foundation Art & Design class. In the first few weeks of planning we discussed ideas and potential problems about the arrangement, as well as devising a list of what we thought should be included in the exhibition. Some of the things we thought of were food and drink for guests, information about the exhibition, a variety of work and possibly a craft workshop for people such as the college’s Saturday art club to take part in.

With this in mind, we broke up into smaller groups – each one covering a different aspect of theatre: makeup, costume, set design, scenic art, prop making / puppetry, film + photography and marketing. Since I’m interested in graphic communication and illustration, I decided to join the marketing team along with 3 other people. Tackling organisation in our group wasn’t a problem as there wasn’t that many of us, so it was easy to share and combine our ideas into a group effort as well as undertake individual projects. We also nominated someone to be head of the team which turned out to be a good idea as they provided direction and general guidance with our concept development, all though we all contributed equally.

Being part of the marketing group meant that we had to produce promotional material for the event, as well as outcomes to be displayed in the exhibition itself. We were inspired by WW1 propaganda posters, and mainly developed our ideas through printmaking techniques such as lino and monotype since this is how old posters are likely to have been made when modern print methods such as lithography didn’t exist. Whilst experimenting with this, I made a collage of all our lino cuts in my sketchbook and the rest of the team thought that would be a good idea for our exhibition posters and leaflets, and so we continued trying several layouts and colours until we reached our final design(s).

We didn’t encounter many problems on the journey, only minor ones such as lettering coming out backwards on prints but we all learnt from our mistakes. The only major problem was how we were going to fill the space in the gallery since we could only judge what wall space would be available until the last minute when we could physically see what the other groups had produced. In the last few weeks of production we saw that the scenic art would take up most of the wall space, especially since two of the walls in the gallery were made of glass so there were only two walls available. We overcame this by deciding to nail our work onto wooden crates, which personally I feel was more effective then presenting them on the wall because it was a unique and fresh idea, and also fitted with the iconography WW1 – the exhibition’s theme.

I was put in charge of creating labels for each piece in the gallery by our course leader. I spoke to my team mates and we decided to use individual segments of our prints and combine them with text in a typewriter font to emphasise the era. I went round and ‘interviewed’ all the groups to find out their processes and inspirations, then typed this up and stuck the text and print to card.

I also took the project in an individual direction to focus on typography, as I mentioned I am interested in illustration and type is a big part of this, and also I hadn’t played around with letter forms much since starting the foundation course and saw this as a good opportunity to do so. I experimented with materials and lettering in my sketchbook through a variety of media, and I liked the idea of making letters from masking tape and then working into them with other materials. I pushed this idea even further and used the masking tape letters as stencils, and also tried different types of tape such as duct tape and parcel tape. For the exhibition I decided to create a mixed media canvas as I used to involve myself in the mixed media arts and crafts movement as a hobby. I sketched out several composition ideas, then developed one by combing it with elements of other concepts. I made my final outcome on a 25x20cm canvas with parcel paper, card, ribbon, acrylic paint, hot glue and masking tape. I will admit my piece was a bit rushed and I think I could’ve developed my ideas in more detail, but I was happy with the outcome.   

  

  

In terms of the exhibition plans, I sketched out some layout ideas and incorporated design elements inspired by 'Oh, What a Lovely War!' such as the red ribbon that guided a soldier through the fog at the end, as well as separating backstage and front stage groups. We measured the space and took into consideration where the projector would be. When it came to installing the final exhibition no one really followed a specific plan, we just tried placing mannequins and our crates etc. in various places and saw what looked best in the space.  We considered how it would look from both inside walking around the exhibition, as well as the glass window at the front of the college.  

We held a private viewing of the exhibition, and guests such as people working for the ‘Artists Access to Art Colleges’ aka the AA2A project visited and gave us the feedback that they were impressed by our high achievement and they would be willing to run a workshop for us to explore theatre making in more detail. RADA employees were also invited to this viewing but unfortunately never showed up. After the private viewing the gallery was open to our main target audience – the public – specifically those interested in the war and/or theatre.   

I think the exhibition was very successful; we utilized the gallery space well by filling as much as we could without it looking clustered, and you could see a clear link between all the pieces as we followed the same themes of WW1, ‘Oh, What a Lovely War!’ and Joan Littlewood’s life. This was apparent through muted colour, horror / period imagery and the distressing of certain materials. This meant we successfully met the criteria that was set at the beginning in September / October. Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and SI loved collaborating with other students in my class since we do a lot of individual work.

Skills Rotation: Experimental Textiles

Experimental textiles is where you combine and alter fabrics with other art materials and techniques such as paint, and burning fabric to distress it. 

Our lessons on this subject linked in with our main project, 'A Tale of Two Words', where we were given two words and had to develop our outcomes based on them. For experimental textiles, the outcome aimed towards creating a wall mounted piece that was at least 1 metre squared in surface area.

I was given the words 'calm' and 'foxtrot'. When I think of the word calm I am instantly reminded of the ocean / water as I find it a very relaxing and feel somewhat connected to that type of environment (hence the username Amber Atlantis!), and Foxtrot is a ballroom dance, so I played around with the idea of combining ballroom dresses with [elements of] aquatic environments. After producing several experiments in my sketchbook of how I could merge these ideas and also manipulate materials, some under the influence of artists such as Ira Wood, Cyril Rolando and Michael Brennand Wood, I came up with the idea of creating a dress that metamorphosed into a waterfall at the bottom. 

I started by creating a small scale 'dress' by creating a torso shaped pillow to add dimension, and then sewed fabric around the waist line to create the lower section. I created samples from strips of the same fabric to find the best way of creating the waterfall. I tried using acrylic paint, spray enamel paint, plaster, and marbling nail polish onto the material. I decided to combine the acrylic and plaster as I thought it resembled the waterfall the most, and I liked the expressive quality it portrayed. 

To produce my final wall mounted piece, I made I bigger version of the 'dress' I previously made from the same material and technique. I cut separate strips, painted them with blue tones of acrylic and then applied plaster to the bottom. I attached a wire inside the dress at the waist line, and then used this as a base for hanging the other strips of fabric. Finally, I tied a ribbon around the waist and added and handmade bow around the waist for decoration / details, as well as adding some other strips of white fabric which I coloured with chalk and some other ribbons to the bottom. I'm quite happy with my final outcome because it has a dramatic sense of flow due to the resemblance of the waterfall, although I think it would be more effective as a hanging / suspended piece as opposed to wall mounted as it would heighten the hint of movement. Given more time, I would like to add more details, especially to the torso area as I left it plain to focus on the bottom. Here are some photos of my final design! :

Skills Rotation: 3D Towers

The 3D skills lessons involved constructing structures from DIY materials such as wood and metal. Our project was based of 'The Tower of Babel' - a myth about a Tower that people built to reach the Heavens, but failed because of the high altitude. 
To start, we created photomontages from our own pictures and materials as well as those from magazines and newspapers, and we then expanded these ideas into 3D paper sculptures. I based mine off of abstract fox shapes and a layered dress I found in a fashion magazine:

Next we experimented with combing materials as to how we could create our final tower:

I manly  played around with bamboo, binding tape, wire, plastic, twine and hot glue. I used my favourite combinations to create a fox like structure. I really enjoyed this project / rotation as i have always been inclined to include building materials into my work since my Dad is building an extension on his house so these materials have always been available for me to play around with.