Unspoken Companionship.

This project has been the start of my journey. The theme that I am working with till now. ​

 I decided to create work about the relationship between me and my rabbit and how she depends on me and my day rules around her.

I began my research by gathering all my favourite photographs of Misty and exploring her body structure along with her behaviour towards me, the sounds she makes and our routine. I searched for artists which show the relationship between humans and non-humans such as HELMO and their Bêtes de Mode in which they combine an image of a fashion model and a wild animal in red and blue colours which bring a contrast to the piece. I also looked at Infinity Kisses by Carolee Schneemann, the video shows photographs in which the artists kisses her cat. While describing her pet she humanises her, and she believes that the current pet has a paranormal connection to her old cat.  I also had a look at a book written by John Berger, Why look at animals? In which he explores how the ancient relationship between man and nature has been served in the modern consumer age, with the animals that used to be at the centre of our existence now marginalised and reduced to spectacle.

 

My first idea was to create a digital piece out of two photographs, one of myself and the other of Misty inspired by HELMO.  I have used photoshop to layer the two photographs on top of each other and changed the colours of them to red and blue to help me achieve the contrast which shows the differences between me and my pet yet the layered image shows how even though we totally different we still work together and how we depend on each other.

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From there I started thinking of ways to take this idea further therefor I have created A3 sized screen prints using the same images as in the digital version. By also using the red and blue colours, once again I have achieved the contrast, I was looking for which I made even stronger by making the prints on the black piece of paper. I have created a few versions of the prints, some with blue used for the bottom layer which have worked out much better as they brought out the red when it was printed on top of it, and with the red print used as the bottom layer which was barely visible on the black background.

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Moving on from the screen prints I decided to experiment with some film photography. I found a way to double expose the images from the film roll and expose them in A4 size. At first, I attempted to take photographs of my rabbit, but they all turned out really blurry as it was hard to make her stay still which made the end results out of focus. My next move was to take photographs of printed out images to avoid blurriness, after developing the film I tried to create double exposure by layering two images on the film on top of each other and exposing them, however, they worked out being really out of focus. I moved on from that technique and attempted to expose each image separately on the same piece of paper by finding the mid-time of exposure for both of them and lightening them one after the other. This worked out just as I wanted it to, with really clear images on top of each other which again show that even though we totally different we still work together and how we depend on each other and how our natural habits have been changed.

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