Welcome back! I’m in PLP 12 now, and we’ve been working on two pretty cool, but somewhat dark, projects so far this year: horror and dystopia. While the horror project is still underway, this post will reflect on our recently completed project on dystopia. The goal of this project was to discover How Can Art Shine a Spotlight on the Dark Sections of our Society? To do this, we created conceptual art pieces to display at our winter exhibition. Here’s my art piece “Handmaid in America” and artist statement:
Artist Statement: Religious beliefs have historically, and continue to, hold vast amounts of control over society and government decisions. My conceptual art piece intends to highlight the danger of allowing religious beliefs to overpower what is best for individuals and restrict their access to healthcare options, regardless of what they may believe. Inspired by dystopian controls explored in Margret Atwood’s 1985 novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” my art focuses on the role of religion in the creation and justification of anti-abortion laws in the real-world North American present. The art calls on you, the audience, to consider the importance of individuals’ freedom to make abortion, and other healthcare, decisions for themselves.
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⚠️ Please be advised that this blog contains content about abortion, rape and loss of women’s rights that could be upsetting for some audiences. Continue reading at your own discretion.
What is Conceptual Art?
First, I’d like to define what concept art is. Prior to this project I saw concept art as a lame excuse for “art,” in which the artist simply makes something dumb (like a banana duck-taped to a wall), writes some silly nonsense and calls it ✨ art ✨. Although I still prefer the more traditional, detailed and skillful art, I have gained some appreciation for what concept art can do. We watched a video in class called “The Case for Conceptual Art,” which gives an excellent run down on what exactly conceptual art is and why it’s important. Give it a watch:
After watching this video, we reflected on what conceptual art is and why we should care. Here’s how I defined what they communicated about concept art:
The main idea communicated about concept art is that the message of what the piece conveys is much more significant than the physical piece itself. The focus of the work is the process that the artist underwent to construct their art and the documentation of that process to share the artist’s message. This is unusual compared to traditional artwork that focuses on the skills needed to create masterful painting or other artworks. Concept art is often used to bring attention everyday objects no one notices, social issues, and ideas. Additionally, the purpose of concept art is that it is often fleeting, and therefore can not be a luxury object owned by rich individuals. Overall, the video explained how concept art shares a message through process and brings awareness to events occurring in our world, serving to reveal ideas in the audience.
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The Tempestry Project
To grow our understanding of conceptual art, we explored online to find a concept art piece that we liked and wrote a brief analysis of it. I chose what I feel is a really interesting concept art idea called “The Tempestry Project.”
The Tempestry Project is a collaborative art project that aimed to bring climate science to life through knitting. The idea was that communities could knit a row for each day, with the colour of which would be representative of the current temperature. The result was a very colourful wall of tapestries that allow audiences to visually see the changes in temperature as a result of climate change. Read more in my analysis here:
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The Handmaid’s Tale
In this project we also got to read a dystopic novel of choice. As you can probably guess by now, I chose to read Margret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The Handmaid’s Tale explores a world where women are oppressed and controlled by the government, where fertile women’s only purpose is to bear children. The novel centres around themes of religion, control, patriarchy and freedoms taken for granted. It tells the story of a woman and her experiences within this society as a Handmaid – the women whose job is simply to bear children. The story told in this novel has many, dangerously close, parallels to society today.
To read this book, we (the group of us that chose The Handmaid’s Tale) analyzed each third of the book, wrote summaries for the dystopian controls and connections to external ideas, then discussed our findings with each other. I really enjoyed getting to talk to my group and hear all the interesting connections they made. You can read my analysis, connections and thoughts here:
Reading The Handmaid’s Tale provided me with the main idea behind my final concept art piece, as it had many connections to present day America.
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Concept Art Blueprint
Before creating our art pieces, we made a blueprint outlining our plan for our piece, including an artist statement, the aspirations behind the piece, our plan for audience engagement and a drawing of our plan. The process of sketching my design and writing out my thinking really helped me solidify my idea. Creating a blueprint also allowed me to get a lot of feedback from classmates and teachers. My original idea was much too provocative for a school project and would insult more than inform. Therefore, I revised it to create a much more impactful product that I’m a lot happier with. As you can see in the blueprint image I was planning to have chains, however I wasn’t able to find any, but I feel that my art was equally as impactful without them. Take a look at the aspirations and planning behind my art piece below:
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Annotated Bibliography
In order to support our ideas shared in our art, we created annotated bibliographies with texts surrounding our topics. Mine included The Handmaid’s Tale, peer reviewed published papers, news articles, and timelines. To create an annotated bibliography I read the text, then summarized it and provided a short evaluation as to how it was applicable to my art and how it could contribute to my art.
The process of creating my annotated bibliography was really interesting because I got to learn so much about the developments and restrictions on abortion rights. One of the most shocking articles was one from BBC, which explored how all the things that happened in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale were based on real history. Learn more about it, as well as my other sources here:
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Creating the Art
I then began creating my art piece! First, I found photos of pro-life and pro-choice billboards online to print for my piece. I also found an article with some very depressing and alarming commentary made by officials in regards to abortion. Here’s some of them:
Then I got all the media printed and glued it to a cardboard gavel I’d constructed. I also created the bottom collage. Then I created the woman and doctor using an AI image generator (I tried to find images online but pregnant women in red dresses holding up heavy objects are not a common thing on the internet, so I had to use AI). I then printed them and added them to the cardboard. I then used a combination of cardboard slits, supports and nails to assemble all the pieces together with the help of my dad. I then painted the remaining uncovered cardboard with black paint so the piece would blend together more nicely. Then all that was left to do was set it up for exhibition night! Here’s some more photos:
I also created a slideshow to complement my art piece, here it is:
I was expecting some people to take offence to my art (seeing as abortion is a very controversial topic these days), but everyone I talked to at the exhibition was really supportive of my work and were happy to discuss their thoughts too, which was a relief.
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Using conceptual art as a medium to communicate ideas to an audience was a really interesting way to spark discussion about abortion laws and the ways in which religion influences government decisions. I learned a lot from reading The Handmaid’s Tale as well as other texts in this project. Reading dystopic literature was a very enjoyable way to explore the dystopian controls in today’s society. I hope you enjoyed my concept art, learned something about the dystopia present in our world, and were inspired to stand up for women’s right to chose what’s best for their lives and bodies. Thanks for reading!