Summer Project Ideas

As a starting point for the summer project, I went out and took photographs of my hometown surroundings. I mainly concentrated on looking out for interesting and unusual shapes which had been formed within nature. Textures, such as old tree bark, and flowers in bloom particularly caught my eye.

I compared these photographs to images I had of Manchester. As I wasn't going abroad for a holiday this year, I thought an interesting exploration for this project would be how only a short train journey can separate two very different environments. I wanted to investigate the difference between the irregular natural shapes seen within the Derbyshire countryside and the rigid man-made structures of the city.

I cropped some images in search of the most interesting shapes I could see within the scenes I captured.

Summer Project 2010

Wearable Gallery Project

'We realise you might be off around the world and therefore your summer project is designed to fit neatly into your summer schedule.

We would like you to record, in whatever way you choose, the habits, customs, everyday things you notice in your new environment (or down to the post office for the less adventurous). And compare them to your home. We would like you to produce a series of work using the information you glean. You will need to make your work transportable and become your own "Walking Art Gallery."

Hazel's Examples:
"A comparative study of pocket findings in England and Australia."
"Measurements of Gravy Lumps in Bolton and Basildon." '


This is the summer project brief for second year Interactive Arts students. My immediate thoughts were comparisons involving Glossop's countryside/nature and a city's hard edged structures.

Layered Images

These layered images are being fitted inside a box, with a small distance of a couple of centimetres between each piece of acetate. At the front of the box I made, the viewer is a small peephole from a door. This creates a fish-eye view which plays with the scale of the depth inside the box. The back of the box is open to allow light in, however as I develop this work I would like to create boxes which are entirely closed in and therefore must have lighting installed inside. The city is appropriate subject material, as cities light up in darkness and I think very small individual lights would recognise this. I would also try other materials, different papers for example, to experiment with the use of silhouettes.

Scale Project

Mini Mission

As a side-line for the Scale project, we were given an envelope and instructions to find something in Manchester. And then we were to bring our found item, inside our envelope, into the studio.

I found a cigarette packet on a table outside Starbucks in St. Ann's Square, with Greek(?) health warnings on the packet.

I also found two tiny origami turtles made from a drinks menu, in Font Bar.

About the Scale Project...

"Investigating everyday objects, details and structures in and around Manchester.
 Be inventive with scale.
 Play with contradictions of proportions, perspective and ratio."

I chose to look at the structures found in Manchester's city centre. I have always quite liked that not many of the buildings in Manchester properly match one another. For example in Exchange Square, there is the glass-fronted Selfridges store, the grade II listed Triangle, and the old half-timbered black and white Sinclairs Oyster Bar; and glass buildings, the big wheel and Manchester's Cathedral all sharing the skyline too. I thought an interesting exploration for this project would be the differences in scale between these old and new buildings.

As a starting point I took photos of Manchester buildings.

Camera Hat