Within my first post about the Start Project, I made several words bold in order to concentrate upon these, including; Yemen, devastating story, historical journey, three stages, traditional Yemeni architectural style, traditions, positive and negative features, more interactive, repetition, pattern, immersive experience, breaking barriers, tables, Arabic religious text, flowers and stained glass windows. These words are elements that I wish to bring into the final piece when reinterpreting Abdullah’s ideas. I came up with several initial ideas, that which I quickly began to develop.
Idea 1: three canvases showing before, during and after the civil war began in Yemen. Through these paintings I would want to highlight the architecture, news stories, and have pieces hanging and snaking off of the canvas, such as fabrics, flowers and glass.
Idea 2: three canvases showing the architecture, people, and politics, or three other key elements of Yemen. On each of these canvases, it will show the element layered before, during and after the civil war began, along with recurring themse of text and flowers. Under people, ther is the idea of highlighting a personal journey, such as Layal’s when her family had to flee the country.
For these two ideas (idea 1 and 2), to make them more interactive and immersive, I would like to drape things across the floor, making people step over it, in order to get closer to the paintings.
Idea 3: Project over idea 1 or 2 with conflicting images of the positive and negative features of war and life in Yemen. Here, I was thinking about linking to other war-torn countries, where citizans have had to flee, such as Syria. This, however, would then detract away from the original, and personal tale that is trying to be told.
Idea 4: Cut out design on a Yemen building, highlighting the beautiful architecture. This would be cut out of either a painting, or from a plain piece of paper to be projected on. See Idea 5 and 6 for further development of this.
Idea 5: Idea 4, however have multiple of these on the floor. Some of these would be ruined, and some looking brand new, in order to show the transition and the story of the country.
Idea 6: This involves Ideas 4 and/or 5, in which the buildings are hanging from the ceiling, instead of on the floor. With this, I could also experiment with having some on the ceiling and some on the floor. These would be at different heights in order to show the varying heights of the buildings and allow the people to see the destruction of the country and its people.
Idea 7: This involves Ideas 1/2/3 in order to make one large scale painting and merging images together to create a beautiful mess.
Idea 8: Much like Idea 7, but this one contrasts the beauty with destruction, lauyering images to show theis journey. This is done in two paintings in order for this contrast to me much more prominent.
I have decided to go for a mix between all of these ideas by hanging buildings from the ceiling, and scattering them across the floor. Some of these show the beauty of Yemen, some showing destruction. This will be done with images painted and drawn onto the buildings, and a slideshow of images of Yemen, in the three stages before the civil war, painted and drawn onto the buildings. Not all of the buildings will have pieces drawn on to them, giving a separation between these.
Charlotte Abraham Art 