The beginning of a surreal journey...

The project 

Lucien Freud once said; “The pictures that stayed in his head were the things that disturbed him- things that were soothing had much less quality”. (Gowing, 1988, p13)

The book will provoke wonder, hopefully pushing the viewer, outside a normal comfort zone, exploring, imagining, dreaming possibilities, and manipulating the imagination. Convulsive beauty, dark fantasy, and darker surreal fashion imagery, will be the main aspects, within the books imagery, along with added effects of image distortion and manipulation. The book will be broken up into 3 different chapters, that showcase different elements, of the darker side of surrealism, with images, that will not all be ecstatically pleasing or beautiful. The chapters are yet, unknown, as the development of the images comes, the chapters, will form more of a structured place, and flow. The images placed in the book, will be displayed, along with one simple empowering word, or a quote/caption, reflecting the imagery placed with it. This will help the viewer, to possibly understand, and conduct an emotional response, but still allow the viewer, to explore their own opinion and emotion.

Feedback from final major project proposal

A comprehensive introduction that explains surrealism with both historical and contemporary points. Be mindful of how you phrase things, for example: "pushing the viewer outside their comfort zone"- you can make work with the intension of doing this but this is subjective, so only the viewer can say wether they have been pushed outside their comfort zone, this may seem like a small point but questioning things like this yourself, and indeed how you imagine you will do it is at the very heart of you inquiry. The price seems very low, for an object/book that could be more limited edition or a one off piece - since the project us not overtly commercial this approach may be worth considering. It would be useful to develop a more detailed reader profile - what you have here is very general. Excellent range of visual research that conveys very clearly the aesthetic direction you wish to pursue. The imagery has a gothic slant, I would recommend that you research the gothic movement further as this might help you in developing the imagery for your project. I would urge you to speed u p your production schedule and shoot earlier if possible.

Agreed grade: B1

What I am going to do next...

After receiving my feedback I knew that I needed to revise my time plan and schedule, and start to plan out shoots and also do some practise shoots. Along with doing all of this I needed to request paper samples and discuss with book companies the process and needs of what I want my book to look like, start contacting people for accessories such as headwear and clothing to give my shoots that unique dark twist.