Charlotte Walker Art Foundation Degree

The Pitt Rivers Museum is an enourmous collection of artifacts gathered (or stolen) from all around the world in the 19th century by Augustus Pitt Rivers. He originally donated about 20,000 artefacts to the museum, but that has since expanded to over 500,000.  There was way too much to look at in one go so I just made some observations about the way the collections were displayed. Firstly they were categorised by their place of origin, and displayed in large glass cabinets with little labels giving details such as the estimated time period and what the object's significance was to the respective culture. Some of these cabinets also had drawers underneath containing even more objects related to that theme, in an archive-like way. I found it incredibly interesting but also overwhelming - there was so much stuff in a relatively small space, and there was no way I could get an appreciation for each little thing even though I would have liked to.  Because my project is about collecting,

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  Mike Kelley's 'Ahh... Youth' piece inspired me to make my own version using old teddies from home, including some from my parent's childhood and some from my own - plus a recently acquired 90's troll doll from a car boot sale. I set up the studio lighting in a way that would reduce shadows behind the objects and used a white background like Kelley's image, which gives a professional atmosphere that  elevates them from being worn-out old creatures to something special and celebrity-like. I used a tripod so that they are all to scale with each other, and I like the empty space around them, it's like they have room to breathe and think. I also had to adjust the ISO, white balance and shutter speed on the camera to suit the light and conditions of the space, then I used manual focus to get the sharpness that allows you to see all the details and textures. After uploading the photos to the computer, I cropped them on photoshop and classified them into two separ

Mike Kelley was an American artist known for his work involving found objects, textiles, collage and performance, which commented on American class, youthful rebellion and popular culture. I'm interested in this piece called 'ah... youth.', which is a series of photographs of stuffed animals taken in an ID portrait style. The signs of wear over time are visible on the toys' faces as they sit squarely in front of the camera, while a portrait of the artist himself is present among them showing visible acne that implies adolescence. The idea of children's toys sitting to have their photos taken professionally feels ironic and humourus, I like that they are given a sense of identity and personality as if they're living beings. They look like they have been through a lot and have many stories to tell. These ideas of childhood and time are something I'd like to explore in my project, and I feel inspired to do my own photoshoot of old toys I have at home. 'Ahh.

My idea for my new project is about collecting, and the human aspects of instinctively gathering objects that we feel drawn to. The overarching themes will be sentimentality, nostalgia, and the notion of trash vs treasure, and I will look at artists like Mike Kelley and Andy Holden to support my ideas. I often find myself building different collections, where I become infatuated with a particular thing and gather lots of variations of it. Some objects are found and collected on walks, while others are bought, usually second hand. There's something energising to me about finding a new addition to a collection and that is my main motivation for exploring collecting through art. The main things I want to work initially with are my found pieces of broken ceramics, mostly from beach combing, and I have a lot of sea-glass too. The ceramics offer a range of fragmented patterns while the glass collection has a huge spectrum of greens and different shapes.  As I outlined already, my objects