Final Major Project.

For our final major project we were tasked with writing our own brief in effect, as long as our final piece had a message, we could design and create anything based around

"The Power of Paper"

A project based around paper is basically a project based around anything, so I immediately had to narrow down my options or spend too much time thinking about all the things I could do;

Environmental;

• The effects of paper production on the environment.
• The effects of paper waste.
• The recycling process.
• Use of recycled paper products.

Artistic;

• Origami
• Collage
• Sculpture
• Posters

Practical;

• A list of the paper products I use;

1. Cups
2. Packaging
3. Bags
4. Teabags
5. Leaflets
6. Reciepts
7. Toilet paper
8. Books
9. Photos
10. Identification
11. Money
12. Sketchpads
13. Magazines
14. Wrapping Paper

Now several of these things could be elaborated on; but I don't think being too specific with any one paper item I use is the way to go, I could go into a huge amount of detail with money or books, but I'm not sure I could make them interesting, and to get a message across (the point of the brief) I've got to hold the person looking at my piece(s) attention.

So going with the term "The Power of Paper", I'll see how many different messages/ideas I can come up with;

1. To create a flower that will never wilt (origami).
2. Played a huge part of my life in many different ways.
3. Taken for granted but incredibly versatile.
4. What else would you wipe your bum with?
5. To bring out the worst in people (money)
6. To help people in dire need (also money)
7. To make the world a much smaller place (plane tickets, money, passports)
8. To hold imaginary worlds and people (books)
9. To teach (books)

In the end I went with the idea of creating several collage posters detailing how I've used paper since I was born, using my own art style and habit of inserting (or trying to insert) humour into my work.

Research

Other people's work;

http://www.cut-the-knot.org/pythagoras/PaperFolding/index.shtml- a link to a site on origami, arguably the oldest of all paper art forms, and whilst it isn't really related to what I'm doing with my posters, it's certainly very important overall to this project.

http://dinostudios.com/2010/03/interactive-paper-art/- very cool interactive paper art pieces, unfortunately only two pieces are displayed (I love the one with the cute little robot and dinosaur) I'd like to do something like this but the brief is the power of paper, not the power of, well, power.

http://current.com/groups/art-and-style/91632064_interactive-paper-art-show.html - an absolutely brilliant video of an exhibition of various different types of paper art, with some of the artists from "Paper", raises an interesting point; We all take paper for granted, never really noticing it at all, especially not as an artistic medium.

http://inventorspot.com/interactive_paper_makes_music_1- The future of paper based art works?

I've kept this a little vague as I didn't want to be too strongly influenced by others works (this may sound like a copout but I had a stong idea of what I wanted from the start, and I really didnt want to feel like I've ripped someone elses ideas off).

Materials;

Really, anything made out of paper, especially things that relate to me (teabags, and books for example, although I'd be loath to damage any books).

http://rps.gn.apc.org/ a site with all kinds of recycled paper, whilst my posters arent really all about recycling, but this is definitely a very important part of the role paper plays in society, as it is so easily recycled.

http://www.conservatree.com/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml- some useful statistics on the amount of trees used to make types of paper, where I will get the information I need for my posters. Also, did you know that one tonne of non recycled office paper uses 24 trees?

http://www.quotemeprint.com/- a green newspaper printer based in the uk, I could contact them if I needed bulk amounts of paper for this project (luckily I don't, its just nice to see a green newspaper printer).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/22/sainsburys-cereal-box- using cereal boxes would be an easy way to add colour, although I think I may want more of block colours rather than random ones that cereal packaging would give me. This article shows how packaging may be in the future, less paper, more plastics (hopefully biodegradable ones).