Unconventional Typography Proposal
L I G H T & L O V E
P R E S E R V A T I O N O F A C U L T U R E
The project is going to be a plan for a light installation with typography the main focus in conversations between generations (past and still alive) about preservation. The secondary mediums will be light and texture. The project with utilize both English and Deitsch languages.
D E L I V E R A B L E S
*My first piece will be multiple person cut outs projected (Granny, Olive, Mom, myself, Mya and Henrietta). Within the silhouette will be hand letter conversations between the family members about culture and preservation. They will be installed in layers so that the letters of my great-grandmother shines through all of our silhouettes. I chose to portray the family members in silhouette because schrenschnitte is so beautiful and such a lovely part of our culture.
*Secondly a 3-D dress made up of fabric and paper will letters, letter forms and typeface on them. Utilizing cut-out words on the dress as well as some embroidery. The dress will be lit from within and glow, rather than necessarily project. It will be layers of sheer fabrics that interact with each other, again representation the conversations between family members about culture and preservation. I choose to represent my family with a dress because we are all seamstresses and needlework creators. It was a very important part of my Granny's life and personality to always be creating, "busy hands, happy heart," she would say. I may project from an outer source words about preservation and culture onto the dress- possibly in a movie form so that there is movement in the words.
*Thirdly, as supportive pieces for mood, I will be creating Ball jar luminaries with my Granny's recipes decoupages on them. Again they will glow more than project. She was big into cooking and canning and I feel it represents her spirit to include these and also to help establish the type of person she was for the viewer.
*Finally, I am building a chandelier type lamp with laser cut letterforms and words weaving together to make the lam shade. Once installed the light with project the different words onto the walls and other installation pieces.
S C H E D U L E
March 25 –
Continue getting material to create dress
Laser-cut letters and words for lamp
Print canvas photographs for silhouettes- cut out
Ball jar decoupages
April 1 –
Begin to build dress
Begin to assemble laser cut lamp
Cut out canvas photographs for silhouettes
Meeting with Berks Historic Preservation trust to pitch project to them to host
April 8 –
Continue to build dress
Continue to assemble laser cut lamp
Start working on spacing for canvas photographs for silhouettes
Begin audio and motion film for secondary projection
April 15 –
Finish building dress
Finish assembling laser cut lamp
Finish working out spacing for canvas photographs for silhouettes
Finalize audio and motion film for secondary projection
April 22 –
Set up installation piece, film and photograph people interacting with it
April 29 –
Present photographs and installation video to class
May 6 –
Final?
B A C K G R O U N D
When you have a dream and someone that has passed shows up, when you suddenly hear a song that was special to that person, when you walk into a room and feel someone’s presence, but no one is there.
How do you listen to someone that is no longer with us?
Do their sentiments become affirmations for their living family?
I believe people seek mediums, psychics, etc. because they are unaware or afraid to be in direct connection with the dead.
Through my installation I will share the experiences that I have had with my ancestors and the ways in which they revealed themselves to me once I was able to abandon fear and really listen. My work has been guided by their desperate pleas to preserve our unique and beautiful culture. And it is with them that I have been drawn back to our ancestral land of the Oley Valley, in Berks County. I did not grow up here, but when I moved here, I felt like I was home- that’s my ancestors communicating with me belonging. Strangers that knew them have become a friend, that’s my ancestors bringing us together- connections. A body of work that I never expected to create has been made with a clarity and focus that I never had before, that’s my ancestors guiding me- preserving.
I want to make the preservation efforts of our culture more personal and intimate, give the ancestors a face and a voice. Through this series of installations, I will be focused on the preservation of the Deitsch language, traditional PA Dutch cooking, area farmland preservation and traditional PA Dutch arts and crafts. Each focus will be represented with a specific ancestor, to humanize the preservation efforts and give a face to the claim that these traditions are worth intense preservation efforts.
