This film aims to communicate feelings of containment within man-made environments by contrast with the experience of openness in a natural park environment. The audience can usually relate to the sense of being surrounded by four walls everyday. This video encourages the act of living beyond a fixed mind set and allowing freedom of expression.
A public park means different things to different people; for some it’s an escape from the chaos of every day life and for others, a place for fun and adventure. This concept aims to contain certain spaces found within parks, whilst at the same time preserving object experiences which hold the potential to trigger reminiscences of youth.
When we build, it tends to be in strict geometry. Even when we create natural environments, such as public parks, we use a mathematical and calculative approach. The result is a manmade version of a natural environment. Vegetation is forced into geometric shapes, and carefully manicured to prevent it from going wild. However strange this geometrical creation may seem, it is not in any way exclusive to our species. Bees and wasps build beautiful hexagonal patterns in their hives, without a single tool for measurement. If one looks at the insides of fruits and vegetables, symmetric, repetitive, geometric patterns often appear.
My exhibition piece was inspired from my own experiences in public parks, despite the parks being considered a safe haven, not all experiences are the same. This work points to these negative experiences, through the use of tangible typography and iconic playground equipment.
This exhibit reveals concurrent political disputes within park environments often concealed from the general public. Re-located signage is used to draw attention to encroaching economic activity and the potential for on-going discrete damage to a unique environmental heritage.
Public parks are a place to have fun, be reflective, have family time, walk the dog etc. Whatever the reason, everyone visiting the park goes there to experience the feeling of freedom, this feeling of release and re-discovered space is probably conveyed no more expressively than in the behavior of dogs.
This project has allowed me to capture the excitement that a dog has when visiting a park, the way that they explore the area and act as though it is the first time they have been set free. This film was produced by attaching a sports camera to my dog and editing footage in Adobe Premier.
Leaves are significant elements within public parks. A leaf is given the opportunity to grow, mature, fall from the tree, and will finally wilt and die; the leaf is a metaphor for a life cycle. Due to the change in seasons, the leaf will fall in autumn and land within an area of a public park. The leaf will come to rest in a certain position; the location of the leaf will be affected by the weather. This project aims to demonstrate the leaf’s journey once it has fallen.
